State Party Chair Tells Local Officials That Anything Goes
There are many ways for elected officials to undermine democracy, but
trying to scare people away from registering to vote is among the most
insidious.<br>
<br>
This is what Jeffrey M. Frederick, member of the Virginia House of
Delegates (legislature) and chair of the Virginia Republican Party
(RPV), is doing. According to the<a href="http://www.rpv.org/news.asp?DocID=146" target="”_blank”"> RPV's own press release</a>,
"Even more troubling, Frederick said, was the opportunity for identity
theft when citizens register to vote with these groups, as people must
give a correct social security number on the voter registration form."<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/485">Click here to read the rest of this blog entry.</a>
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<br>
"These groups" is a reference to the Community Voters Project and its
partner organizations who are registering thousands of young people in
Virginia. The basis for this accusation of identity theft is as
follows, according to yesterday's <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/03/AR20080…; target="”_blank”">Washington
Post editorial</a>:<br>
<br>
<div>Two teenagers and another young adult
who are accused of falsifying names and Social Security numbers while
canvassing for new black and Hispanic voters in Hampton, apparently to
meet quotas and keep their jobs with their employer, the Community
Voting Project. As it turns out, the faked forms were discovered by the
employer, who promptly fired the three and reported them to authorities.<br>
</div>
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There are three important things to note here. First, the supposedly dangerous
organization discovered the faked forms, fired the perpetrators, and
reported what happened to the authorities. Two, Mr. Frederick reported
this as "three individuals in Hampton, Virginia being arrested and
charged with voter registration fraud, a Class 5 Felony." No mention of
how they came to be arrested or what they did, because that might have undermined his
argument that the organization might be stealing people's identities. Three, what was
done hurt no one. No one was prevented from registering or voting, no
one's identity was taken, no unregistered individual could have voted.
This horrible fraud was just a way for three young people to get paid, and their firing sends a good message to others who might have been thinking the same thing.<br>
<br>
And yet Frederick demanded an investigation "into what appears to be
coordinated and widespread voter fraud activities occurring throughout
Virginia."<br>
<br>
This is shouting "Fire" in a crowded theater when someone lights up a
cigarette. For a state representative and state party chair to do such
a thing breaks no ethics code, but it doesn't get more unethical. It
shows that his desire to win an election for his party would lead him
to scare people off from registering to vote. And it sends a message to
local officials in his party that anything goes, as long as it's legal,
no matter how abhorrent.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
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