Eaton resigns; Iverson still at large

by: Jay Stevens

Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 07:22:32 AM MST

In an unusual move three weeks before the election and after a failed attempt to challenge registration of voters in some Democratic strongholds, the Montana Republican Party said Tuesday night it was changing executive directors.

Former state Rep. Larry Grinde of Lewistown was named the party's executive director after Jake Eaton resigned "to pursue other interests," the press release said.

Eaton said he quit three weeks before the election because he has an "opportunity" in Madison, Wisconsin. If you're not familiar with Madison, let's just say it's a kind of political Siberia for someone like Eaton. It's a lovely town, though, and I hope Eaton finds solace in the myriad, liberal cafes, using public, all-access wireless, and enjoying the background banter of omnipresent Obama supporters. Heh heh.

That said, Eaton's obviously the fall guy here. There's no way Eaton, a recent college grad, challenges the voting eligibility of 6,000 Montanans on his own. The methods too closely resemble voter suppression efforts elsewhere to be coincidence. Take, for example, the voter suppression effort in Michigan, which was smaller in scale ("only" 1,500 voters), but had a similar outcome. There, the federal judge ruled that the Michigan Secretary of State's office -- run by a Republican -- violated federal law in its efforts to purge the rolls of voters because voter cards were returned as "undeliverable" or because voters applied for a driver's license in another state. And, as if on cue, John McCain, using ACORN as a causus belli, is calling for an "immediate investigation" of "voter fraud" in battleground states. (By the way, the LA Times story has a succinct explanation of how ACORN operates, and what kind of fraud is actually taking place. I've exerpted the relevant passages below the fold.)

No, the one who's responsible must be Erik Iverson, the chairman of the state GOP and Dennis Rehberg's chief of staff.

Here are some good questions for Iverson:

Who came up with the idea to challenge Montana voters registration?

Did you approve the plan?

Did you approve the use of state party funds and employee time to generate the list of challenged voters?

Was there pressure from the McCain campaign or the national party to challenge voters in known Democratic communities?

It's time we heard from Iverson, don't you think?

Mike Slater, head of Project Vote, which helped ACORN run its current registration drive, said the group has identified about 5,000 "bogus or potentially fraudulent" applications so far. In most cases, he said, canvassers copied names from phone books.

"Voters have no incentive to do this," Slater said. "This is a work force issue."

An additional 65,000 applications have been disqualified because the information on the cards was incomplete, and 25,000 more have been deemed invalid because the voter was already registered, he said.

The group is barred by law from destroying such applications, but flags them and notifies local election officials in every case, he said. The group fires any canvasser found to have filed a fake card, and some have been prosecuted.

Six years ago, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act to make sure states did more to clean up their voter rolls. One provision requires states to have a computerized database of its voters. A second says a new voter should not be added to the rolls until the information on the person's registration card is checked against the state driver's license on file or a Social Security number.

"There are a lot of [registration] cards coming in, but they check every single one of them," said Nicole Winger, a spokeswoman for California Secretary of State Debra Bowen.

Before the advent of computerized databases linked to state records, it was more possible to add suspect names or a duplicate registration to a county's voter roll.

"There was a time when you probably could get on the rolls as 'Mickey Mouse.' But the checking procedures are a lot better now because of HAVA. They have improved with each election cycle," said R. Doug Lewis, executive director of the National Assn. of Election Officials in Houston.

I know for many conservatives, facts are a b*tch, but there you go. ACORN is not perpetrating voter fraud. The fraudulent registration cards are being winnowed and disposed of. Those workers filling out fraudulent registration forms are being fired by ACORN and turned over to the authorities for prosecution.

Any call for an investigation into "voter fraud" based on ACORN's activities should be seen for what it is: a bald partisan ploy to keep voters from the polls.