Midterm Voting Shenanigans

Democrats Allege That Calls to Latino Voters Have Threatened Arrest

By John Stanton and Rebecca Plevin
Roll Call Staff

Tuesday, Nov. 7; 3:32 pm

Colorado Democrats charged today that Latinos in their state are the target of a voter-intimidation scheme.

In automated and live calls, Democrats allege, Latinos have been told that their ethnicity makes them ineligible to vote in today’s elections. The calls also threatened that Latinos would be arrested at polling places if they did attempt to vote, party sources said.

Although it remains unclear who is responsible for the calls — and how widespread the alleged intimidation is — aides to Democratic House candidate Angie Paccione said they have received two complaints today from Latinos in Weld County, which is part of the district held by GOP incumbent Rep. Marilyn Musgrave.

A source in Musgrave’s campaign categorically denied that the GOP was responsible for any such calls and said Musgrave has not received any complaints today about voter intimidation.

Colorado is at least the second state in which accusations of voter intimidation through automated phone calls have surfaced in recent days.

The FBI is investigating similar complaints in Virginia, where residents said they were threatened with arrest if they attempted to vote today.

The liberal watchdog group People for the American Way today called for a Congressional investigation into the widespread use of misleading robo-calls this cycle.

PFAW also called on citizens to keep records of robo-calls and to copy down any phone numbers associated with them if possible.

“These voter deception and voter suppression tactics are despicable and unacceptable,” said Ralph Neas, president of PFAW. “Regardless of the outcome of today’s elections, the new Congress must investigate these attacks on the integrity of our elections.”

Paccione spokeswoman Marcella Salazar called the calls “anti-democratic and discriminatory,” and added that the state party was preparing to send a complaint to the Department of Justice calling for an investigation.

The spokeswoman also said Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) recorded a robo-call this morning that is being directed at all registered Latino Democratic voters, warning them to ignore the calls and urging them to exercise their right to vote.

According to Coloradans who have received the calls — which date back at least two weeks — both the robo-calls and the live callers ask for voter’s party affiliations. Those who identify themselves either as Democrats or as unknown or independent were then warned that they were not eligible to vote and that they would risk arrest at the polls if they attempted to vote.

Oralia Ramirez, a 24-year-old resident of Gilcrest, Colo., said she received one of the automated calls, which began with a menu of party affiliations. When she pressed three for “you don’t know,” she was transferred to a person who asked her who she was voting for today and what her party affiliation was. When Sanchez responded that she was unsure, “He asked, ‘Are you Hispanic, Latino, black?’” and when she said she was a Latina, the caller said “‘Oh so you are Hispanic. You’re Hispanic, so you can’t vote. You aren’t even registered to vote, so don’t waste your time. Just by looking in my records you can’t vote.’ Then I just hung up.”

Salazar said the campaign has received at least one other complaint from a voter, who received a similar phone call two weeks ago in which a caller threatened the voter with arrest if he attempted to vote.

Prior to the call, Ramirez said she had not planned on voting this year, but the episode has further shaken her faith in the system.

http://rollcall.com/issues/1_1/breakingnews/15877-1.html

 

Sample Ballots in Pr. George's Misidentify Candidates

By Ernesto Londono
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 7, 2006; 4:18 PM

Inaccurate sample ballots describing Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and Senate candidate Michael S. Steele as Democrats were handed out to voters in at least four polling sites in Prince George's County this morning.

The ballots were distributed by people who said they arrived by buses this morning from Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Erik Markle, one of the people handing out literature for Ehrlich, who is seeking reelection, and Steele, the current lieutenant governor who is campaigning to replace retiring Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D), said he was recruited at a homeless shelter in Philadelphia.

After a two-hour bus ride to Maryland, Markle said the workers were greeted early this morning by first lady Kendel Ehrlich, who thanked them as they were outfitted in T-shirts and hats with the logo for Ehrlich's reelection campaign. Nearly all of those recruited, Markle said, are poor and black. Workers traveled to Maryland in at least seven large buses.

Ehrlich said he wasn't aware of the hiring of workers from out-of-town.

"If folks are here from out of town that's fine with me. That's what the Democrats have always done. It's legal and it's what the Democrats have done forever. This is a story?

"If we've finally caught up with the Democrats that's fine," he added. "People asked me about ballots and other stuff. That's not my job. I've got other things to do."

Calls to Steele's campaign were not immediately returned.

The Ehrlich and Steele campaigns yesterday acknowledged sending out an election-eve flier, sporting pictures of Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson, his predecessor Wayne K. Curry and former NAACP president Kweisi Mfume. The mailer, declaring itself an "official voter guide" and criticized by Democrats, suggested the three Democrats backed Ehrlich and Steele. Curry has endorsed Steele; none has endorsed Ehrlich.

Democrats were quick to criticize the distribution today of the inaccurate sample ballots.

"I think it's pretty low that Ehrlich and Steele would print up a fake ballot and bus in unemployed people and exploit them," Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, the Democratic candidate for governor, said this morning as he greeted voters as a polling site in Greenbelt. "It doesn't get much lower than that."

Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin (D), who is running against Steele, called the fliers "fraudulent" and said he believed they might work in Democrats' favor by angering voters and encouraging more to get to the polls. "I think it speaks to a lack of integrity of the people who would put out something like this to try to mislead voters," said Cardin. "It has the Ehrlich-Steele authority. If they put this out, they should be ashamed of themselves."

In addition to Ehrlich and Steele, the ballots also list Republicans John A. Giannetti Jr., Ron Miller, Kenneth Brown and Antoinette Jarboe-Duley, all candidates for the state legislature.

Markle, a Democrat, said if he had known they would be campaigning and passing out literature for Republicans, he would have declined the offer. "I know what's going on in Pennsylvania, but not Maryland," he said in a telephone interview from the polling place at Andrew Jackson Middle School in Suitland.

Markle was told he would be paid $100, plus two meals for the day. He also passed out the fliers inaccurately reporting the prominent Democrats' endorsement of Ehrlich and Steele.

Johnson, who held a news conference today, said he received numerous calls to his campaign headquarters asking if he had switched parties after some confused residents received the flier.

Johnson said he was also outraged that poor people from Philadelphia were hauled into Prince George's County, most unaware of what they were doing or who they were doing it for.

"I understand that people need jobs," Johnson said. "But put people in training, not just bus them from out of state and pay them less than minimum wage."

Jonathan Keel, another worker from Philadelphia handing out the sample ballot, said he and other recruits were tricked by the campaigns.

"We were hoodwinked," said Keel, who added that he was unemployed. He was stationed at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt. "We were just hired to do a job," he said. "We're broke. We're in a terrible situation. There's no way out of here."

Del. Melony Griffith (D-Prince George's), who was outside the polling place in Suitland when she met Markle, denounced the tactics.

"It's a very sad day in Prince George's when politicians have to stoop to misleading, race-baiting and hate campaigning," she said.

Voters and other officials also decried the sample ballot.

"It's an absolute lie and it's very offensive," said Del. Anne Healey (D-Prince George's), who saw the ballot at a polling place in Hyattsville. "They put them in with the rest of us as though we've endorsed them. It's too late for us to do anything except tell people."

Voter Ruth Clopp, who got one of the sample ballots in Hyattsville this morning, said most voters got a "good laugh" out of them while they waited in line.

"I would like to think they've underestimated the intelligence of voters," she said. "But obviously they feel there's enough voters out there who would fall for these."

One of two workers passing out the fliers at Ernest Everett Just Middle School in Mitchellville said he knew there were elections in Pennsylvania today but "I guess I sold my vote to buy a coat," referring to the $100 he was told they would be paid for the day.

Kevin Baker, 40, who lives in a homeless shelter in North Philadelphia, said he felt duped.

Baker said he was one of about 300 people who boarded buses at Broad and Oxford Streets in Philadelphia, bound for Prince George's County. The bus was supposed to leave at 3:30, but didn't pull out until about 5 a.m.

"I feel like I was brought here under false pretenses," Baker said.

Salim Abdu-Haqq, 36, agreed. He said someone came to their shelter about a week ago, asking if they wanted to make some money. "They promised three meals and $100," he said.

Abdu-Haqq said about 85 percent of the workers were from homeless shelters. The rest were from the neighborhood.

Dennis Johnson, 55, who said he is a salesman from Claymont, Del., passed out the fliers to arriving voters while wearing a Steele T-shirt and an Ehrlich cap. He said he was being paid to pass out the fliers. Asked who was paying him, Johnson said, "Ehrlich and Steele -- that's where we went to get this [flier] and shirt and hat."

Asked about the accuracy of the flier, Johnson said, "I had no idea about it. I'm a hired hand."

Terry Lierman, chair of the Maryland Democratic Party, said he has spoken with "a couple lawyers" about the legality of the fliers.

"We're going to iron that out after the election -- to see what can and can't be done," Lierman said Tuesday morning outside the polling station at Leisure World in Silver Spring. Lierman said he's going to speak with Maryland's attorney general after the election.

"Obviously, it's too late for this election," Lierman said, "but I want to see what rules and laws we can establish for the next election." He called the fliers "incredibly deceitful."

"Every election they find new lows," he said of the Republicans. "We have to say enough is enough."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/07/AR2006110700740_pf.html

 

Poll Watcher: Latino Voters Harrassed in AZ
By Justin Rood - November 7, 2006, 2:15 PM

I just spoke with a Latino election monitor in Arizona who said that a trio of men, one with a handgun visible, is harrassing Latino voters as they go to the polls in Tucson, Ariz.

Nina Perales, a lawyer for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), said that three men are approaching Latino voters and videotaping them on their way to vote at a polling place in Tucson's Iglesia Bautista precinct.

"As voters are coming out of their cars and walking up towards their polls, one person is videotaping the voter as he walks towards the polling place," she said. Then another person, wearing an American flag bandana and a shirt with the image of a badge ironed or embroidered on it, approaches with a clipboard to talk to the voter. "While the clipboard person is. . .talking to [the voter], the cameraperson comes up and starts videotaping their face," Perales said.

As this happens, the third man -- with a gun visible in a sideholster -- stands next to the voter. According to Perales, he is wearing a shirt with an American flag on it, and camouflage shorts.

The men only approach Latino voters, she said, and noted they have been doing so since early this morning.

Perales' group has contacted the Department of Justice and the FBI. The Feds have asked her group to keep an eye on the situation.

Perales said her group has been monitoring other polling places in the city and throughout Arizona, and this was the only instance of voter intimidation she was aware of.

Update: An earlier version of this story said Ms. Perales was in Tucson at the time of our conversation. She was actually in Yuma.

http://tpmmuckraker.com/

 

FBI looks into voter intimidation
BY JEFF E. SCHAPIRO
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, November 7, 2006

The FBI is looking into possible voter intimidation in Virginia's hard-fought U.S. Senate contest between Republican incumbent George Allen and Democrat Jim Webb.

Just ahead of today's election, state officials alerted the U.S. Justice Department to several complaints of suspicious phone calls to voters about where they cast ballots and their preferences for the Senate.

Jean R. Jensen, secretary of the State Board of Elections, said yesterday that she was subsequently contacted by an agent in the FBI's Richmond office. The FBI is the investigative arm of the Justice Department.

Dee Rybiski, spokeswoman for the FBI here, declined comment.

Jensen said she called the Justice Department's civil rights office in Washington and the Virginia attorney general after receiving a complaint Sunday from a voter in Arlington County and one yesterday from the registrar in Accomack County.

Jensen said she later received a report from the Hampton registrar about a call to a voter there. That complaint came in response to an e-mail from Jensen to local registrars about possibly deceptive phone calls.

"Voters should not be intimidated or deceived by phone messages purporting to be from election officials," Jensen said in a written statement. "Any communication from federal, state or local election officials will always be in a written form clearly identifying the official source."

With published polls depicting the Allen-Webb race as a tossup, both sides are mobilizing lawyers and voting experts to watch for irregularities and prepare for a possible recount.

In a written statement issued by the Webb campaign, state Democratic Party counsel Jay B. Myerson suggested that Republicans are behind efforts to suppress votes for Webb.

"We've seen this tactic before, and it is about time the Republicans learned that it will not work," Myerson said.

Shawn M. Smith, executive director of the Virginia Republican Party, said the state GOP and Allen campaign are focusing on mobilizing votes for Allen.

As for voter intimidation or suppression, Smith said: "We are not aware of any such activities taking place and are skeptical of the claims being made. Nonetheless, we condemn such activities if they are being conducted by outside organizations."

J. Tucker Martin, spokesman for Attorney General Bob McDonnell, had no immediate comment.

This story can be found at: http://www.timesdispatch.com/servle...Article&cid=1149191548762&path=!news!politics

_________________

FBI Investigating Voter Intimidation In Virginia

The head of the Virginia Board of Elections, Jean Jensen, tells MSNBC that “the FBI is now investigating allegations of voter intimidation and voter suppression.” State officials have documented “dozens of phone calls that were made to heavily Democratic precincts in which the people who were receiving the calls were either given incorrect information about polling sites [or] misdirected about election laws.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/07/voter-intimidation-virginia/

 

Poll Watch Site Crashes
By Justin Rood - November 7, 2006, 10:56 AM

Over at TPM, Reader DK pointed to a real-time database that tracks election problem reports from around the country. I've used it myself, and it's a terrific tool.

Unfortunately, due to the intense focus on election day problems, the database -- run by a coalition headed up by People for the American Way -- has been hit with extraordinary traffic. As a result, the database is down.

The Election Incident Reporting System database (EIRS) includes information on reports gathered by a number of major pollwatching groups and hotlines. "Our call centers are still able to enter data on the backend," a staffer for the Election Protection coalition told me.

"We’re looking into DOS [denial-of-service attacks] and such but so far it seems to just be a tremendous amount of legitimate traffic," he said.

Update: It's now working sporadically.

http://tpmmuckraker.com/

 

Election fixing charges fly in Utah county
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Voting appears to be very popular in Daggett County, Utah.

Daggett County has registered 947 voters for Tuesday's election. According to the most recent Census figures, that's four more than the county's population in 2005.

A spokesman for Attorney General Mark Shurtleff says complaints of vote-stuffing in the county are being investigated. Democrats suspect County Clerk Vickie McKee is letting outsiders swell the Daggett County registration rolls to give Republicans an advantage. The Democrats also say the father of a Republican deputy running for sheriff has 14 adults registered at his household. McKee hasn't responded to messages from The Associated Press.

http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2006/11/election-fixing-charges-fly-in-utah.html

 

Laura Ingraham has asked her listeners to call the Dem Voter protection hotline -- and they are now being flooded with calls from crank callers.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/11/07/conservative-radio-host-t_n_33523.html

 

Voters: Beware of Phony Voter Guides

November 07, 2006 12:31 PM

Avni Patel Reports:

California voters have been flooded with deceptive, official-looking voter guides in the weeks running up to today's election.

Mailings titled "Voter Information for Democrats" and "Senior Citizen Voter Information" resemble voter guides put out by the political parties and advocacy groups, like the AARP or the League of Conservation Voters.

But the groups behind these mailings are hiding their true identities -- they are in part funded by the tobacco and oil industries, according to campaign watchdog groups.

"These mailers are designed to be misleading," says Kim Alexander of the non-profit, non-partisan California Voter Foundation. "Many voters believe they represent an ideology that they really don't."

For example, the guide titled "Voter Information for Democrats" features a smiling Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) on its cover and urges voters to vote "No" on two ballot propositions that Feinstein and other Democrats actually support. One proposition would increase the tax on cigarettes while the other would create new taxes for the oil industry.

Front groups for corporations, including R.J. Reynolds, Philip Morris, Chevron Corporation, Occidental Oil & Gas and Aera Energy, helped pay for the mailing, according to campaign finance filings.

The records show the same groups contributed to the "Coalition for Senior Citizen Security" for the guide titled "Senior Citizen Voter Information."

While the pamphlets state that the groups are "not an official political party or organization," Alexander says people still get confused and advises voters to always read the fine print.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/11/voters_beware_o.html

 

GOP Fliers Apparently Were Part Of Strategy
Md. Tactics Similar To Ones in 2002

By Matthew Mosk and Avis Thomas-Lester
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, November 13, 2006; B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/12/AR2006111201084_pf.html

The six Trailways motorcoaches draped in Ehrlich and Steele campaign banners rumbled down Interstate 95 just before dawn on Election Day.

On board, 300 mostly poor African Americans from Philadelphia ate doughnuts, sipped coffee and prepared to spend the day at the Maryland polls. After an early morning greeting from Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s wife, Kendel, they would fan out in white vans across Prince George's County and inner-city Baltimore, armed with thousands of fliers that appeared to be designed to trick black Democrats into voting for the two Republican candidates.

The glossy fliers bore photos of black Democratic leaders on the front. Under the headline "Democratic Sample Ballot" were boxes checked in red for Ehrlich and Senate candidate Michael S. Steele, who were not identified as Republicans. Their names were followed by a long list of local Democratic candidates.

Nearly a week later, a fuller picture has emerged about how the plan to capture blacks' votes unfolded -- details that suggest the fliers, and the people paid to distribute them, were not part of a hurry-up effort but a calculated strategy.

Republican leaders have defended the Election Day episode as an accepted element of bare-knuckle politics. But for many voters, it shattered in one day the nice-guy images Ehrlich and Steele had cultivated for years.

The plan to pass out the fliers in the heavily black precincts of Baltimore and Prince George's began to form in late October, when Malik Aziz, founder of the Ex-Offenders Association of Pennsylvania, said he received a phone call.

Aziz would not say who made the call. He initially said it came from actor Charles S. Dutton, a Steele supporter, but Dutton later denied this and Aziz retracted it.

Aziz said he's had a long association with Dutton, a reformed ex-offender who rose from Baltimore's tough streets to became an acclaimed television, film and stage actor and director. "I haven't talked to Malik Aziz in months," Dutton said last week.

Aziz said the caller asked him and his wife, Antoinette, to help Ehrlich and Steele find volunteers to do "poll work."

Antoinette Aziz said she recruited 300 people, many of them homeless or ex-offenders. "They need the work," she said.

She said representatives from the Maryland campaigns went to north Philadelphia last Monday night to speak with the workers at a recreation center. Darryl Preston, 32, was there and said several well-dressed men and women asked the crowd to consider "coming down for the day to work on a political campaign."

Each worker would receive three meals and $100 and would be picked up on buses and returned to the pickup location the same day.

"They said we'd be passing out fliers and talking to some people," Preston said. The workers were not told, he said, that they would be helping Republicans.

Several of those who agreed to go said they considered it a chance to make some much-needed money.

"I did this because I need a winter coat," said Mike Ducannon, 25. "I didn't have anything else to do and nobody else was offering me $100."

The next morning, they gathered at North Broad and West Oxford streets in north Philadelphia. The buses pulled out at 5 a.m.
Recollections of 2002

This wasn't the first time Ehrlich and Steele had recruited poll workers this way. In 2002 -- when Ehrlich was campaigning to become Maryland's first Republican governor in a generation and Steele was his choice for lieutenant governor -- they bused in homeless people from the District to hand out literature at Prince George's precincts.

Three people were charged under a state statute that prohibited campaign workers from hiring people to work on Election Day. The statute was overturned in 2003, however, after attorneys argued that the law was an infringement on free speech, and the charges were dropped.

It also was not the first time Ehrlich and Steele had used fliers that some considered deceptive. U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D) still recalls arriving at a polling place in his Baltimore district during the 2002 governor's race and being handed a glossy flier.

"They handed me this big, beautiful piece of literature. It was better than any of the literature I have ever produced," Cummings recalled. "I said, 'Boy this is a wonderful photo.' There's my pastor, and [then-Housing and Urban Development Secretary] Mel Martinez, and [former Baltimore delegate] Tony Fulton and myself. Then I saw Ehrlich in the picture, and I saw the words and I said, 'Uh oh.' "

The words read, "Democrats for Ehrlich." Cummings was livid. He had been one of the most vocal supporters of Ehrlich's opponent, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (D). He immediately went on talk radio to denounce it, recorded a message to voters and went on television.

But the incident was largely ignored, washed away by the bigger news that day: Ehrlich had won the election.

As governor, Ehrlich worked hard to foster a good-guy image -- starring in tourism ads in which he turned up unexpectedly at peoples' homes, offering to clip hedges and cut grass so they could vacation -- that masked accusations of bare-knuckle campaigning.

Asked midway through his term to address critics' accusations of dirty tricks, he brushed off the question, saying, "That's just silly stuff."

As the 2006 election approached, Ehrlich was locked in the political fight of his life. Polls showed him trailing O'Malley statewide, but more important, they showed the Democrat cutting into Ehrlich's suburban Baltimore base. Ehrlich acknowledged in interviews that he needed to find numbers elsewhere and one key target was black voters.

Two weeks before Election Day, Cummings began to worry about what might be coming. He fired off a letter to Ehrlich, dated Oct. 26. It went right to the point.

"In anticipation of the November 7, 2006, General Election," he stated, "I am writing to insist that neither you nor any group associated with your campaign use my picture on mailers or Election Day ballots."
An Election Day Offensive

On the eve of this month's election, the mailers began landing in Prince George's mailboxes. One was a glossy red, black and green flier -- the colors that represent African American power -- sporting pictures of County Executive Jack B. Johnson, his predecessor, Wayne K. Curry and past NAACP president and former U.S. Senate candidate Kweisi Mfume.

Above the pictures of the three Democrats the flier read, "Ehrlich-Steele Democrats," and underneath it announced: "These are OUR Choices."

None of the three candidates had endorsed the governor, and only Curry had declared his support for Steele.

There were other fliers, too. A similar "Democratic" guide with Ehrlich's and Steele's photo on the front appeared in Baltimore. Another distributed in Baltimore County identified the Republican candidate for county executive as a Democrat.

An Ehrlich aide who agreed to discuss the strategy on the condition of anonymity said the purpose of the fliers was to peel away one or two percentage points in jurisdictions where the governor would be running behind. No one inside the campaign expected a strong reaction.

But that's what they got.

"This was so offensive, to so many people, they're not about to let this go," said state Democratic Party Chairman Terry Lierman.

Wayne Clarke, a political consultant hired by Ehrlich and Steele to help draw blacks' votes, said he would neither confirm nor deny whether he was involved in the Election Day episode. He said Lierman and other Democrats were "trying to make something out of nothing."

Just as Cummings had done four years earlier, Johnson denounced the mailer at a news conference and in a recorded call to residents. "It's untruthful. I'm offended by it, and I'm angry about it," he said at an Election Day rally.

But this time he was not alone. Democrat Barry Cyrus of Fort Washington was so incensed by the flier that he traveled to six different polling places to urge voters to ignore them.

Even many of the Philadelphia workers began to question the plan, saying they had no idea they were going to be misleading people. Many were upset, and some even appeared at a Democratic news conference to vent.

On the afternoon of Election Day, the state Democratic Party's attorney, Bruce Marcus, contacted his Republican counterpart to complain. The two took the matter before Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Ron Silkworth in a tense conference call. Marcus argued that the fliers were fraudulent and should be pulled from circulation. Ehrlich attorney David Hamilton argued that it was too late to take action and noted the fundamental free-speech issues at stake, according to Marcus.

By the time they finished, it was nearing 6 p.m. "The judge said, 'I'm not going to do it. It's too late,' " Marcus said.

A few hours later, the buses headed back north, with a weary group of poll workers starting to doze as they left Baltimore.

Antoinette Aziz, who rode with them, said she did not take umbrage with the day's work.

"With elections, you see a lot of trickery. With elections, you see a lot of deceptions," she said. "My whole objective was to get that population of people working. . . . Nobody was injured. Everybody got paid. Everybody was safe, and everybody was happy at the end of the day."

 

TPM...

The Republican Party: Fighting for Voter Suppression

 

Yes! If everyone plays fair, Dems win more than they lose.
___________

Reid vows legislation on robo-calls, phony sample ballot

Remember those abusive Republican robo-calls and the sample ballots that suggested -- falsely -- that Michael Steele is a Democrat? The soon-to-be Senate majority leader does, and he's prepared to do something about them.

In a breakfast meeting sponsored by the American Prospect, Harry Reid told reporters today that the calls and the phony campaign literature were "absolutely wrong," and that one of the first 10 bills he introduces in the next Senate will deal with such abuses. "We need to make these criminal penalties," Reid said, saying that civil liability was apparently not enough to deter what happened in the run-up to last week's election.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, is pushing the Justice Department to explain what, exactly, it's going to do about last week's reports of voter intimidation and trickery. Schumer raised the issue today with Civil Rights Division chief Wan Kim, who was appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he has followed up with a letter to Alberto Gonzales and other department officials in which he describes some of the "egregious attempts to block access to the ballot during this year’s campaign season." Among them: "In Maryland, groups of people were brought in buses from out of state and paid to distribute sample ballots that misleadingly suggested that Republican gubernatorial and Senate candidates were Democratic candidates. In Arizona, three men were observed intimidating Hispanic voters by stopping and questioning them outside a Tucson polling place. Virginia voters suffered through a campaign of phone calls, currently being investigated by the FBI, that wrongly informed voters that they were not registered and would face criminal charges if they appeared at their polling places."

Schumer says that he's unhappy with the "lack of precision" in the answers Kim was able to provide today, and he wants to hear more from the department. For starters, he wants to know how many attorneys the department has assigned to "to address acts of voter intimidation and voter deception related to last week's mid-term election."

Call it a reminder of what oversight looks like -- and the sort of thing that Gonzales and other Bush administration officials probably ought to expect a little more frequently when Schumer & Co. start controlling the Senate's agenda in January.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/11/16/voting/index.html