Phony 'Voting Rights' Group Exposed by Mainstream Media

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by David Edwards on 8/18/2005 @ 3:15pm PT...

Phony 'Voting Rights' Group Exposed by Mainstream Media
ACVR, traitors to American democracy, have cover blown by newly published articles

Guest blogged by David Edwards


As our readers know, The BRAD BLOG has been a leading source for investigations and reports into the nefarious (and possibly illegal) actions of high-level GOP Operatives that have established a tax-exempt, 503(c)(3) organization called the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR). The group, since its creation, has released false and misleading information intended to advance GOP plans to disenfranchise millions of voters via legislation calling for national voter registration databases and a demand for photo IDs at the polls.

Increasingly, the mainstream corporate media and independent media sources have caught on to the "dirty tricks" being used by these GOP operatives though the cynically named ACVR.

We were pleased to see a recent article, penned by Dimitri Vassilaros, in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review titled: 'Study' is political fraud. Vassilaros writes:
The supposedly nonpartisan American Center for Voting Rights -- which purports to expose voter fraud -- is a fraud.

The organization's 368-page study "Vote Fraud, Intimidation & Suppression in the 2004 Presidential Election," which was released last week, indicated that Democrats were the instigators in every case from Alabama to Wisconsin -- except two.

It also said that the two complaints regarding Republicans had no merit.

The "findings" about Democrat wrongdoing are not surprising considering that the three public faces of the nonpartisan group are very partisan Republican operatives -- including one who claims to be a sounding board for senior White House adviser Karl Rove.


Not surprisingly, Vassilaros discovers that the Republican State Committee of Pennsylvania has values similar to the organizers of ACVR...


More disturbing than blatant partisanship in the guise of objectivity is that the Republican State Committee of Pennsylvania shamelessly cites the study's findings to claim Philadelphia is No. 1 in election fraud. More disturbing still is that the committee claims it knew virtually nothing about the ACVR and yet stands by its decision to parrot its assertions.

"Quite frankly, I do not know who did the report," said Eileen Melvin, state GOP chair.

And most disturbing is that Mrs. Melvin admits she will use studies from other organizations that she knows virtually nothing about to support the party's positions.

"I did not know it existed prior to the study's release," said Josh Wilson, the state committee's media maven, about the ACVR.

Mr. Wilson also was unconcerned when informed about the staunch, well-connected Republican operatives running it.

"We stand by the report," he said. "To our knowledge they are nonpartisan. The report satisfies us." The Republican state committees in Washington and Wisconsin also used that study in news releases, Wilson said. "There likely were others."


Did we read that correctly? Eileen Melvin, chairperson of the Pennsylvania GOP, admits that she doesn't know who did the report, yet, to her knowledge and satisfaction, "they are nonpartisan"! The callous, blatant and in-your-face twisting of logic and facts is simply appalling.

In another recent article on Alternet, Evan Derkacz examines the GOP's motivation for using the phony voting rights group. The article, titled "Fraudulent allegations of fraud" says...
The GOP is setting the table for the next round of voter fraud with...allegations of voter fraud.
...
In a post on Bradblog, Joseph Cannon ties corrupt GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff to the already-bogus Republican operation called the American Center for Voting Rights, which alleges Democratic vote tampering. The post lays out the whole convincing case against the ACVR.

Now this prompts the observation: Like preemptively accusing someone else of farting while you are the culprit, this corrupt group -- called "a fraud" by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in their editorial entitled, clearly enough, "ACVR is a Fraud" -- doesn't this smack of the GOP laying the groundwork for neutralizing allegations of voter fraud in future elections?

Knowing that most media will just play the he said/she said game and fail to reveal the group's provenance, will they be girded against any public outcry by articles that, in a shortened version look like this: "Group claims voter fraud by GOP, other group claims voter fraud by Dems. My, isn't partisanship getting worse and worse? What, oh what, shall we do about the divide in this country?"

Fortunately, little by little, the Dems are coming forward and calling out these Republican front groups for what they are.

Good.


The BRAD BLOG continues to investigate fraudulent ACVR claims and 'dirty tricks'. In recent days, guest-blogger Joseph Cannon published "Indicted GOP Moneyman Tied To ACVR" and Brad Friedman, creator of The BRAD BLOG, reported his ACVR findings to the nationally broadcast news show, INN World Report.


For more information on the "non-partisan" tax-exempt ACVR scam and the snakeoil salesmen who invented it, Bush/Cheney '04 National General Counsel Mark F. "Thor" Hearne and RNC Communications Director Jim Dyke, please see BRAD BLOG's full Special Coverage of the "American Center for Voting Rights" at http://www.BradBlog.com/ACVR.htm.


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