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Phony GOP 'Voting Rights' Group Releases Misleading Propaganda Disguised As 'Election Reform' Report: Velvet Revolution

Posted on: Thursday, 4 August 2005, 15:00 CDT

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Self-Proclaimed 'Non- Partisan' American Center for Voting Rights, Run by High-Level GOP Operatives, Misleads the American Press and public in Order to Advance Cynical Drive for Increased Voter Disenfranchisement Through Call for New Jim Crow-Era Voting Laws

A new organization of high-level GOP operatives, cynically named the American Center for Voting Rights ("ACVR"), released six press releases this week to tout its new "report" accusing Democrats and liberal organizations of massive "Election Fraud" in the November 2004 Presidential election. The releases and report contain 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. Though the report claims to focus on "Election Fraud" by both parties, in fact, it documents almost exclusively only incidents of alleged voter registration concerns, and only those which involve left-leaning voting organizations.

Despite mountains of confirmed evidence to the contrary, the releases and report attempt to portray the Republican party and its highly paid operatives around the country as having had nothing do with Election Fraud, Voter Registration Fraud, or the thousands of reports of Voter Disenfranchisement and Voting Machine Misallocation in predominately minority areas around the country last November.

ACVR outrageously claims to be a non-partisan, tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) group, but is in fact run solely by high-level GOP operatives. Executive Director Mark F. "Thor" Hearne, was the National General Counsel for Bush/Cheney '04 and Press Spokesman Jim Dyke, was the 2004 RNC Communications Director responsible for ensuring operatives dressed in "Flipper" costumes were present at John Kerry campaign events.

"Voter disenfranchisement has been a reprehensible mainstay in the anti-voting-rights playbook since the days of Jim Crow and the unconstitutional poll taxes. ACVR's latest hypocritical campaign is just another in a series of despicably un-American and un- democratic tactics meant to keep Americans away from the polls. Its drive for a photo ID requirement is simply the GOP's next insipid scheme to disenfranchise still more American voters," said Brad Friedman, spokesman for VelvetRevolution.us, a coalition of over 100 organizations committed to fair elections.

"The GOP believes that the fewer people who vote, the better chances their candidates have of winning, and that many poor, elderly, infirm, minority and urban dwellers, who tend to vote overwhelmingly Democratic, will be unwilling or unable to produce photo ID at the polls. Despite ACVR's transparent and cynical spin, there is no epidemic of voter fraud in this country. Its scheme is meant only to lend support to Congressional colleagues to move forward with both photo ID's and computerized voter databases which can be easily gamed," Friedman said.

The six most recent ACVR press releases, each dealing with a different state, have followed the recent Pentagon PR tactic of reusing a quote over and over, changing just a word or two, and hoping that no one will notice. However, according to the Associated Press, the Pentagon last Friday apologized for doing this and ordered the "egregious" practice to cease. The ACVR is apparently just getting started.

The attempts to mislead Americans into believing there is a "Voter Fraud" epidemic in this country is false, unsupported and disingenuous. This past June, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, citing a recent investigation by the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio and the League of Women Voters, reported that of 9,078,728 votes cast in Ohio in 2002 and 2004, only four were fraudulent. Clearly, rampant voter fraud in Ohio is "a myth" being used to impose new restrictions on voters in future elections.

In contrast, it is well established that Republican Operative Nathan Sproul and Associates was paid millions of dollars by Team Bush to register Republicans and subsequently shred thousands of Democratic voter registration forms in key swing states such as Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Oregon, Michigan, Ohio, Florida and West Virginia. In fact, according to the Baltimore Chronicle and others, Sproul is now the subject of a broad criminal investigation. "Just as the Bush Administration did during its run-up to war and the Swift Boat Veterans did when attacking John Kerry, ACVR creates phony and misleading information and releases it to the press as if it were true. It then uses the resulting press articles to argue in support of its corrupt agenda," said Friedman. "These tactics are an affront to all good Americans who support true democracy."

VelvetRevolution supports the right of American citizens to vote in free, fair, open, transparent and verifiable elections. It opposes national Voter Registration Databases and Photo ID requirements because they will greatly restrict a free democracy in America.

http://www.usnewswire.com

Source: U.S. Newswire

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