Bush orders DOJ to probe Ohio registrations

Even though the Supreme Court of the United States already overruled the GOP's attempt to challenge the validity of new voter registrations in Ohio, George W. Bush (of movie fame) had decided to step in and take charge. He is, after all, the decider. He has apparently decided that these new Ohio voters should not be allowed to vote.

On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled an attempt by Republicans to challenge the validity of 200,000 voter registrations in Ohio, saying that the party lacked the standing to sue.

The Republicans had sued to force Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, to provide county election officials with lists of registrants whose personal information did not exactly match Social Security or driver's license data, a step that would leave those voters vulnerable to eligibility challenges.

Tensions began to escalate Thursday with disclosures that the FBI is investigating ACORN and the possibility that it's engaged in a vote-fraud scheme.

On Friday, Obama's legal counsel, Robert Bauer, wrote Attorney General Michael Mukasey, charging that the inquiry is politically motivated and that it risks repeating the 2007 scandal over the Bush administration's politicization of the Justice Department.

Bauer asked Mukasey to broaden a special prosecutor's investigation to examine the origin of the ACORN inquiry.

Thanks Nancy! First he was only throwing food and painting on the walls... now he's burning the entire house down.

But sure: why impeach?

President George W. Bush late Friday asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate whether hundreds of thousands of newly registered voters in the battleground state of Ohio would have to verify the information on their voter registration forms or be given provisional ballots, an issue the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on last week.

The unprecedented intervention by the White House less than two weeks before the presidential election may result in at least 200,000 voters in Ohio not being able to vote on Election Day. Information on the 200,000 voter registration forms does not match up exactly with information on government databases. Republicans are claiming that's evidence of voter registration fraud.

But the mismatched information can be attributed to misspellings and other minor mistakes, not a malicious intent on the part of voters to cast fraudulent ballots.

Still, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, sent a letter to Bush Friday asking that he order the Department of Justice to probe the matter claiming Ohio election officials are not complying with federal law. Boehner wants Mukasey to order the Ohio Secretary of State to identify the 200,000 voters by county and precinct and be given a provisional ballot until their registrations are confirmed. Provisional ballots largely go uncounted.

“I strongly urge you to direct Attorney General Mukasey and the Department of Justice to act." Boehner said in his letter “Unless action is taken by the Department immediately, thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands of names whose information has not been verified through the [Help America Vote Act] procedures mandated by Congress will remain on the voter rolls during the November 4 election; and there is a significant risk if not a certainty, that unlawful votes will be cast and counted. Given the Election Day is less than two weeks away, immediate action by the Department is not only warranted, but also crucial.”

Independent studies have shown that phony registrations rarely result in illegally cast ballots because there are so many other safeguards built into the system.

George George George... what ever happened to 'states rights?'

Worried about an Obama landslide? Or is this simply part of a much larger, intricate election stealing mechanism already in place?

Because - God knows - your chances of legally hanging onto your (abuse of) power grow slimmer every day.