Rove and voter fraud

We don't want voter fraud on the part of either (any) political party, do we?  I mean, we aren't turning into cynics who believe it's okay for our side to do it but horrendous when committed by the opposition, are we? 

So let's be clear:  what Karl Rove has been up to is not fighting the righteous fight against real voter fraud.  He'd be a hero to all of us if he were actually leading a fight to make voting easier and more secure. 

What Karl Rove has been up to (it seems pretty obvious by now) is pressuring US attorneys, whose mandate is by law non-partisan, to spend time on fishing for voter fraud as a partisan political ploy.

Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein report in the Washington Post this morning:

Of the 12 U.S. attorneys known to have been dismissed or considered for removal last year, five were identified by Rove or other administration officials as working in districts that were trouble spots for voter fraud -- Kansas City, Mo.; Milwaukee; New Mexico; Nevada; and Washington state. Four of the five prosecutors in those districts were dismissed.

It has been clear for months that the administration's eagerness to launch voter-fraud prosecutions played a role in some of the firings, but recent testimony, documents and interviews show the issue was more central than previously known.

I'd like to know just how far Karl Rove has been able to go.  That way we'll know how to build barriers to keep future Roves from robbing us of democracy. 

Rove, in particular, was preoccupied with pressing Gonzales and his aides about alleged voting problems in a handful of battleground states, according to testimony and documents.

I'd like to know what Rove's connection may have been to the abuses in Ohio.  Not to mention Florida.  I'd like to get a feel for his role in using Katrina to turn New Orleans into a whiter, more middle-class, more Republican district. 

Eggen and Goldstein's report shows Rove trying to influence the 2006 election in Milwaukee.

Last October, just weeks before the midterm elections, Rove's office sent a 26-page packet to Gonzales's office containing precinct-level voting data about Milwaukee. A Justice aide told congressional investigators that he quickly put the package aside, concerned that taking action would violate strict rules against investigations shortly before elections, according to statements disclosed this week.

Those who don't yet see intent in the actions of Rove and his minions at the Department of Justice are beginning to look a tad naive.

Rick Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School who runs an election law blog, said that "there's no question that Karl Rove and other political operatives" urged Justice officials to apply pressure on U.S. attorneys to pursue voter-fraud allegations in parts of the country that were critical to the GOP.

Hasen said it remains unclear, however, "whether they believed there was a lot of fraud and U.S. attorneys would ferret it out, or whether they believed there wasn't a lot of fraud but the allegations would serve political purposes."

But I'm not asking for any jump to conclusions, just a full-bore investigation that breaks through artificially constructed "executive privilege" barriers and helps us understand how we can prevent individuals like Karl Rove from taking democracy away from us.