(via chris@ southernstudies.org)
DATELINE: THE SOUTH - News and trends

A POPE OF CLIMATE DENIAL: Art Pope, North Carolina's leading conservative benefactor, has worked closely with the Koch oil barons and spent millions of his own discount retail fortune to sow doubt about the scientific consensus on global warming. Now he's hoping to reap the political benefits. (10/26/2010)

STILL WAITING FOR JUSTICE, BLACK FARMERS RALLY IN NORTH CAROLINA: African-American farmers gathered in the historic New Deal resettlement community of Tillery, N.C. over the weekend to draw attention to the continuing decline of black land ownership -- and to call on the Senate to pay for a long-awaited race discrimination agreement. (10/25/2010)

VOICES: WILL THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT TURN ON CORPORATE AMERICA? The Left often assumes the Tea Party movement is little more than a front for corporate interests, but has David Koch's money created a monster he and his henchmen can't control? (10/28/2010)

N.C. DEMOCRATS LAUNCH BOYCOTT OF BUSINESSES OWNED BY CONSERVATIVE FINANCIER ART POPE: The party is protesting Variety Wholesalers' pouring of hundreds of thousands of dollars into right-wing political organizations running misleading election ads. (10/28/2010)

NC GOP CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGN ACCUSED OF POLL INTIMIDATION, ILLEGAL ROBOCALLS: Poll workers aggressively approaching voters inside early voting sites. Automated phone calls from disconnected numbers. Is this any way to run a campaign? (10/27/2010)

EUROPEAN POLLUTERS FINANCING SENATE GLOBAL WARMING DENIERS AND CLIMATE BILL BLOCKERS: A new report finds that U.S. Senate candidates who've helped block action or cast doubt on global warming are getting financial support from European firms with a stake in blocking greenhouse gas regulation. (10/25/2010)

NO DISCIPLINE FOR NEW ORLEANS COP DESPITE COMPLAINTS: Lt. Dwayne Scheuermann has been the target of more than 50 complaints ranging from accusations of brutality, to rape, to improper searches -- yet he was never flagged for entrance into the city's monitoring program for possible problem officers. (10/25/2010)

SPECIAL REPORT - Art Pope bankrolls dubious 'voter fraud' crusade

By Chris Kromm

June 5, 2007. It was poised to be a big day in North Carolina political history: State senators were about to vote on H 91, a historic election reform bill bill that would allow voters to register and vote at the same time at hundreds of early voting sites across the state.

But minutes before the vote, a cryptic email popped into the inboxes of a few state senators from Les Merritt, the state's Republican state auditor. Citing unspecified "sensitive information" about potential "voter irregularities," Merritt made the almost unheard of demand that the N.C. senate call off the vote until he could present his office's findings.

The state lawmakers complied, but not without misgivings. As state senators Dan Clodfelter and Tony Rand wrote back [pdf] to Merritt:

We are sure you appreciate how unusual it is for us to receive a specific request that we not take action on a pending bill, which has already passed the House and has received favorable committee action in the Senate, and we therefore trust that you have substantial, credible, and specific evidence to back up the general inferences in your letter.

But days later, when Merritt was asked to reveal his findings at a June 17 senate committee meeting, he decided he didn't have such evidence after all. As the Charlotte Observer reported:

State Auditor Les Merritt backed away Tuesday from the early findings of a review of North Carolina's voter rolls, telling lawmakers his office might find no irregularities at all.
"We'll eventually get to a correct, final report," Merritt said, "and that final report, it could very well say there isn't anything here, that everything's fine, we're doing a super job.

The Observer called Merritt's abrupt reversal "puzzling." Sam Watts of the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research said "that's as odd as a tutu on a hog." And in the 2008 elections, Merritt's challenger Beth Wood successfully used the controversial incident as proof that Merritt had politicized the auditor's office, en route to sweeping Merritt out of office after one term.

But Merritt's retirement from public life was short-lived. Also in 2008, Art Pope, North Carolina's ubiquitous benefactor of conservative causes, swiftly tapped Merritt to head a new non-profit -- launched with a $100,000 grant from Art Pope's family foundation -- called the Foundation for Ethics in Public Service (website is down, here's a cached version).

Among the Foundation's top issues? Supposed "voter fraud," a favorite cause of the political right that -- despite little evidence of its actual existence -- has also been a leading crusade of Art Pope's network of conservative groups in North Carolina and nationally. ...

(To continue reading and to comment, click here.)

ELECTION WATCH 2010 - Help Facing South watchdog the elections!

The right to vote. Free and fair elections. Every person having a say.

Growing up, this is probably what you learned democracy is all about. And millions of people -- like the civil rights veterans who founded the Institute for Southern Studies 40 years ago -- fought to make it a reality.

But with the 2010 elections just a week away, we see dangerous signs everywhere that our democracy and voting rights are under attack:

* Shadowy groups like Americans for Prosperity are flooding our elections with corporate money. In 2010, this secretive spending has ballooned to over a quarter billion dollars.

* In Houston and other cities, Tea Party groups are threatening to send "millions" of activists into African-American and Latino precincts to look for "suspicious" voters.

* Secretive front groups for big energy companies are running attack ads against elected officials who want to combat global warming -- and helping candidates who ignore science and think climate change is a "hoax."

Is this what democracy is supposed to look like?

If you don't think so, then join us in launching Election Watch 2010 -- the Institute investigative team's new project to expose Big Money and threats to voting rights across the South.

Our aims: Shine light on the secretive special interests, arm voters like you with the facts, and give democracy a fighting chance.

Now -- with the elections just days away -- we need your help to make Election Watch 2010 a success.

Can you help us raise $5,000 for Election Watch with a contribution of $35, $50 or more today?

http://bit.ly/isselectionwatch

I hope you can help. Time is short, and every dollar of your tax-deductible contribution will go towards our award-winning investigative team.

Help defend democracy -- make a donation to the Institute and Election Watch today!

INSTITUTE INDEX - Block the vote?
Rank of voter registration problems among the top threats to the franchise this year, according to the Brennan Center for Justice: 1

Number of U.S. residents who tried to vote in 2008 but could not due to voter registration problems: around 3 million

Percent decrease in new voter registrations in North Carolina this year over 2006: 28

Percent decrease in Florida: 26.7

Percent decrease in Tennessee: 16.9

Number of voter-registration applications the grassroots community organization ACORN collected nationally in 2006: about 550,000

In 2008: 1.3 million

Month that ACORN disbanded after accusations of criminal conduct from conservative activists that turned out to be untrue: 3/2010

Month that a mysterious and still-unsolved fire consumed a warehouse storing most of the voting machines and other elections equipment in Harris County, Texas: 8/2010

Month that King Street Patriots, a Tea Party group in Harris County, accused a voter registration group called Houston Votes of engaging in widespread voter fraud by pointing to problem registrations filed before Houston Votes was even founded: 8/2010

After the allegations were made, number by which voter registrations collected daily by Houston Votes declined: 800

Estimated number of Harris County residents, most of them people of color, who are eligible to vote but not registered: 600,000
Year in which Texas could go Democratic if all the people eligible to vote in this congressional election and the next cast ballots: 2012
Number of volunteers that True the Vote, a group affiliated with King Street Patriots, called to descend on Harris County to serve as poll observers: millions

Date on which the Texas Democratic Party expanded an ongoing lawsuit to charge the King Street Patriots with Republican collusion: 10/18/2010

Number of complaints received so far in Harris County about intimidating behavior by poll observers affiliated with the King Street Patriots in predominantly minority precincts: about 14

Date on which fliers spreading misleading information about voting were distributed in primarily black neighborhoods in Houston: 10/26/2010

Number of complaints received in Wake County, N.C. about intimidating behavior by poll observers working on behalf of GOP congressional candidate and Tea Party favorite Bill Randall: at least two dozen

Date that voting officials in Buncombe County, N.C. heard complaints about voter intimidation: 10/26/2010

Number of people convicted of election fraud charges between October 2002 and September 2005 when the Bush administration was focusing on such crimes: 55

Of those, number convicted of casting fraudulent ballots: fewer than 20

Number convicted of voter registration fraud: 5

Date on which the U.S. Justice Department vowed to prevent any effort to intimidate voters: 10/27/2010