At TPM, Zachary Roth has confirmation from several other legal experts that the incidents in New Mexico, where several voters were visited by a Republican hired private investigator demanding personal information, may have violated the criminal section of the Voting Rights Act.
Jon Greenbaum of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights agreed, and added that the activities detailed in TPMmuckraker's report could violate both criminal and civil voting rights statutes. Greenbaum pointed to a civil provision of the Voting Rights Act which says that it violates the law to intimidate, threaten or coerce someone from voting or not voting.
Greenbaum too said he planned to pass on to the Department of Justice the claims made in our report.
Rick Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and a noted expert on election law, also said that the behavior potentially violated the Voting Rights Act or other federal civil-rights statutes.
In the past, the Bush Justice Department has been slower to act in cases of voter intimidation and suppression than in cases of voter fraud. We'll see how it goes this time.
--A. Serwer
