John McCain's Republican "Country First" - lose your house, lose your vote

Michigan Republicans plan to foreclose African-American voters

The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.

“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. He said the local party wanted to make sure that proper electoral procedures were followed.

State election rules allow parties to assign “election challengers” to polls to monitor the election. In addition to observing the poll workers, these volunteers can provided they “have a good reason to believe” that the person is not eligible to vote. One allowable reason is that the person is not a “true resident of the city or township.”

The Michigan Republicans’ planned use of foreclosure lists is apparently an attempt to challenge ineligible voters as not being “true residents.”

One expert questioned the legality of the tactic.

“You can’t challenge people without a factual basis for doing so,” said J. Gerald Hebert, a former voting rights litigator for the U.S. Justice Department who now runs the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington D.C.-based public-interest law firm. “I don’t think a foreclosure notice is sufficient basis for a challenge, because people often remain in their homes after foreclosure begins and sometimes are able to negotiate and refinance.”

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Republican's change their minds - find new tactics to suppress voting

The Macomb County Republican Party chair who told Michigan Messenger earlier this week that Republicans planned to challenge voters at the polls using a list of foreclosed homes has changed his story.

James Carabelli now says the party has “no plans to do anything,” according to a story in the Macomb Daily.

Reports of the plan for foreclosure-based challenges have spurred outrage and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) planned a demonstration today at the Macomb County Republican headquarters.

Eric Doster is former counsel for the Michigan Republican Party and a lawyer who plans to represent GOP election challengers on Election Day.

Doster returned a call Wednesday afternoon and in a 30-minute conversation told Michigan Messenger that while he is unfamiliar with plans to use foreclosure lists to challenge voters, he does expect party volunteers to challenge voters in other ways.

When asked whether Michigan Republicans plan to create a challenge list based on returned direct mail, a practice known as “vote caging,” Doster replied, “I think so. I know this has been done in years past … both parties may be doing this.”

Doster said that the party’s deputy political director, Kelly Harrigan, would have more information about the challenge lists. Harrigan did not respond to a call from Michigan Messenger.

“Voter caging” is controversial because it can be used to target certain groups of voters. Some say that a piece of returned mail should not be enough to challenge a person’s claim of residency.

Last week Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner acknowledged that the use of mail for vote caging has disproportionately affected poor and minority communities and she instructed that returned mail should not be considered reasonable evidence that someone has moved.

Michigan voter foreclosure lawsuit settled

By Ed Brayton 10/20/08 11:17 AM

On the day the judge was to hear arguments in the Barack Obama campaign’s lawsuit against the Republican National Committee, the Michigan Republican Party and the Macomb County Republican Party over alleged plans to use foreclosure lists to challenge Michigan voters at the polls on election day, the parties agreed to dismiss the case and issue a joint statement to reassure voters that such challenges will not occur.

Here is the statement they released in full:

“Obama for America, the Democratic National Committee and individual Macomb County residents have alleged that the Republican National Committee, the Michigan Republican Party and the Macomb County Republican Party were planning to use foreclosure lists to challenge certain voters on Election Day. The Republicans have denied the allegations and have stated that they never intended to challenge voters based on any such list. To clarify the matter for all voters, all parties are pleased that they agree that the existence of a person’s address on a foreclosure list does not provide a reasonable basis for challenging the person’s eligibility to vote and that none of these parties will challenge any voter’s eligibility on that basis.”

The Michigan Messenger will have much more on this as the story develops.

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Both sides agreed to dismiss the case with prejudice, which means it cannot be re-filed.

But not everyone is convinced that this is the end of the story.

For an earlier story about this lawsuit, Gerry Hebert, executive director of the voter rights advocacy group Campaign Legal Center, told the Michigan Messenger that he was concerned that the GOP could continue to use foreclosure lists to challenge voters by folding them into a larger voter challenge list that does not make explicit the basis for the challenge. Hebert:

“It’s true that using the foreclosure lists may be radioactive and they may have decided not to do that explicitly, but they may still be planning to do a massive challenge and incorporate the names and addresses from the foreclosure list into that program and use the larger list to challenge voters.”

Mary Ellen Gurewitz, the attorney for the Obama campaign and the DNC who handled the case, told the Michigan Messenger that the law does technically allow for such a possibility, but she doesn’t think the GOP would attempt to do this now because of the settlement in this case:

“The Michigan statute does not require people who are challenging to provide to the elections inspector the source of the information which they use to base their challenges on. Under the Michigan statute, however, it is a misdemeanor to make a challenge that is not a good faith challenge and they have acknowledged publicly and in sworn statements that this does not provide a good reason to challenge a person. So I think if they challenged a person on this basis, it would be a crime. They’ve committed themselves not to do so and they’ve said in their sworn statements that they won’t do so, so I think it would be really problematic for them to use foreclosure lists given the posture in this case and the statements they’ve made publicly and under oath.”

Both parties tried to spin the settlement as favorable to their position. The Michigan Democratic Party put out a press release saying, “The settlement acknowledges the existence of an illegal scheme by the Republicans to use mortgage foreclosure lists to deny foreclosure victims their right to vote.”

In fact, the joint statement explicitly says that the Republicans continue to deny the allegations that they ever had such a scheme.

Saul Anuzis, chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, had a different take in a press release about the settlement:

“Let’s be perfectly clear: The plaintiffs who brought this baseless lawsuit have agreed to ask a judge to dismiss it. Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer either is ignorant of the terms of the agreement to dismiss or he’s flat-out lying. The Michigan Republican Party only agreed to the truth: There was never a plan to use foreclosure lists, there is no plan to use foreclosure lists, there is not going to be a plan to use foreclosure lists … The joint statement by all parties states what has been the truth since day one: There is no plan to use foreclosure lists to challenge voters, there never has been one, nor will there be.”

In an interview with the Michigan Messenger, Brewer stood by his original statement:

“Why would they agree to a settlement and that statement if they never planned to do this? Why not go into court and get the judge to agree with them? They can spin it all they want, but the settlement gives us everything we wanted in our original lawsuit. I think it’s a tacit or implicit acknowledgment that the program existed, they got caught, and now they’re running away from it.”

Hebert told the Michigan Messenger that that no matter how you spin it, this settlement was a good thing for the country. “I think it’s an important development that voters in Michigan will not be challenged based on the fact that their names appeared on any foreclosure list and that that’s not a basis for doing so,” he said. “Prosecution of vote caging schemes remain at the top of the list for ensuring voter protection. It’s important that any person in any other state who plans to challenge voters because they appear on a foreclosure list should know that such plans are likely illegal and do not provide a good faith reason for challenging people’s right to vote.”