On the June 19th Community Bridge we will discuss the topic of requiring photo identification or other proof of identity in order to be able to vote. Here are some background articles to help listeners participate in this week's discussion.

Voting Rights Lawyers Defeat Texas' Bogus Voter Fraud Prosecutions
Steven Rosenfeld for AlterNet writes: "A years-long, high-profile campaign by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, to prosecute elderly Democratic Party volunteers for voter fraud because they helped homebound seniors to vote by mailing their absentee ballots -- but not signing the backs of envelopes -- fell apart on federal court house steps in Texas on Wednesday. The Attorney General agreed to settle a federal lawsuit challenging the voter fraud prosecutions of the Democratic volunteers rather than go to trial, according to the Lone Star Campaign, which first characterized the AG's prosecutions as politically motivated voter suppression and funded the litigation. Gerald Hebert, an ex-Department of Justice Voting Section Chief and now executive director of the Washington-based Campaign legal Center, represented the Texas Democratic Party and volunteers in the suit.

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Voting Machine CEO Reportedly Lies About Foreign Ownership of Firm
Brad Friedman writes on Brad Blog: "The CEO and President of one of America's largest voting machine companies, Sequoia Voting Systems, gave both deceptive, and carefully selective answers in his reply to a letter sent earlier this year from two high-ranking officials in Chicago, according to documents recently obtained during an ongoing investigation by the Brad Blog. Sequoia's chief executive, Jack Blaine, repeated knowingly false answers, at least three different times, in his January 18 response to Chicago Alderman Edward M. Burke and the Chair of Chicago's Board of Election Commissioners Langdon D. Neal. The pair had written to the company on January 11, expressing concerns about the truth behind Sequoia's claims that they had completely divested from their purportedly "former" parent company, Smartmatic, the Venezuelan-run firm with direct ties to Hugo Chavez and his government."

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Voter ID Battle Shifts to Proof of Citizenship
IAN URBINA in the New York Times wrote on May 12, 2008: "The battle over voting rights will expand this week as lawmakers in Missouri are expected to support a proposed constitutional amendment to enable election officials to require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote."

For complete story click here.

Missouri Bill to Block Nuns, Eldery from Voting Defeated
Art Levine write in the Huffington Post: "A GOP-pushed effort, aided by Republican voter-fraud scam artist Thor Hearne, to pass the country's most draconian photo ID bill has been stopped today in the Missouri Senate. Republicans, despite proclaiming the menace of voter fraud, didn't have enough votes to bring it to the floor for a vote. An angry outpouring from senior citizens, nuns, the disabled and others who would be blocked from voting under the proposed constitutional amendment, led by a broad-based progressive coalition that included the AARP, swamped Republican legislators with over 4,000 phone calls and an outcry from local newspapers."

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The Fraudulence of Voter Fraud
Joel Bleifuss writes in In These Times: "On April 6, 2006, in Washington, D.C., Karl Rove gave a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association and issued this dire warning:

We are, in some parts of the country, I'm afraid to say, beginning to look like we have elections like those run in countries where the guys in charge are, you know, colonels in mirrored sunglasses. I mean, it's a real problem, and I appreciate all that you're doing in those hot spots around the country to ensure that the ballot - the integrity of the ballot - is protected, because it's important to our democracy.

When Rove talks about protecting "ballot integrity," that is shorthand for disenfranchising Democratic Party voters. Over the last several years, the Justice Department, with the help of White House operatives, has sought to boost GOP electoral fortunes by orchestrating a national campaign against voter fraud. But the administration overreached on Dec. 7, when President George W. Bush fired eight U.S. attorneys, a political scandal that some say could become this president's Watergate."

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Supreme Court's voter ID decision is a blow to democracy
David A. Love writes in the Progressive: "In its 6-3 decision in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, the court ruled that the law, which requires Indiana voters to show photo identification at the polls, is constitutional. But the law was devised with partisan motives in mind. The Republican-dominated legislature enacted it in 2005 against the wishes of Democrats and civil rights advocates who were concerned that it would deny equal access to the voting booth. Why? Because the law places an unfair burden on the poor, minority groups, students, the disabled and the elderly, groups that are least likely to have proper ID."

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