The Torture Time Bomb

Posted on October 20, 2008 by Team VCS

October 18, 2008 – As the US presidential election reaches a climax against the background of the financial crisis, another silent, dark, time bomb of an issue hangs over the two candidates: torture. For now, there seems to be a shared desire not to delve too deeply into the circumstances in which the Bush administration allowed the US military and the CIA to embrace abusive techniques of interrogation – including waterboarding, in the case of the CIA – which violate the Geneva conventions and the 1984 UN torture convention.

The torture issue’s cancerous consequences go deep, and will cause headaches for the next president. New evidence has emerged in Congressional inquiries that throw more light on the extent to which early knowledge and approval of the abuse went to the highest levels. What does a country do when compelling evidence shows its leaders have authorised international crimes?

For three years I have followed a trail which leads unambiguously to the conclusion that the real bad eggs were not Lyndie England or others on the ground in Abu Ghraib, but the most senior officials in the White House, the Pentagon and the department of justice. Over recent months, Congress has been looking into the role of senior officials involved in the development of interrogation rules. These have attracted relatively scant attention; little by little, however, senators and congressmen have uncovered the outlines of a potentially far-reaching criminal conspiracy.

The first hearings were convened before the judiciary committee of the House of Representatives, at the instance of its chairman, Congressman John Conyers, apparently off the back of my book Torture Team. Parallel hearings have been held before the Senate armed services committee.

The evidence that has emerged is potentially devastating. It confirms, for instance, that the search for new interrogation techniques for use at Guantánamo began not with the local military but in the offices of Donald Rumsfeld and his chief lawyer, Jim Haynes. It shows that when the career military expressed objections on legal grounds, Haynes intervened to stop the normal process of review. And it shows a previously unknown interplay between the department of defence and the CIA: a visit to Guantánamo in September 2002 by the administration’s most senior lawyers was followed days later by a senior CIA lawyer, to brief on the new techniques. “If someone dies while aggressive techniques are being used,” he explained, “the backlash of attention would be severely detrimental.”

Last month the Senate armed services committee received new material from Condoleezza Rice, the first cabinet-level official to confirm high-level involvement in discussions on interrogation techniques. “I participated in a number of meetings in 2002 and 2003 … at which issues relating to detainees in US custody, including interrogation issues, were discussed,” she said. Those present at such meetings included Rumsfeld, attorney general John Ashcroft, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz and CIA director George Tenet. The meetings, which concerned the CIA programme, “occurred inside the White House”. Rice confirmed she was aware of the existence of, but did not read, the justice department legal advice of August 1 2002 that abandoned the international definition of torture and replaced it with a definition drawn from a US Medicare statute.

Buried away in this testimony lies the most dangerous material of all: evidence which may establish that abuses on detainees in Iraq in September 2003, in the period perhaps including the events at Abu Ghraib, were the result of decisions taken at the highest levels of the administration. The administration has long proclaimed it did not allow aggressive interrogations in Iraq, since the Geneva conventions applied. Last month we learned this was false: not everyone had protection under Geneva. If you were considered to be a terrorist, you had no protection at all. A senior US intelligence officer visited Iraq in September 2003. He witnessed abusive interrogation techniques that violated Geneva and complained. The response? He was told the techniques “were pre-approved by DoD GC or higher”. DoD GC is the general counsel at the department of defence, Jim Haynes. Who could be higher? His boss: Rumsfeld.

I have testified before Congress on these issues, and have been asked if there should be criminal investigations and prosecutions. At the very least, the next US president must ensure the full facts are established. It will then be for others to decide what follows. But if the US doesn’t get its own house in order and restore its reputation for the rule of law, others will surely step in.

– Philippe Sands QC is professor of law at UCL, a barrister at Matrix Chambers and author of Torture Team

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Family, Friends Say Military Must Do More

Posted on October 20, 2008 by Team VCS

October 20, 2008, Sioux City, ND – “I’m no quitter, Ma. You know me, I’m never gonna quit.”

Those were the words Carl McCoy used to reassure his stepmother, Pat McCoy, whenever she worried about the 23-year-old man’s safety.

Now it’s that sentiment that perplexes the Sioux City woman as she seeks to understand why Carl stuck a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Seven months after he returned from war, U.S. Army Spc. Carl B. McCoy killed himself at his Clarksville, Tenn., home July 11, following a recently concluded child-custody battle, chronic alcoholism and what his family and friends suspect was a case of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

Deployed twice to Iraq, he leaves behind his wife, U.S. Army Sgt. Maggie McCoy, and a 3-year-old son, Kharrie.

Carl’s family — including his stepmother — said his death could have been prevented had Army medical providers paid more attention to his growing sense of desperation and increasing reliance on alcohol.

Troubled by memories of war, Pat said her stepson’s drinking escalated after he returned to stateside active duty in December 2007.

Army statistics show that five U.S. soldiers try to kill themselves every day. The 2,100 attempted suicides the Army reported in 2007 is a sharp spike when compared with the 350 suicide attempts reported in 2002, the year before the Iraq war began.

In 2007, the Army identified 89 soldier deaths as suicides. It’s also investigating as many as 32 other deaths as possible suicides.

Such statistics were the furthest thing from Carl’s mind when he enlisted in the Army after graduating from DeQuincy High School in DeQuincy, La., in 2003, his stepmother said.

“After 9-11, Carl was gung-ho about fighting for his country,” Pat said, sorting through a photo album in her Sioux City apartment. “I was happy about him going into the service. I thought it would give Carl’s life the structure it never had before.”

That was important to Pat. Although she was not Carl’s biological mother, he still called her “Ma.”

“He just did it to aggravate me,” Pat, already the mother of four, said with a laugh.

Pat married Carl’s dad, Garner McCoy Sr., in Sioux City in 1974, divorcing him eight years later.

“Carl was born to Garner and wife No. 2, Trena,” Pat said.

Through the years, Pat kept tabs on young Carl, especially after Trena’s death (from heart disease in 1996) and Garner’s death (from heart disease brought on by alcoholism in 2005).

“Carl was shifted from aunt to aunt to friend to a friend of a friend,” she said. “That’s no way to raise a boy.”

Admitting her stepson had a few scrapes with the law while growing up (“kid stuff, mostly”), Pat always had a place for him in her heart.

“Carl had a wonderful sense of humor and a smile that could light up a room,” she said. “He had a lot of friends. The girls, especially, loved Carl.”

On reflection, Pat said: “Given his upbringing, Carl could’ve easily grown up to be a thug. But he learned how to fend for himself and aspired to be a good person.”

“Carl was always smart,” she said, smiling. “Did he have a whole lotta common sense? Um … no. But he was still very bright.”

‘Born an alcoholic’

Initially deployed to Iraq in June 2004, Carl worked as a generator mechanic with Fort Bragg, N.C.’s 659th Maintenance Company, where he performed convoy escorts and guard duties. Returning from his second Iraq deployment to Fort Bragg in December 2007, he was assigned to Fort Campbell’s 196th Quartermaster Company, 101st Sustainment Brigade in Clarksville, Tenn.

Throughout his deployments, Carl kept up a weekly correspondence, by phone or e-mail, with his former stepmother.

“Whenever I asked him, Carl would never talk about the war,” Pat said. “It was obvious that he saw a lot of things, yet he kept it all buried within him. He’d just shut down and get all quiet.”

Carl’s best friend, Marco Perez, was much more vocal about what the two of them had experienced in Iraq.

“Carl and I had friends who lost limbs during the capture of Fallujah,” Perez, an Army sergeant with the 659th, said in a phone interview. “We both had friends who died right in front of us.”

Perez calls Carl “my brother.” Sharing a love of hip-hop, Southern cooking and strip clubs, the two men bonded when things got tough.

“A lot of people didn’t ‘get’ Carl,” his friend insisted. “I ‘got’ Carl.”

But the weight of the war began to wear on Carl.

“Carl tried to be his old smiling self,” Perez said, “but things were really taking their toll on him.”

Back home in the States, Carl’s memories began surfacing in unexpected ways.

“Carl loved the Fourth of July,” Pat recalled, “but the sight of fireworks would terrify him. Christmas was a favorite holiday, yet blinking lights on a Christmas tree sent him over the edge.”

Pat feared her stepson was suffering from the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder that triggered an increasing dependence on alcohol. Carl’s father was an alcoholic, too, which led to the breakup of the marriage between Garner and Pat.

“Carl was born an alcoholic,” she continued, “and he knew it. Because of his father’s addiction, he had that genetic gene inside him. Carl knew better. It just didn’t seem to matter.”

The soldier’s alcoholism didn’t go unnoticed by Perez, who said it was leaving its mark on the battle Carl was fighting with his first wife, Miriam, over custody of their son, Kharrie, as well as on his marriage to Maggie, whom he wed in March 2008.

Perez also said Carl’s alcoholism did go unnoticed by the Army.

“By the time (Carl) returned to Fort Bragg (in December 2007),” Perez said, “his drinking was pretty bad, but the Army never pushed him to get help.”

Returning stateside, Pat thought her stepson’s life would show signs of improvement.

“Carl and Maggie were both assigned to Fort Campbell,” she said. “They went to Clarksville, where they found a house big enough to raise a family.”

In the new house, Carl decorated a room that he hoped would one day belong to Kharrie.

“Carl decorated that room himself,” Maggie said, laughing. “Because he knew Kharrie loved Spider-Man, Carl filled every nook and cranny of that room with Spider-Man.”

“Kharrie had Spider-Man bedsheets and dolls and action figures,” she said. “Man, even Kharrie’s bike had to be a Spider-Man bike. Nothing was too good for Carl McCoy’s son.”

Pat tried to act as the voice of reason whenever her stepson went overboard.

“I’d get on Carl’s case for spending $40 on a pair of jeans that the boy would likely outgrow in a matter of months,” Pat said, chuckling.

But the excited young dad always had a ready answer.

“Carl didn’t want his son to have the sort of family life he had growing up,” Pat said. “He wanted Kharrie to have a father in his life.”

As the custody battle dragged on, so did the symptoms of Carl’s suspected PTSD. So did his drinking.

A new life

Carl’s words of reassurance, “I’m no quitter, Ma. You know me, I’m never gonna quit,” began taking on a more ominous second meaning.

“He knew he needed to stop drinking,” Pat said. “But it was something he just couldn’t do.”

That wasn’t always the case, according to Maggie.

Maggie met Carl while both were stationed at Fort Bragg. They were later deployed together to Iraq with the 659th.

When asked what attracted her to the young soldier, Maggie said it was his intelligence.

“Carl was very smart,” she said. “Here was this guy. Sure, he was very good looking, but he was really intelligent. That’s what drew me to him.”

As Maggie got to know Carl, she discovered his sensitive side.

“He had this terrific sense of humor,” Maggie said, “and he had this warmth.”

“Carl made the best jambalaya in the world, and everybody knew it,” she said, laughing. “People flocked to him because of it. But Carl didn’t mind. He loved people and wanted to share it with everyone.”

The tone in Maggie’s voice turned suddenly melancholy.

“Carl was such a generous guy,” she said softly yet insistently. “He was such a genuine guy.”

While in Iraq, did Maggie see her husband drink?

“Sure, Carl drank,” she said. “Who wouldn’t? But he never drank to excess.”

Perez agreed.

“Carl used to drink to kick back,” he explained. “Later on, he seemed to drink to numb himself.”

That became apparent when Carl returned to the States as an active-duty soldier.

“He’d be doing fine,” Pat said sadly. “For a while. But then his demons would return.”

Louisiana was the state where Carl had been raised.

“Carl was a Creole through and through,” Perez said, noting his buddy’s allegiance to Louisiana State University sometimes brought him good-natured ribbing.

Yet the Crescent State was the last place on earth that Carl wanted to be.

So much had happened to Carl since he had left home. His dad died the year after the young man enlisted in the Army. His son was just a month old when the young soldier was first deployed. And then, his marriage to Miriam derailed while he was fighting on the front line.

Garner’s funeral, in fact, allowed Carl to reconnect with his extended family.

“Carl hit it off immediately with my daughter Rochelle,” Pat said. “They were like a coupla hood rats, they were so close.”

The sibling affection continued when Carl visited Sioux City while on leave.

“Carl had never seen snow before,” Pat said, chuckling. “There was snow on the ground, but it was pretty wimpy. He said there’d better be a raging blizzard the next time he comes to visit.”

But the real reason Carl didn’t want to go to Louisiana in June 2008 was because it would take him away from his new family: Maggie and Kharrie.

Frustrations with the Army

After months of trying, Carl had just been awarded joint custody of his 3-year-old son.

“I don’t remember ever seeing Carl so happy,” Maggie said, remembering the first unsupervised visit the young father had with his son. “I don’t remember seeing anybody as happy as Carl was when he got Kharrie.”

Kharrie’s next visitation was scheduled for the middle of June. But the Army had a different idea.

“Carl let the command know about Kharrie,” Maggie said, “but they wanted him to go to Louisiana to participate in a two-week recruiting program they had in Louisiana a few days before his son’s scheduled visit.”

“The recruiting was a joke,” Pat said. “(Carl) would show up at 9 a.m. and they’d let him go at noon.”

The Army specialist would then go back to his hotel room to think about missing his son and being away from Maggie.

But, mostly, Carl drank.

“I knew he was drinking because he’d call me two or three times a day,” Pat said. “He hated being there. He’d say that it was putting a strain on his marriage, he knew his ex wouldn’t reschedule Kharrie’s visitation, and he couldn’t understand why he should fight for his country when the Army didn’t show any concern or compassion for him.”

Returning home, Carl’s drinking had now became severe enough that Maggie made an appointment for marital counseling for the two of them at Blanchfield Army Community Hospital.

“Carl and I told (the marriage counselor) about his alcohol problem,” Maggie insisted. “We said it worried the both of us.”

Maggie said Carl was not referred to a specialist as both she and her husband had expected.

By July, the young soldier was at the end of his rope. Knowing he was headed for trouble, Carl scheduled an appointment to see a therapist at Fort Campbell’s Blanchfield Army Community Hospital for July 10.

At the last minute, the appointment was canceled. The therapist had called in sick.

The next day, Carl McCoy was dead.

‘His voice went unheard’

Calling Carl’s death a “tragic loss,” Blanchfield Army Community Hospital public affairs officer Laura Boyd said in a statement to the Sioux City Journal that “the Army and Blanchfield Army Community Hospital are committed to providing the best care to Fort Campbell’s soldiers, families and retirees, and stand ready to assist the McCoy family during its grieving time.”

Boyd said that both Blanchfield and Fort Campbell have multiple ways for soldiers and their families to have access to the Behavioral Health Services Department.

“No patient identified as high risk or in acute distress goes without immediate intervention,” she wrote. “These patients can be seen on a walk-in basis or after hours by a licensed behavioral health provider who’s on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

According to Boyd, Fort Campbell conducts a formal investigation of every suicide to review administrative processes and support that may be available to the soldier.

For any suicide, she said, the Army also conducts a root cause analysis to fully understand the circumstances surrounding the death and to determine if any treatment provided meets the national standard of care.

The results of the analysis are not publicly released, Boyd explained, “but we are willing to review findings with the family.”

Maggie McCoy will never know why her 23-year-old husband ended his life. He didn’t leave a suicide note before he shot himself in the bathroom of the house the newlyweds shared.

The young widow said earlier this week that she’d just returned from Louisiana, where she visited her husband’s gravesite on what would have been Carl McCoy’s 24th birthday.

“The Army promised there would be a gravestone by now,” Maggie, who does not plan to re-enlist, said with disappointment in her voice. “It hasn’t happened yet. That’s the Army for ya.”

It’s been more than two months since Carl’s demons got the best of him. His widow still questions the quality of mental health care provided to her husband, and she has concerns about the quality of mental health care provided to all other returning soldiers.

“Did the Army kill Carl?” Maggie asked. “No, it was Carl who pulled the trigger. Could the Army have done more to help him?”

Maggie’s voice trailed off.

“People get sick all the time,” she said. “I don’t have a problem with that. But it’s ridiculous that an Army mental health clinic, in a time of war, would be so short-staffed that no one could see Carl in his hour of need. He wasn’t referred to another therapist, nor was he asked if he was suicidal.”

“This was his last cry for help,” Maggie said, “and his voice went unheard.”

Getting the word out

When he remembers his best friend, Marco Perez said he always smiles.

“Carl always dreamt of opening up a restaurant after he left the service,” Perez said. “Real old-fashioned Creole cooking or real old-fashioned Southern barbecue, that was always his specialty.”

“Nothing made Carl happier than cooking in the backyard for his friends,” he said. “Carl’s cooking made him a whole lotta friends.”

But his friend’s suicide has made Perez re-examine his own life and wartime experience.

“Do I have PTSD?” he asked. “Yeah, I know I do. Carl’s death forced me to confront the memories that I brought back with me from Iraq.”

Perez said he’s currently seeking the counsel of his clergy.

“PTSD can be treated. It doesn’t have to kill you,” he said sadly. “Wish my ‘brother’ knew that.”

Pat McCoy clutches a funeral program.

On the front is a photo of a beaming young man with a bright future ahead of him. She said she remembers her stepson as someone who could drive her crazy with his impulsiveness, but she also remembers a young man who mourned greatly when her granddaughter died from sudden infant death syndrome just weeks before his own death.

Still, she takes Carl’s words to heart: “I’m no quitter, Ma. You know me, I’m never gonna quit.”

“I want to get the word out about my stepson’s death,” Pat said softly. “I don’t want anyone to lose a family member the way I lost Carl.”

Frequently asked questions

What is post-traumatic stress disorder?

According to the National Center for PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder that can occur after a person has been through a traumatic event, such as sexual or physical assault, a serious accident or combat or military exposure. After the event, it’s natural to feel scared, confused or angry. If the feelings don’t go away or if they worsen, a person may have PTSD.

How does post-traumatic stress disorder develop?

“All people with PTSD have lived through a traumatic event that causes them to fear for their lives, see horrible things and feel helpless,” said
Matthew Friedman, executive director of the National Center for PTSD. “Strong emotions caused by the event can create changes in the brain that may result in PTSD.”

How likely a person is to develop PTSD depends on how intense the trauma was or how long it lasted; whether you lost someone you were close to or were hurt yourself; how close you were to the traumatic event; how strong your reaction was; how much in control of events you felt; and how much support you got after the event.
“Most people with PTSD get better over time,” Friedman said. “But one out of three people with PTSD may continue to have some symptoms.”

What are the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder?

PTSD symptoms usually start soon after the traumatic event. But they may not occur for months or years after the event or may come and go over the years.

The most common symptoms are reliving the traumatic event; avoiding situations that remind you of the event; feeling numb and finding it hard to express your feelings; and feeling jittery and always on the lookout for danger.
Common problems for those suffering from PTSD may include drinking or drug problems; feelings of hopelessness, shame or despair; employment problems; relationship problems or physical ailments.
How common is post-traumatic stress disorder?

Experiencing a traumatic event is something that 60 percent of men and 50 percent of women will experience at some point in their lives. But going through a traumatic event does not mean you’ll experience PTSD.
According to the National Center for PTSD, about 8 percent of men and 20 percent of women will develop PTSD after a traumatic event. About 5.2 million adults will have PTSD during any given year. Also women (10 percent) are twice as likely to develop PTSD as men (5 percent).

How common is PTSD in the military?

“Out of 100 Vietnam War veterans, about 30 developed some form of PTSD,” Friedman said. “Out of 100 veterans of the war in Iraq, between 12 to 20 have developed some form of PTSD.”
This number may increase, Friedman said, depending on how long the war lasts and how much combat soldiers experience.

What treatments are available?

When suffering from PTSD, dealing with the past can be hard. But Friedman said treatment can make help you get better.

If you are in an immediate crisis, go to the nearest emergency room or call 911.
Although the National Center for PTSD does not provide any direct clinical care, it’s Web site (www.ncptsd.va.gov) provides links and information to help you find mental health services in your area.
If you are an American veteran with PTSD, contact your local VA Hospital or Veterans Center. In Sioux City, the Vet Center is at 1551 Indian Hills Drive. The telephone number is 712-255-3808.

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Democrats Bank Early Votes in Battleground States

Posted on October 20, 2008 by Team VCS

October 19, 2008 – Two weeks before Election Day, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is busily banking every early vote he can get in key states. Republican nominee John McCain is more selectively working to lock in the early votes of his most iffy supporters, figuring the rest will make it to the polls sooner or later.

Voters in every state can now cast ballots through early voting or absentee voting programs. Results won’t be released until Nov. 4, but a look at those who have voted shows the Democrats have been aggressive.

In Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina and Ohio, Democrats – or at least those living in heavily Democratic areas – are requesting and submitting ballots in large numbers. In Florida, Republicans hold an edge, while in Indiana, absentee voting has been split among Republican and Democratic areas.

President Bush won all six states in 2004, and McCain probably needs to win them all to claim the White House this year. The early voting snapshot, taken more than two weeks before Election Day, illustrates the strategies and strengths of both presidential campaigns.

Obama is pushing early voting on a grand scale, in speeches, e-mails, a Web site and even ads placed inside video games. Eighteen video games, including the extremely popular “Guitar Hero” and “Madden 09,” will feature in-game ads from the Obama campaign.

“We are trying to expand the electorate and expand the process,” said Obama campaign manager David Plouffe.

Republicans, meanwhile, are targeting supporters who don’t always vote in presidential elections, believing they can get more reliable voters to the polls on Nov. 4, said Rich Beeson, political director for the Republican National Committee.

Obama could win the absentee vote race in some competitive states, but Republicans are hoping McCain will more than make up the difference on Election Day, Beeson said. The Republicans, with their extensive database of voter information, have long had a formidable get-out-the-vote operation.

Nationwide, about a third of the electorate is expected to vote early this year, thanks to expanded early voting provisions and fewer restrictions on absentee voting. That would be up from 22 percent in 2004 and 16 percent in 2000.

Ebonee Lusk, who voted early in Fort Wayne, Ind., said she couldn’t wait until Nov. 4 to cast her ballot for Obama. “I wanted to get in, cast my vote for Barack Obama and make sure my vote counts,” said Lusk, 28.

Leonard Goeglein, an 80-year-old Fort Wayne retiree, said he made sure to get his vote in for McCain before he heads to Florida for the winter.

“We’re going to get out of the cold weather for awhile so I had to vote early,” Goeglein said.

Absentee voting used to be reserved mainly for people who were unable to make it to the polls on Election Day, whether they were too sick to travel, away on business or serving in the military. This year, more than 30 states allow any registered voter to cast an early ballot, some in person and others by mail.

Election officials in many states report high demand for absentee ballots.

“Every presidential year it gets bigger as more people get comfortable with it and they understand the process,” said Iowa Secretary of State Michael Mauro. “It’s a fact of life that people in America like to do things at their own convenience.”

As of last Wednesday, about 300,000 voters had requested absentee ballots in Iowa, with registered Democrats requesting about 60,000 more ballots than registered Republicans.

There was a similar pattern in Franklin County, Ohio, a key county that includes Columbus, the state capital. As of last week, about 76,000 registered Democrats had voted or requested absentee ballots, compared to 41,000 Republicans and 89,000 unaffiliated voters.

Early voting in Ohio has sparked controversy, with Republicans challenging the legality of a weeklong period at the start of October when Ohioans could register and vote on the same day. State and federal courts upheld the voting window, and some Democrats predicted tens of thousands of college students would register and vote for Obama all in one step.

But only 13,141 voters went to the polls during the period, leading Republicans to mockingly dub it “Golden Week.”

In North Carolina, more than 200,000 voters went the polls in the first two days of early voting, last Thursday and Friday. Some 62 percent were registered Democrats while 22 percent were registered Republicans. On Sunday, the Cumberland County elections board added two early voting sites to accommodate people attending an Obama rally in Fayetteville, drawing criticism from state GOP leaders.

In Georgia, more than 540,000 ballots had already been cast as of Wednesday, eclipsing the total number of early voters in 2004. Georgia doesn’t track absentee ballots by political party, but many of those votes were in the Democratic strongholds of metropolitan Atlanta.

Also, black voters, who overwhelmingly support Obama, made up a disproportionately high percentage of Georgia’s early voters, accounting for 37 percent. Blacks represent 29 percent of the state’s 5.6 million registered voters.

Polls show Obama trailing McCain in Georgia, but high turnout among black voters could make the race more competitive.

In Florida, a perennial battleground, voters had requested more than 1.6 million absentee ballots, with registered Republicans requesting about 220,000 more ballots than Democrats, according to numbers compiled by both political parties.

Early voting is becoming more popular because voters like the convenience, campaigns want to bank votes and election workers want to ease crowding on Election Day, said Doug Chapin, director of Electionline.org.

“It’s exactly like TiVo,” Chapin said. “My favorite TV show is on at a time when I can’t watch it or it’s not convenient for me to watch it. It’s the same thing with voting.”

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Iraq War Veteran Tammy Duckworth Promotes Illinois PTSD Site

Posted on October 20, 2008 by Team VCS

October 20, 2008 – Nearly four years after Tammy Duckworth lost her legs in Iraq, she is breaking new ground in her role as director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs.

As an Illinois National Guard major and former Black Hawk pilot, Duckworth is no stranger to the emotional and physical toll of war. She lost her legs when a rocket-propelled grenade hit her chopper in November 2004.

Duckworth, who spoke in Heidelberg, Germany, on Thursday about overcoming her disability, is credited with starting a program that helps veterans and servicemembers get help for post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries. The program is called the Illinois Warrior Assistance Program, and its Web site, www.illinoiswarrior.com, can be accessed by anyone.

“It was something that I approached our governor about doing when I realized that many of our returning veterans had never been screened for post traumatic stress disorder or specifically the traumatic brain injury component of it,” Duckworth said.

Although the department has not released exact numbers as to how many people have logged on to the site since it was created in January, it has received over 10,000 hits and callers to its 24-hour hotline, the latter of which is only available to people in Illinois.

Armed forces members in Germany have used the Web site extensively, Duckworth said. Another 500 people have been helped by calling the hotline.

“We are finding a huge number of Vietnam veterans calling in as well,” she said.

The site talks about PTSD and traumatic injuries and teaches people how to spot the symptoms. It is also available to servicemembers and veterans’ families.

Duckworth said such a program was needed because Illinois is a predominantly rural state with very few military bases and many of its veterans live far from Veterans Administration hospitals.

“We were seeing a lot of cases of our veterans in Illinois … were getting in trouble with the law — a lot of DUIs and a lot of domestic abuse,” she said. “We were getting calls from the state police, you know the local sheriffs saying, ‘Hey, we got another one or yours, let’s take care of him before he gets into too much trouble.’ “

Those calls sparked Duckworth’s department to work with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and Illinois Brain Injury Association to screen for post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries. Counselors and medical professionals who were familiar with the military were trained to staff the hotline.

About two dozen other states, the National Guard, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Department of Defense have also asked about the program, she said.

The CDC and DOD showed interest in learning how Illinois provided the medical care with the counselors because the Veterans Administration has a shortage of mental health professionals, Duckworth said.

DOD and CDC officials could not be reached for comment.

Other states have developed programs to help returning armed forces personnel and veterans as well. Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs officials worked with Oakdale, Minn.-based Imation Corp. to distribute 2,000 flash drives filled with information to help National Guardsmen reintegrate with society after they were deployed.

Minnesota has also developed a hotline for servicemembers and veterans. That service, called LinkVet, has been used more than 1,700 times since it was activated in August 2007.

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Give an Hour Program Offers Services to Military Personnel

Posted on October 20, 2008 by Team VCS

October 20, 2008 – About three months ago, Downingtown resident Jennifer Crane discovered a program aimed at helping  veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This program, known as Give an Hour, encourages mental-health professionals to provide free services, such as counseling, to military personnel and their families.

“It’s amazing,” said Crane, who served in Afghanistan in 2003 during Operation Enduring Freedom. “Before the program, it was hard to find help.”

Crane, who suffers from chronic post-traumatic stress disorder and other health problems, said she received Give an Hour services from Jeanine Aversa at Psychology Associates of Chester County.

It’s beneficial for veterans to have access to free services because they often have a lack of money when they return home, according to Crane.

According to a November 2007 study put out by the National Alliance Against Homelessness, nearly 26 percent of homeless people are veterans. But veterans only make up 11 percent of the nation’s 18-and-over population.

The concept of Give an Hour is to ask mental-health professionals to provide free services for an hour a week for military personnel, veterans and their families, according to program President Barbara Romberg, a psychologist in the Washington, D.C., area.

She founded the program in fall 2005, and services have been provided since the summer of 2007.

“We are harnessing a tremendous amount of awareness and using it where it’s helpful,” Romberg said.

A forum about the program recently took place at the Crozer-Chester Medical Center Oct. 10. U.S. Rep. Joseph Sestak, D-7, of Edgmont, participated in the panel discussion with Romberg and Crane.

“It’s an effort in the community to work with families and individuals before they leave (to serve) and after they come back,” said Sestak, a former three-star admiral who served in the Navy for 31 years.

Staff from the Coatesville Veterans Affairs Medical Center attended the forum, too.

“We’re glad that there are private-sector programs that also provide programs to veterans,” said Robert Whitney, clinical coordinator of Coatesville VA’s PTSD inpatient program. “We welcome any help for veterans.”

A contribution Give an Hour provides that the Coatesville VA does not is therapy to children of veterans, Whitney said. The Coatesville VA provides a PTSD inpatient clinic, and three outpatient mental-heath clinics, two of which are in Springfield and Spring City, he said.

For more information about Give an Hour and to register as a provider, visit www.giveanhour.org

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Army to Probe Five Slayings Linked to Colorado Army Unit Sent Repeatedly to Iraq War

Posted on October 18, 2008 by Team VCS

October 18, 2008, Denver, CO –  Fort Carson soldiers returning from deployment in Iraq are suspects in at least five slayings, and officials want to know why.

Commander Maj. Gen. Mark Graham announced Friday a task force will examine any commonalities in the five killings, all allegedly committed by soldiers from the post’s 4th Brigade Combat Team in the past 14 months. A sixth BCT soldier faces an attempted murder charge.

“We have many great young Americans in our Army who have volunteered to serve during a time of war, almost all of whom are great citizens,” Graham said in a statement. “However, we too are very concerned about these horrible acts.”

Fort Carson also plans to re-screen about 1,200 soldiers from the brigade for potential physical or mental health problems.

Earlier Friday, Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar asked Army Secretary Pete Geren to investigate the slayings. Officials learned of the latest on Monday, when Spc. Robert Hull Marko, 21, led investigators to the body of 19-year-old Judilianna “Judi” Lawrence, whom he met on the social networking Web site MySpace, according to an arrest affidavit released Tuesday.

The affidavit said Marko told investigators he had violent sex with Lawrence before slitting her throat and leaving her to die in the foothills west of Colorado Springs. His next court appearance is Monday.

The issue of homicides by combat-stressed veterans gained national prominence in January, after The New York Times reported that at least 121 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans had committed a killing in the United States or been charged in one.

Karen Linne, a spokeswoman for Fort Carson, said commanders two months ago ordered squad leaders and team leaders to reevaluate soldiers to see if they need additional help following concerns raised after another soldier from the unit was linked to a double slaying.

Pfc. Jomar Dionisio Falu-Vives, 24, and Spc. Rodolfo Torres-Gandarilla, 20, face attempted murder charges in the May 26 wounding of Capt. Zachary Zsody, who was shot twice while standing at an intersection. An arrest affidavit released in August said an AK-47 used in the Zsody case was found in Falu-Vives’ apartment and it was also used in the June 6 deaths of two people gunned down on the street while putting up signs for a garage sale.

Killed were Cesar Ramirez Ibanez, 21, and Amairany Cervantes, 28. Prosecutors filed murder charges against Falu-Vives on Sept. 15.

Three other members of the unit were accused in the slayings of two soldiers. Bruce Bastien Jr. was sentenced last month to 60 years in prison. He pleaded guilty to accessory to murder in the December shooting death of Kevin Shields, and conspiracy to commit murder in the August 2007 death of Robert James.

Bastien, and co-defendant Kenneth Eastridge, both agreed to testify against fellow Iraq war veteran Louis Bressler, the alleged triggerman.

Eastridge pleaded guilty July 11 to accessory to murder in Shields’ death and will be sentenced Nov. 3. Bressler is scheduled to go on trial in the Shield slaying Nov. 3, while his trial in the James homicide is scheduled for Dec. 1.

“Those who committed these violent crimes should be brought to justice,” said Salazar. “But these tragedies also raise a number of questions from the backgrounds and service records of these soldiers, to whether they received waivers to enter the service, to the adequacy of mental health screening and treatment within the Army.”

Falu-Vives and Torres-Gandarilla, accused together in one case and Bastien, Bressler and Eastridge, accused in the two slayings, served in Iraq last year with the 2nd Battalion of the 4th Brigade Combat Team. There weren’t any immediate indications that both sets of men knew each other.

Marko was a mortarman with Charlie Company, 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, of the 4th BCT and served from February 2007 until February of this year.

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Letter to Editor: Senator Obama Supports Veterans

Posted on October 18, 2008 by Team VCS

October 18, 2008 – We all appreciate our right and privilege to vote in local, state or federal elections; it is, however, also our duty to be informed as well as we can. Unfortunately, many rely purely on the candidates’ ads and even on unsubstantiated rumors.

As a retired Navy captain and former national program director at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, D.C., I remain quite interested in whatever affects our veterans. I researched the voting records of Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama on matters affecting our veterans; the difference is staggering.

McCain voted consistently against bills that improved funding for veterans and the Veterans Administration. Just as an example, McCain opposed the 21st Century GI bill because it was too generous; and in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007, McCain voted against increasing funding for veterans health care.

In contrast, Obama co-sponsored and voted for the new GI Bill of Rights, and he helped pass 10 key veterans bills and sponsored 36 additional veterans bills since 2007. In 65 percent of the pro-veterans bills, Obama was able to get co-sponsorship from Republicans.

Obama is and will remain the friend of our veterans who have earned and deserve our support.

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Oct 20, Update: A Dying Veteran in Florida Finally Gets Space at the VA Hospital

Posted on October 18, 2008 by Team VCS

October 18, 2008, Zephyrhills, FL – James Carroll said the Department of Veterans Affairs may finally be keeping a promise it makes to every veteran.

See original story here: http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/articleid/11409 

Officials at the James A. Haley VA Medical Center in Tampa have reached out to Carroll, a veteran dying of leukemia, and said they will do all they can to ensure Carroll gets the care he needs.

In a front-page story in Thursday’s St. Petersburg Times, Carroll and his sister said Haley had repeatedly refused to admit the Air Force veteran, even though he is eligible for complete, free care.

They said they were told Haley was simply too crowded.

All that changed on Friday when the VA portrayed the situation as a misunderstanding. Haley’s chief of staff, Carroll said, called and said he would personally oversee Carroll’s treatment.

In addition, a Haley social worker told Carroll’s sister, Nancy McEndree, that the VA will pay all medical bills Carroll accumulated when forced to get treatment outside the VA.

Carroll has lost track of how much he owes but said it’s in the thousands — mostly co-pays and deductibles for Medicare.

“I think they’re doing the right thing now,” said Carroll, who was pleased but wary. “So far, all we’ve heard is words.”

It appears the VA’s turnaround may have been prodded by Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Brooksville, who saw the newspaper story and immediately e-mailed Haley chief of staff, Dr. Edward Cutolo, to fix the problem.

“He got my e-mail at 6:45 in the morning before my coffee had a chance to brew,” Brown-Waite said.

Brown-Waite said she didn’t think the episode pointed to any systemic problem at Haley and is happy that the hospital is getting the word out to employees about appropriate responses when veterans call for help.

“In a perfect world, I wouldn’t have had to get involved,” Brown-Waite said.

A Haley spokeswoman has said the facility, one of the busiest in the nation, is trying to reduce the times that it is forced to send patients to other non-VA hospitals.

John Pickens, a VA regional spokesman, said he thought Carroll’s case was an aberration and not a sign of a wider problem at Haley.

“If that happened, it’s not something that typically happens,” said Pickens. “We regret it. It’s not a perfect system. The good thing about the VA is that we were able to get it fixed.”

Pickens urged veterans to call a patient advocate if they are having difficulties with the VA. (At Haley, that number is (813) 978-5856, and at Bay Pines in St. Petersburg it’s (727) 398-9524.)

In a statement, Cutolo said the VA would examine whether it owes Carroll a pension based on Agent Orange exposure.

The VA has refused to provide him such a pension.

Agent Orange, widely known for its use in Vietnam, was also sprayed in Korea in the late 1960s, a time when Carroll served there.

The VA said it isn’t making any promises, but if Carroll is granted such a benefit, his pension could nearly double from its current $1,500.

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ACLU Challenges Destruction of Evidence in Indefinite Detention Case

Posted on October 18, 2008 by Team VCS

October 17, 2008, Charleston, SC – The American Civil Liberties Union today appealed a court decision allowing the government to destroy and obstruct evidence depicting the brutal interrogations of Ali al-Marri, who has been detained in solitary confinement at a Navy brig in South Carolina since June 2003. Just last week, newly released military documents obtained by the ACLU and Yale Law School’s Lowenstein Human Rights Clinic showed that the Navy applied lawless Guantánamo protocols in detention facilities on American soil, including the brig where al-Marri is held.

“The government has admitted to destroying evidence depicting the brutal interrogations of Mr. al-Marri while he was held incommunicado at the Navy brig. The court was absolutely wrong to let the government off the hook for this inexcusable conduct,” said Jonathan Hafetz, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. “We are hopeful the district court will reverse this decision and protect the integrity of the proceedings in this case. Especially in light of what we now know about the Gitmo-ization of American detention facilities, we should have a full accounting of what happened.”

After several newspapers reported that the government had destroyed evidence in al-Marri’s case, including recordings depicting his abusive interrogation, al-Marri immediately sought a court order requiring the government to preserve all remaining evidence and investigate the past destruction of evidence. A court denied this request earlier this month. Today, the ACLU is appealing that decision.

According to documents released last week, the standard operating procedure developed for Guantánamo Bay governed every aspect of detentions at the brig where al-Marri is held in the United States. Al-Marri has reported being subjected to many of the brutal interrogation techniques used at Guantánamo Bay, including sleep deprivation, painful stress positions, prolonged isolation, extreme sensory deprivation and threats of violence and death.

Last month, in a separate lawsuit, the ACLU urged the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Bush administration’s authority to indefinitely imprison al-Marri without charge or trial. The ACLU asked the Court to reverse a federal appeals court decision that gave the president sweeping power to deprive individuals in the United States, including American citizens, of their most basic constitutional rights. The ACLU’s request for Supreme Court review of the case is still pending.

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Behind the GOP’s Voter Fraud Hysteria

Posted on October 17, 2008 by Team VCS

October 15, 2008 – Warnings about voter fraud prior to a U.S. presidential election are nothing new. But to listen to conservative Republicans lately, you might expect Nov. 4 to bring a voting catastrophe of epic proportions. Writing in the New York Post in early October, Ken Blackwell — yes, the former Ohio secretary of state of 2004 election infamy — warned about “the kind of chaos you expect from a category-five hurricane — with radical groups sending the nation into a protracted legal battle even worse than the mess back in 2000.”

“To prevent it,” Blackwell urged, “we must act now.” Many Republicans, including operatives from the McCain campaign, have indeed been raising the specter of voter fraud across battleground states, from Nevada to Michigan to Pennsylvania, and pushing for action by government authorities.

But according to Lori Minnite, a professor of political science at Barnard College, who has spent the last eight years studying the role of fraud in U.S. elections, the Republican crusade against voter fraud is a strategic ruse. Rather than protecting the election process from voter fraud — a problem that barely exists — Minnite says the true aim of Republican efforts appears to be voter suppression across the partisan divide. According to Minnite, investigating voter fraud has become a Republican cottage industry over the last 20 years because it justifies questioning the eligibility of thousands of would-be voters — often targeting poor and minority citizens in urban areas that lean Democratic. Playing the role of vigilant watchdog gives GOP bureaucrats a pretext for obstructing the path of marginalized and first-time voters headed for the polls.

On Sept. 10, the 240,000 Wisconsin voters who had registered by mail since 2006 found their voting status up in the air as the state’s attorney general, J.B. Van Hollen — a McCain campaign co-chair — sued the state’s Government Accountability Board. In Michigan that same week, Macomb County GOP party chairman James Carabelli allegedly told a reporter that he would use publicly available lists of foreclosed home addresses to “make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses.” In early October, the Montana Republican Party challenged the eligibility of 6,000 voters in university towns and heavily Native American counties.

And last week, Nevada officials raided a Las Vegas office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a 38-year-old grass-roots political group known as ACORN that advocates on behalf of low-income Americans. News of the raid, following allegations that ACORN workers had submitted fraudulent voter registrations, prompted cheers from many on the right and objections from many on the left — as did an announcement last Friday, by ACORN itself, that 2,100 of 5,000 registrations forms submitted by ACORN workers in Lake County, Ind., were invalid.

But Minnite says that the latest Republican uproar over ACORN is part of “a far broader effort to corrode public confidence in the electoral process.” Minnite is a co-author of the forthcoming book “Keeping Down the Black Vote: Race and the Demobilization of American Voters” and a research fellow at Demos, a public policy think tank based in New York. She predicts that as Nov. 4 approaches, Republican allegations about voter fraud are certain to continue. Minnite spoke with Salon by phone recently from her office in Manhattan.

Do you believe that voter fraud poses a threat to the validity of American elections?

No. No threat.

The statistics bear me out. From 2002 to 2005 only one person was found guilty of registration fraud. Twenty people were found guilty of voting while ineligible and five people were found guilty of voting more than once. That’s 26 criminal voters — voters who vote twice, impersonate other people, vote without being a resident — the voters that Republicans warn about. Meanwhile thousands of people are getting turned away at the polls.

Political parties and corrupt election officials, on the other hand, do seem to present a potential problem. We should be a great deal more worried about who has access to the ballots. In terms of illegal aliens voting and people voting twice — the popular images of voter fraud — no I don’t think that there is any risk at all.

How did you come to this conclusion?

It is very difficult to find information on voter fraud. I’m quite fluent with political science data sets, but the more I would look, the less I would find. There was simply no information.

People were also uncooperative. Starting in late 2000 — under state open-election laws — I sent letters to all the attorneys general and secretaries of state in the U.S. asking them for statistics on voter fraud and those sorts of election crimes. Pennsylvania said they wouldn’t respond to me because I wasn’t a citizen [of the state]. I got the same from Virginia and Oklahoma. The attorney general of Michigan wanted me to pay $1,400 for the information because “it was going to take this many hours and this outrageous copying fee.” I started to realize why there were no studies on the incidence of voter fraud, no criminal justice statistics. I also sent Freedom of Information requests to the Department of Justice. That became a two-year deal of delay and obstruction as well.

Under the “Voting Rights Act of 1965,” the Department of Justice’s Voting Section is legally bound to stop “voting practices and procedures … that discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in a language minority group.” Do you think the Bush administration’s Justice Department has fulfilled this mission?

Threatening localities for not taking enough names off voter rolls in reaction to nothing and based on no evidence of fraud — while increasing the possibility of disenfranchisement — suggests a department more interested in furthering a political agenda than following that legal outline.

Let’s talk about the Ballot Access and Voting Integrity initiative that was started under Ashcroft in 2002. It was advertised as a program that would combat voter fraud and voter suppression equally. But if you look at the program, it actually was geared almost entirely toward voter fraud. They wanted to see if they could bring cases against individual voters. The [federal] government has spent a lot of money pursuing this over the years and convicted almost no one. Then we hear all this propaganda about how much voter fraud there is.

At the very least the Department of Justice has had its priorities backward. There are thousands of people having trouble casting ballots and the federal government has decided to go after poor people in Milwaukee and Florida to create the impression that there is voter fraud. The U.S. attorney firing scandal made it hard for anyone to claim that the Bush Justice Department wasn’t politicizing voter fraud.

In Michigan, the GOP has been using foreclosure lists to challenge the eligibility of voters in Macomb County,  according to a recent news report, questioning whether voters are actually local residents. What do you make of this strategy?

Republican Party officials have denied that there was any plan to do this, but I think that the genie is out of the bottle. Raising the specter of fraud and threatening new rules can create confusion among voters, election officials and poll workers. Just the possibility of getting turned away — of humiliation and inconvenience at the polls — could have been the only effect they wanted to achieve.

It is statistically hard to prove that allegations of voter fraud keep people away from the polls because the census data we use to determine voter turnout is not extremely accurate. If 2 percent of people decided not to go, we wouldn’t be able to tell. But I have talked to people who have told me — after being turned away by poll workers who claimed that they weren’t eligible to vote — that they would never try to vote again. Most people don’t entirely understand their rights.

Those most likely to be affected are new voters, less educated voters and marginal voters, whose decision to vote might be more easily swayed by rumor and misinformation.

So, under the guise of protecting elections from voter fraud, the GOP is seeking to disenfranchise new, poor and minority voters?

Most newly registered voters, especially this year, are Democrats. African-Americans give 90 percent of their votes to the Democratic Party. I think it has proven irresistible for the GOP to attempt to suppress the votes of blacks in places like Cleveland and Milwaukee and Jacksonville, Fla.

Is it a racist strategy? Yes, absolutely — but I am by no means saying that Republicans are [overtly] racist, because prejudice isn’t the motivation here. It is simply easier to target minorities because they are the more recognizable Democratic voters and because neighborhood segregation allows Republicans to quite effectively focus their voter suppression efforts. In short, African-Americans and Latinos are perfect targets.

 

The McCain campaign and Republican pundits have been trumpeting the threat of ACORN over the last few weeks. Do you think that ACORN presents a real threat of voter fraud?

I am struck by the ferocity of the attack on ACORN. I am not privy to the campaign strategy of the Republican Party, but I have to assume that it is the result of a coordinated disinformation campaign aimed not only at undermining ACORN’s work, but also as a part of a far broader effort to corrode public confidence in the electoral process.

We see the repetition of wildly exaggerated allegations about ACORN’s “criminality” by people like Michelle Malkin, a right-wing blogger; John Fund, who’s been attacking ACORN for years from his vantage as a Wall Street Journal columnist; and Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative so devoted to Nixonian dirty tricks that he’s tattooed an image of Nixon’s face on his back. His blog, by the way, is sponsored by the same law firm that launched a phony voter fraud attack on ACORN in Florida during the last presidential election.

These are the people that seize on faulty registrations as proof that massive voter fraud is going on. This is an obviously faulty assumption. Do fake registrations equal fake ballots? No. They waste election officials’ time … we don’t elect people through registration. Confusion, on the part of election officials, while unfortunate, still has more to do with our convoluted laws than with any effort to deceive or manipulate by ACORN.

Let’s remember, as the Republicans make a furor over the Indiana registrations, that ACORN itself separated out those registrations — found the 2,000 faulty ones and flagged them for election officials — in the first place. They try to work with elected officials. The fact is that ACORN has been smeared by the Republican Party. Some of their employees do seem to fake registrations, sure, but when Macy’s has some of their employees stealing from them, we would not call them a quasi-criminal organization — we still call them a department store. ACORN is trying to help underprivileged people vote.

I believe that what we are seeing are efforts to create mass public confusion, to turn people off, and to create chaos on Election Day. This is a campaign strategy to distract people from the voter suppression efforts that actually distort electoral outcomes and to preemptively discredit the potential Obama presidency as fraudulent.

What can Barack Obama’s campaign do to counteract GOP suppression efforts?

The Democrats should be watching urban black working-class neighborhoods in key states where the Obama and McCain campaigns are running strong field operations — Cleveland being a good example. These are prime spots for voter suppression. College students will also be targeted, especially minority students. College towns in places like North Carolina, Indiana and Florida may come into play. Election officials in Blacksburg and Fredericksburg, Va., and El Paso County, Colo., have already spread some disinformation about student voting. Similarly, areas that have added large numbers of new Latino voters might be challenged if they are in key states where anti-immigrant fervor is high, which could open the door in New Mexico and Texas.

The Obama campaign should also expect long lines and confusion at the polls and try to figure out where confusion is most likely to arise — where voting process rules have changed most recently, and where there are likely to be equipment shortages. They need to know which cities and towns have disproportionately high numbers of new voters and those places where election officials are likely to challenge legal ballots. They should watch places like Milwaukee, Seattle, St. Louis and Cleveland, which were labeled as voter fraud “hot spots” by the discredited and now defunct American Center for Voting Rights that spread disinformation during the 2006 election. These places should receive extra attention and efforts now to resolve predictable problems before they occur on Election Day.

Most importantly, the Democrats should devote resources to mobilizing vulnerable voters in particular — newly registered and first-time voters, students, minorities — so that if they do face challenges or problems at the polls they will be motivated to stick it out and work through them.

How did you become interested in voter fraud as an issue?

After the 2000 election; that was a bit of an eye opener, even for a political scientist. I was struck by how the issue of voter fraud seemed to be given so much weight, even more weight than other potentially more serious issues. In Florida thousands of ballots weren’t counted and then Caltech came out with a study that said 3 to 5 million ballots hadn’t been counted for various reasons — but everyone was talking about voter fraud. I couldn’t help but feel like that was the wrong conversation. I started looking into voter fraud and began a large-scale study.

Why do you think the incidence of fraud is so low?

I’ll give two reasons. First of all, what is the motivation for someone to vote twice when we often have a hard time getting people to vote once? There is no rational basis for someone to risk getting arrested for a crime like that. Additionally, I think that a lot of the cases that get labeled fraud can be explained in other ways. Election officials make mistakes and so do voters. I think we don’t have a clear conception of how confusing and mismanaged the whole voting process is. Confusion is often a better excuse for the irregularities that are seized upon and used to convince the public that fraud is taking place.

Have there always been voter suppression efforts?

Voter suppression has long been an issue. This is what I will be arguing in “The Politics of Voter Fraud,” a book I’ll have coming out next year. There is a well-reasoned argument in favor of party competition, but political scientists may be wrong when they say that political parties mobilize voters. There is a logic that suggests that demobilizing your opponent’s voters is actually more efficient than building up your base. When you get new voters you run the risk of destabilizing your coalition, whereas there is less of a hazard in depressing your opponent’s voter turnout.

Republicans may be the ones doing this right now, but Democrats certainly did it in the past. You mix that with race, and the role race has had with voters’ rights in the United States, and the underrepresentation of minorities doesn’t exactly come as a great surprise. It was actually the Democratic Party that stripped freed slaves of their right to vote after the Civil War. Now African-Americans are a standard bearer for the party.

The Democrats in this age have no reason to pretend that voter fraud is a serious issue, but the Republicans, particularly this year, have a very good reason to say that voter fraud is rampant. It is a simple three-step process. Fraud allegations lead to restrictive voter laws, which lead to a class-skewed electorate. As the Democrats try to get out the vote, Republicans will try to stop it.

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