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Obama Campaign's Response to McCain's ACORN Letter
September 23, 2008
Honorable John C. Danforth
Honorable Warren B. Rudman
McCain-Palin 2008
P.O. Box 16118
Arlington , VA 22215
Dear Senator Danforth and Senator Rudman:
We have received your letter of September 15, 2008, informing us of the formation of what you call the "Honest and Open Election Committee" by the McCain-Palin Campaign.
However attractively labeled, this seems a starkly political maneuver to deflect attention from the reality of the suppression strategies pursued by national,state and Republican party committees. This has been the shameful history of the party from the Goldwater "Operation Eagle Eye" program to the present day?a history replete with instances of systematically planned and executed programs to block access to the vote for targeted communities of voters.
In 2004, the Republican Party, on the eve of the general election, mounted challenges to tens of thousands of voters in Nevada, Ohio and Wisconsin based on "caging lists," that is, lists of returned mailers or based on similar information providing no legitimate grounds whatsoever for such challenges. None of these challenges, to our knowledge, was upheld and accusations of voter fraud by national Republican Party leaders were proven utterly baseless.
Now,in 2008, the Republican Party again appears determined to engage in tactics and strategies to deny the right to vote to qualified citizens:
· In Michigan, the chairman of Macomb County Republican Party has threatened to use lists of persons whose homes have been foreclosed to challenge those persons at the polls. Only after public exposure, did he deny that this was the plan for Macomb County, and this matter is now before the federal district court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
· In Florida, the RNC has mailed non-forwardable letters to Democratic voters asking them to "confirm" their party affiliation as Republican?thereby raising doubts about their registration status and creating the basis for possible challenge lists. Even top Republican election officials in Florida, including the Secretary of State,have publicly condemned this tactic.
· In Wisconsin, the Republican Attorney General, who serves as co-chair of the McCain-Palin campaign in the state, has filed suit challenging the refusal of the state?s own election administration authorities to throw thousands of voters off the rolls based on dubious and impractical matches of identifying information.
· In Ohio, Republicans are challenging the decision of the Secretary of State to allow first-time voters to obtain an absentee ballot at the time they register even though the law clearly affords this right.
Manifestly, the confusion,uncertainty, deprivations of rights and interference with efficient election administration created by these tactics, and similar ones that the Republican Party has used in recent election cycles, cannot be effectively addressed by the creation late in the day of "committees" with gloriously self-serving names. Rather, the best way to address them is for responsible Republican leaders like both of you to speak out, loudly and forcefully, to condemn these tactics, to insist that they be shut down once and for all and then to make sure that they are.
This is what we would hope that you could accomplish. If your concern truly lies with 'Honest and Open Elections", then your work is properly and effectively begins at home--with the Republican operatives who are planning and running these suppressive programs and who are being directed in these activities by the same national McCain and party leadership that recruited you to this "Committee".
Sincerely yours,
David Plouffe,
Campaign Manager, Obama for America
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