In case anybody missed it in the "election reform" forum -- link

[mojowork_n]

DailyKos news flash:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x516322

A massive, coordinated and illegal plan to suppress Wisconsin voter turnout in November was exposed today by One Wisconsin Now (OWN).

The plan, targeting minority voters and students, is a joint effort of the Republican Party, Americans for Prosperity, and Tea Party groups. OWN has somehow obtained both copies of the plan and a recording of a meeting at which it was discussed, both available on a new website, SaveWisconsinVote2010.org

OWN Executive Director Scot Ross said the group will request investigations by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, as well as the Wisconsin Attorney General’s Election Integrity Task Force and the Government Accountability Board, to insure the right to vote is not stolen by these plans.

What they were trying to do is called "caging..."

... Anyone want to predict how badly this story will be under-reported (or unreported), by Wisconsin's largest newsdaily?

[undeterred]

1. I saw the end of Scot's press conference

but I didn't know what it was about.

From One Wisconsin Now website:

THE PLOT
According to the statements made on the recordings, Dake lays out the plans, detailing contact between himself and Reince Preibus, the Republican Party of Wisconsin Chair and Mark Block, state director of Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin:

• The Republican Party of Wisconsin will use its "Voter Vault" state-wide voter file to compile a list of minority and student voters in targeted Wisconsin communities.

• Americans for Prosperity will use this list to send mail to these voters indicating the voter must call and confirm their registration information, and telling them if they do not call the number provided they could be removed from the voter lists.

• The Tea Party organizations will recruit and place individuals as official poll workers in selected municipalities in order to be able to make the challenges as official poll workers.

• On Election Day, these organizations will then "make use" of any postcards that are returned as undeliverable to challenge voters at the polls, utilizing law enforcement, as well as attorneys trained and provided by the RPW, to support their challenges.

http://www.onewisconsinnow.org/blog/2010/09/one-wisconsin-now-exposes-voter-suppression-plans-between-republican-party-of-wisconsin-americans-fo.html

[mojowork_n]

2. Of Course

If at first there's no evidence of "voter fraud," and not even the attorney general's office can find it,
manufacture some... no matter how hard (or how illegally) you have to work, to create something to fit the frame.

[dragonlady]

3. Liberal group alleges tape reveals plan to challenge voters

You wondered how the J-S would treat this?

A plan by conservative groups to look into allegations of voter fraud could amount to an illegal obstacle to citizens' right to vote, a liberal group said Monday. . . .

Officials with the groups involved confirmed there had been discussions and that a trial run of 500 letters had been sent to Milwaukee voters. But they said that One Wisconsin was twisting their motives of trying to prevent voter fraud and that the plans had ultimately been shelved anyway.

"I think a lot of it is much ado about nothing," said Tim Dake, an organizer of Wisconsin GrandSons of Liberty who acknowledged that the recording of him was authentic. "Nothing has really come of this."
Officials with the groups involved confirmed there had been discussions and that a trial run of 500 letters had been sent to Milwaukee voters. But they said that One Wisconsin was twisting their motives of trying to prevent voter fraud and that the plans had ultimately been shelved anyway.

Reid Magney, a spokesman for the state Government Accountability Board, said that his group had received the complaint from One Wisconsin Now. Magney did not comment further on the complaint but said under state law voters cannot be challenged simply because a piece of mail can't be delivered to them. But Dake said that wasn't the plan. He said his group had planned to turn over any questionable voters or evidence of voter fraud to district attorneys for them to evaluate. The plan to field volunteer poll workers to look out for other questionable or potentially fraudulent activity on Election Day was separate, he said.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/103398539.html

So they were going to sic the DA on voters who didn't receive their letters. Nice. They say they dropped the plan after only 10 were not delivered (what happened to those 10 names?). Note that the plan for poll watchers (challengers) apparently is still active.

[mojowork_n]

4. What's the opposite of "muckraking investigative journalism?"

Whatever it is -- feeding pablum to the masses, "manufacturing consent" or "nothing to see here, you don't need to find those droids" -- if the JS ever took the time and trouble to bother, before (for anything other than health risks from plastic food packaging), they stopped and did a 180; a long, long time ago.

I particularly like that first part of the opening sentence, "A plan by conservative groups to look into allegations of voter fraud..." that makes it sound like they were just looking out for the common good, trying to maintain the integrity of the system. Orwellian double-think -- not a word about voter disenfranchisement, or the history of "caging" or how it's been misused by the Party of NO to try and remove minorities and other undesirables from the voter rolls. Which is why most people still don't know the difference between "voter fraud," (the more widely used term, however chimeric it might be, in actual fact), and "election theft." (Which we are not allowed to discuss, in public.)