Is Jill Holtzman Vogel Implicated in RNC/GWB04 Multi-State Vote Supression?

Jill Holtzman Vogel is listed at Sourcewatch. This is what they say about her:

According to her firm profile, Vogel "specializes in ethics, campaign finance and tax exempt organizations. In addition to managing the firm, in February 2004, she was named Chief Counsel of the Republican National Committee. As counsel, she led the national party's legal effort during the 2004 Presidential election. Prior to founding the practice, she served as Deputy Counsel at the Department of Energy, overseeing the transition and working with the White House, Energy Secretary Abraham, and other Federal Agencies to implement Energy initiatives. Prior to that, she served as Deputy Counsel at the Republican National Committee. During November and December of 2000, she served as counsel in the Florida Presidential Recount, acting on behalf of the Bush-Cheney campaign in West Palm Beach and in Osceola County. She also served as staff counsel for the 1996 Republican National Convention in San Diego, California. Jill holds a B.A. in Government and Religion from the College of William and Mary, and a J.D. from DePaul University School of Law in Chicago, Illinois."

It appears that there was a plan that was characterized as "a goldmine" in these communications. Plans were being made about several other states, and discussion about which states they could operate in. The plan was to develop a list of voters that the RNC/GWB04 could challenge, sometimes in coordination with the state Republican Parties. It starts with mail being sent to a group of voters. It can be random, or because the voter requested an Absentee Ballot. If the mail is not successfully delivered and returns, that voter is added to the 'challenge' list. In some states, the returned mail the agency gets back is available as a list of voters. I believe, but I am not able to confirm, that there is a consent agreement between a court and the RNC concerning challenging votes. I was not able to find any substantial information.  There is some evidence that voter groups such as ACORN and others were targeted in these mail challenges. At the time, there was a lot of noise about how 'those groups' just couldn't possibly have registered that many people. It turns out that the voter registration operations are not always above board or organized very well.

If this is done on a large enough scale, potentially hundreds of thousands of people were disenfranchised. I am only aware of the states listed in the emails where this operation took place. Florida, Ohio and New Mexico seems to have been the focus here.  And the legal teams of all these entities, including Jill Holzman Vogel, were up to their necks in it. The emails show there were lawyers copied in the emails, including Jill Holzman Vogel.

Suggested participants were listed: Ed Gillespie, Blaise Hazelwood, Jill Holtzman Vogel...

Times were mentioned for, I presume, a conference call for all of them to compare notes.

Jill Holtzman Vogel replies at one point, when there is discussion of a time for the call. She agreed on some suggested times.

The communications are actually several iterations of emails that were obtained when a portion of the campaign started sending their emails to a government parody site by mistake. (Whitehouse.org)

Here are the emails.

I got my copy from the website of the PBS show "Now". Here is their link to the same documents I reference in this article.

This is the information page from that episode. Here is the transcript. I am in possession of the sample file of  a challenge list from Jacksonville, Fl. Most of the listed were either minorities, military members on deployment, or college students who addresses were invalid during the summer. Former US Attorney David Iglesias was also on "Now"  talking about the pressure for him to prosecute non-existent voter registration fraud.

The members of the team sending and/or receiving emails:

Coddy Johnson -  National Field Director, GWB 04
Michael Magan
Robert Paduchik
Dave DenHerder
Christopher Guith
Caroline Hunter - Commisioner of Federal Election Assistance Commission (one of 4)
Terry Nelson
Tim Griffin - Temporarily appointed by AG/Bush to Arkansas
  US Attorney
Christopher Guith
Blaise Hazelwood
Sean Cairncross
Christopher P.McInerney
Kevin Madden  - Comm Dir- Tom DeLay, DOJ press liason, Boehner Comm Dir.,
  Romney 08 Comm. Dir.
? Mauk  (Ohio GOP)
Shawn Reinschmiedt
Amanda Walker
Jack Christopher
Janey Rudd
Lauren Barnett
Wade Lairson
Michael Neal
John Parker
Tyler Lown
David Rachelson
Kelly Ganzberger
Trey Best
Zach Dietch
Courtney Sanders
Holland Patterson
Jim Dyke
Jennifer Millerwise
Reed Dickens

As you can see, I have started looking into the backgrounds of some of the participants in this potentially illegal activity. The ones you see the most information about above are the ones I thought were fascinating.  A former participant in vote suppression is a Commissioner  of the Federal Election Assistance Commission.  These stories just tell themselves sometimes.

Email images:

So, that's it. That's what I have on this subject, other than some notes and some tangential items to this situation. I would appreciate hearing what you have to say in comments.

It is important that Jill Holtzman Vogel not be elected to the Virginia Senate. This is not being openly investigated right now, but we don't need a Senator whose mind is on a potential court case (should this be prosecuted) instead of doing her job as a Senator.

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