You can listen to this story, as discussed by Greg Palast and Amy Goodman at Democracy Now! Palast, on his website, mentions that he has first reported the story for the BBC's television show Newsnight Read Palast's account of the scam here.

Here is the story at GregPalast.com [ also at Truthout

The Republican National Committee has a special offer for African-American soldiers: Go to Baghdad, lose your vote.

A confidential campaign directed by GOP party chiefs in October 2004 sought to challenge the ballots of tens of thousands of voters in the last presidential election, virtually all of them cast by residents of Black-majority precincts.

Files from the secret vote-blocking campaign were obtained by BBC Television Newsnight, London. They were attached to emails accidentally sent by Republican operatives to a non-party website.

One group of voters wrongly identified by the Republicans as registering to vote from false addresses: servicemen and women sent overseas.

OOPS - below: "vote scrub" list Palast says was accidentally sent to the wrong email address

[Here's the full size version of that picture.]

There's something beyond the immediate and immensely grotesque nature of this apparent case of electoral fraud I'd like to draw out here:

Palast's story is one of many to emerge since the 2004 election that reinforce the case that electoral fraud may have decided the 2004 election. But, I've seen attempts at political organizing on the left derailed by those who have derived a basically nihilistic, or disempowering,  lesson. These are the ones who shout out : "It doesn't matter ! Organizing is pointless ! It's all rigged anyway !". They shout that line - in anger or desparation -  and others start to bicker. Many get depressed and eventually just go home.

My friend, and co-Talk To Action Founder, Frederick Clarkson started out researching the more covert and conspiratorial aspects of the Christian right, with - for example - reporting on the Unification Church. But his general emphasis now is very different : not that there are not covert and conspiratorial elements on the Christian right. There are, but there is also a great deal of real political organizing, and that is also happening within the context of a long range, decentralized and ongoing effort to move American culture towards a theocratic set point. Fred  Clarkson is now trying to begin a second edition of his prescient book "Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy" and his revision will most certainly emphasize the need for the American left to re-learn grassroots political organizing more strongly than the original edition of the book even did. The reason is not that complex - it's easy to spend all of one's time and energy watching, tracking, and researching conspiracies real and alleged and forget to actually do anything proactive. It's a common trap that most of us have fallen into.

Who says that vote rigging negates the value of political organizing ? Both effect electoral outcomes - one by legal methods, the other not. In the end it's necessary to have some sort of solid political base from which to project power. In 2004 the GOP seems to have achieved BOTH fairly intensive grassroots mobilization and also electoral fraud. Both were necessary for "victory" and legitimate and quasi legitimate methods ( via possible abuse of church nonprofit status ) that organized the GOTV effort paralled what seemed to have been pervasive vote rigging and electoral fraud, and "discourage" / "throttle" the vote methods. Both approaches likely helped tip the 2004 election, and I'm sure Karl Rove knew it needed some tipping. BOTH issues need to be addressed - electoral fraud must be battled, and Democrats must also achieve the same sort of ground level organizational strength the GOP is working to achieve.

Was there electoral fraud in Ohio in 2004 ? Probably. Will there be fraud in 2006 ? We have to assume the GOP will try. But that does not mean that the efforts of Rod Parsley, as described by Talk To Action contributor Tanya Erzen, below, in Reformation America", shouldn't be countered in the way that We Believe Ohio seeks to do : old fashioned political organizing.

Rod Parsley is working hard to build up a solid power base and - regardless of whether Kent Backwell is driven from office in 2006 or not, Parsely's efforts will continue, and he will certainly work towards the 2008 election - and that's not a trick or a diversion. Fraud can exclude Democratic Party votes, and grassroots organizing can plump up the GOP vote tally.

On an April morning at World Harvest church in Canal Winchester, Ohio, Pastor Rod Parsley declared to the four thousand people assembled in his tabernacle:

The church has been confined to church too long...the idea of the separation of church and state is the biggest lie that was ever perpetrated in America.  And simply put, it's time for us to speak up for an America based on the foundation our fathers established - a foundation of faith and of commitment to moral boundaries. We've lost that America. But we can get it back! ...Our times demand it. Our history compels it. Our future requires it. And God is watching.

Parsley is one of the leaders of Reformation Ohio, a plan to elect conservative Christians to school board and local legislatures throughout the state by registering two million new Christian voters.  Parsley is also a member of the nationwide Patriot Pastors movement, led by Pastor Rick Scarborough, which urges pastors "to promote their congregation's citizenship responsibilities in addition to their spiritual growth."  Churches like World Harvest are the institutional basis for a wider Christian Right political agenda that is increasingly blurring the boundaries between the pulpit and the arena of partisan politics.

Parsley is representative of a cadre conservative pastors who are using their churches as forums to explicitly discuss political issues and build an extensive grassroots network of conservative religious voters.  In these churches, the pastor's ability to introduce listeners to issues like gay marriage, distribute voter registration cards and values voting guides was a powerful tool during the 2004 presidential elections, and it will be this fall during the Ohio gubernatorial race.

We Believe Ohio:  

YES to justice for all
                  NO to prosperity for only a few;
YES to diverse religious expression
                  NO to self-righteous certainty;
YES to the common good
                  NO to discrimination against any of God's people;
YES to the voice of religious traditions informing public policy
                  NO to crossing the lines that separate the institutions of Religion and Government.