Tim Griffin denies he was involved in a 2004 scheme to suppress votes of the homeless and soldiers

sabra

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Wed Feb-17-10 11:53 AM
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Tim Griffin denies he was involved in a 2004 scheme to suppress votes of the homeless and soldiers

http://dailycaller.com/2010/02/17/gops-tim-griffin-a-case-study-of-when-internet-story-takes-on-life-of-its-own/

Griffin, 41, is running for Congress in the 2nd District of Arkansas. He is seeking the seat that Democratic incumbent Vic Snyder has held since 1996. Snyder said earlier this year he would not seek re-election. Snyder announced his retirement on the heels of a poll that showed Griffin leading Snyder by 17 points.

Following the 2004 election, reporter Greg Palast alleged that Griffin was involved in the suppression of minority, homeless and service members� votes while employed by the RNC in 2004.

�It�s hogwash,� says Griffin.

...

At the Republican National Committee, he worked as research director and deputy communications director for the Republican National Committee in 2004 and deputy research director during the presidential campaigns.

...

Palast�s stories focused heavily on �caging,� a direct mail term that means the receiving, processing and reporting of mail results.

Griffin has described Palast�s obsession with him as �creepy at times.�

As the allegations swirled, Griffin wrote a 23-page letter to the Department of Justice in November 2007 denying any voter suppression and responding to Palast�s stories.

Numerous reports of voter fraud were reported in 2004 by both parties.

In his 2007 DOJ letter, he wrote, �Much of this voter registration fraud was driven by a desire for financial gain by unscrupulous individuals who were hired by third party groups such as Americans Coming Together (ACT) and Move On to seek out and register new voters and were paid for each successful registration.�

In turn, the RNC, says Griffin in his letter, set out to find voter fraud. A number of Republican state parties mailed thousands of letters to newly registered voters. Its intent? To highlight thousands of fraudulent voter registrations. It had been reported that even Mary Poppins had been registered to vote in Ohio.

Griffin wrote in his 2007 DOJ letter that the �caging� lists were �simply lists of returned letters mailed by the state parties.�

http://www.gregpalast.com/bushs-new-us-attorney-a-criminal/

Bush's New US Attorney a Criminal?

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

BBC Television had exposed 2004 voter attack scheme by appointee Griffin, a Rove aide.
Black soldiers and the homeless targeted.
by Greg Palast

<snip>

But the Committee missed a big one: Timothy Griffin, Karl Rove's assistant, the President's pick as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Griffin, according to BBC Television, was the hidden hand behind a scheme to wipe out the voting rights of 70,000 citizens prior to the 2004 election.

Key voters on Griffin's hit list: Black soldiers and homeless men and women. Nice guy, eh? Naughty or nice, however, is not the issue. Targeting voters where race is a factor is a felony crime under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In October 2004, our investigations team at BBC Newsnight received a series of astonishing emails from Mr. Griffin, then Research Director for the Republican National Committee. He didn't mean to send them to us. They were highly confidential memos meant only for RNC honchos.

However, Griffin made a wee mistake. Instead of sending the emails -- potential evidence of a crime -- to email addresses ending with the domain name "@GeorgeWBush.com" he sent them to "@GeorgeWBush.ORG." A website run by prankster John Wooden who owns "GeorgeWBush.org." When Wooden got the treasure trove of Rove-ian ravings, he sent them to us.

And we dug in, decoding, and mapping the voters on what Griffin called, "Caging" lists, spreadsheets with 70,000 names of voters marked for challenge. Overwhelmingly, these were Black and Hispanic voters from Democratic precincts.

The Griffin scheme was sickly brilliant. We learned that the RNC sent first-class letters to new voters in minority precincts marked, "Do not forward." Several sheets contained nothing but soldiers, other sheets, homeless shelters. Targets included the Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida and that city's State Street Rescue Mission. Another target, Edward Waters College, a school for African-Americans.

If these voters were not currently at their home voting address, they were tagged as "suspect" and their registration wiped out or their ballot challenged and not counted. Of course, these 'cages' captured thousands of students, the homeless and those in the military though they are legitimate voters.

We telephoned those on the hit list, including one Randall Prausa. His wife admitted he wasn't living at his voting address: Randall was a soldier shipped overseas.

Randall and other soldiers like him who sent in absentee ballots, when challenged, would lose their vote. And they wouldn't even know it.