TPM: Voting Rights Chief Apologizes for Comments about Minorities

[mod mom]

Voting Rights Chief Apologizes for Comments about Minorities
By Paul Kiel - October 29, 2007, 2:10PM
Voting rights section chief John Tanner has apologized for saying earlier this month that "minorities don't become elderly the way white people do: They die first."

The apology went out to a number of attendees of the National Latino Congreso, where Tanner made the remarks. You can see one of them, to the president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, here. The letter is dated Friday, October 26, a week after Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) publicly called for Tanner to be fired based on those remarks.

In the letter, Tanner does not recant his analysis that voter ID laws actually discriminate against whites, but does apologize that his "explanation of the data came across in a hurtful way." Others who worked in the Justice Department, of course, including Toby Moore, a former redistricting expert in the section who will testifying alongside Tanner tomorrow, disagreed with more than his tone.

The full text of the letter is below:

I want to apologize for the comments I made at the recent meeting of the National Latino Congreso about the impact of voter identification laws on elderly and minority voters. I understand that my explanation of the data came across in a hurtful way which I deeply regret. The reports of my comments do not in any way accurately reflect my career of devotion to enforcing federal laws designed to assure fair and equal access to the ballot. I am honored to have the opportunity to do this work, and I am honored to serve with the dedicated employees of the Voting Section who, day in and day out, work hard to protect the rights of all Americans under the Voting Rights Act.


http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004586.php#more

WELL OK WHAT ABOUT APOLOGIZING FOR YOUR ACTIONS NOW!:

Bush's Legacy on Voting Rights: A Story from Ohio
By Paul Kiel - October 12, 2007, 10:32AM
In June of 2005, John Tanner, the chief of the voting rights section, wrote Columbus, Ohio's election officials to publicly assure them that the Justice Department had found no evidence of intentional African-American voter disenfranchisement in the 2004 election.

Not only was that an unprecedented move, former Department lawyers say, but the letter is another, and particularly galling, example of Tanner using the force of the Department to further Republican aims -- in this case, to hamper future lawsuits or investigations concerning the problems in Columbus.

"It really looked like the Civil Rights Division was used to run interference for Republican election officials in Ohio," former voting rights section deputy chief Bob Kengle told me.

At issue was the experience of thousands of voters in Franklin County, Ohio, in the 2004 election. Voters in mostly African-American precincts were forced to wait hours in long lines to vote. An investigation by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) found that voters often waited as many as four to five hours, some as many as seven, deep into the night. The Washington Post reported that "bipartisan estimates say that 5,000 to 15,000 frustrated voters turned away without casting ballots." The culprit, of course, was a scarcity of voting machines in those districts, one that seemed to follow a suspicious trend: "27 of the 30 wards with the most machines per registered voter showed majorities for Bush" and "six of the seven wards with the fewest machines delivered large margins for Kerry."

-snip

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004438.php



An Open Letter to John Tanner, Chief, Voting Section, U.S. Department of Justice
July 2, 2005

An Open Letter to John Tanner, Chief, Voting Section, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Section in response to his June 29, 2005 letter to Nick A. Soulas, Jr., Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, Civil Division, Franklin County:

Dear Mr. Tanner:

I was curious to find that you had “conducted an investigation into the November 2, 2004 general election in Franklin County, prompted by allegations that Franklin County systematically assigned fewer voting machines in polling places serving predominantly black communities as compared to its assignment of machines in predominantly white communities.”

Let me begin by suggesting the word “contrasted” would be more appropriate than “compared.” Indeed, the difference is literally black and white.

You praise the bipartisan nature of the Franklin County Board of Elections (BOE). But you fail to mention that the Director, Matt Damschroder, is the former Chair of the Franklin County Republican Party, and that J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio’s Secretary of State and the Co-Chair of the Bush-Cheney Re-election Committee appoints all board members as well as officers, and they serve at his pleasure. Blackwell’s actions throughout the election year were openly partisan and obviously unethical.

For example, I was at a meeting prior to the election where Mr. Damschroder informed a delegation of esteemed international election observers that he would have them arrested based on the orders of Blackwell if they crossed the 100-foot line outside the polls to observe closer to the voting site. Is that what you mean by “the spirit of cooperation?”

-snip
http://freepress.org/columns/display/3/2005/1158

Justice Dept: 2004 Ohio Voting Problems Solved
by FWIW

Sat Oct 13, 2007 at 09:40:37 PM PDT

TPMMuckraker has the story: a recently discovered letter from John Tanner, chief of the Justice Department voting rights section, explains the problems encountered in the November 2004 general elections. Tanner wrote that the investigation by the Justice Department had been closed, and:

...the principal cause of the difference appears to be the tendency in Franklin County for white voters to cast ballots in the morning (i.e., before work), and for black voters to cast ballots in the afternoon (i.e., after work).

Seriously.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. took exception to that explanation. He issued a press release the same day in which he said,

"The 2004 election exposed serious deficiencies in this section's failure to adequately investigate and prosecute voter suppression efforts nationwide and I hope he is prepared to address this issue head on."

FWIW's diary :: ::
Rep. John Conyers' full statement:

I am concerned about the extreme lengths Mr. Tanner went to in order to justify the reasons African-Americans were not treated equally in the 2004 Ohio election. The committee needs to consider this matter. I am aware of no precedent for the Department acting in this capacity in the past.

The Department of Justice – since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – has a responsibility to thoroughly investigate allegations of voter suppression and discrimination, like those made in Ohio in 2004. I look forward to hearing more from Mr. Tanner in our committee later this month as he testifies about his work as chief of the voting section. The 2004 election exposed serious deficiencies in this section's failure to adequately investigate and prosecute voter suppression efforts nationwide and I hope he is prepared to address this issue head on.



-snip

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/10/14/04037/608

[EFerrari]

1. This is a really bad time not to be of European extraction in Amerika.

Thanks for posting this, mod mom.

[mod mom]

2. Tomorrow should be an interesting hearing. I hope this guy gets his head handed

back to him.