Administration aids GOP through election fraud claims

Greg Gordon of McClatchy's Washington, D.C., bureau, reports that the Bush administration tried to curb voter turnout in critical battleground states over the last six years, based on information from written documents and former department lawyers. As Democratic groups amped up voter registration, the administration increased claims of election fraud and created more stringent voter identification laws. Joseph Rich, former chief of the Justice Department's Civil Rights section, claimed an unmistakable patterns emerged from the admistration's actions. He stated, "'As more information becomes available about the administration's priority on combating alleged, but not well substantiated, voter fraud, the more apparent it is that its actions concerning voter ID laws are part of a partisan strategy to suppress the votes of poor and minority citizens.'"