Cage Match

Tim Griffin is back. He worked in the Bush-Cheney oppo shop in 2000. He was a protege to Karl Rove. He became the US Attorney for Arkansas (at a time when it was almost certain Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee) after the purge of Bud Cummins. And in 2004, he came up with the caging scheme to prevent African-Americans and members of the military from voting.

First, a campaign identifies a geographic area with a disproportionate number of registered voters who belong to the opposite party — sometimes, but not always, taking the ethnic or racial makeup of that area into account. Second, the campaign sends “do not forward/return to sender” letters to voters in that area.

Third, the campaign challenges the right to vote of those citizens whose mail was returned “undelivered” — on the grounds that the voter does not live at the registered address. Of course, there are many reasons why a piece of mail might be “returned to sender” that have nothing whatsoever to do with a voter’s eligibility.

Now, he's going back to work at the RNC's oppo research shop.

Digby has a great backgrounder on Griffin. To me, the general election is shaping up to be fought over how best to suppress the Democratic vote. They tried to get Hans von Spakovsky on the FEC and it didn't work. They tried to pass onerous voter ID laws in Indiana, Missouri and Kansas with mixed results. And they're putting Griffin in place as well. These are the battle lines that are being drawn.