Group calls for investigation of alleged voter suppression plan

A liberal advocacy group wants state and federal justice officials to investigate an alleged conservative plot to purge young and minority voters from the polls before the November election.

Scot Ross of One Wisconsin Now played reporters a tape recording of Tim Dake from the Grandsons of Liberty speaking at a Tea Party Coalition meeting in June. Dake told activists at the meeting they could help prevent voter fraud by sending out post cards to voters who hadn't voted in recent elections telling them they needed to update their registrations or be denied the right to vote. Ross says the effort is an illegal voter suppression technique known as caging votes. He says “his fear is that not only is this going on in Wisconsin, but this is going on in states across the country in well-financed corporate effort in cahoots with the Republican Party to suppress people voting on election day 2010."

But Tea Party activist Tim Dake says Ross is making a mountain out of a mole hill. Dake acknowledges discussing the voter fraud prevention strategies, but he says no one at the meeting ever got voter lists and as far as he knows no post cards were sent and there are no plans to send any. He says “there certainly wasn't any nefarious plan to disenfranchise anyone."

A spokesman for the election division of the Government Accountability Board says the board has received Scot Ross's complaint, but said state statutes prevented him from commenting further.

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