“Sometimes vote suppression is as important in this business as vote-getting.”

June 20, 2007 by J. Gerald Hebert Inside the Vote Cage: Griffin, Goodling and McNulty (No, Not Another Lawfirm)

“Sometimes vote suppression is as important in this business as vote-getting.” - Carl Golden, Republican Campaign Spokesperson [1]
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This Administration appointed to the post of U.S. Attorney in Arkansas an RNC operative suspected of developing a caging scheme in Florida in 2004 targeting minority voters – many of them serving overseas in the Armed Forces. And when the Ohio Republican Party was challenged in court to stop a vote caging scheme days prior to the 2004 election, the DOJ weighed in – against the voters who were trying to stop it.
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The problem with using a caging list to challenge voters is simple. First, the list is most often produced using criteria aimed at a particular racial group (picking out African-American precincts, for example). Second, there are plenty of reasons why mail sent to a validly registered voter might be returned as undeliverable or without the signed return receipt requested. For instance, the voter may be serving abroad in the military or away at college. Address errors, especially in urban areas, are common. A voter may have forgotten to put his or her apartment number on the voter registration form. Typographical errors in preparing the list of voters to whom mail will be sent – Gonzalez becomes Gonzales – can also result in a piece of mail being returned as undeliverable when in fact the voter may live there. Moreover, such typographical errors on registration rolls can also lead one to conclude, in error, that someone is not registered to vote when in fact that person is validly registered.

Most common, the voter may have recently moved but still be validly registered to vote. In vote caging schemes where a return receipt is requested, voters simply may not want to accept mail from that particular political party. Reportedly, this was the case in Ohio in 2004, when African-American voters did not want to accept mail from the GOP.