Whitehouse Explains Caging.

We need more Whitehouses in the Senate...

Thinkprogress:

Last week, the Senate Rules Committee held a hearing on the voter suppression tactic known as “caging.” Its first witness was Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a former U.S. attorney who has introduced a bill explicitly outlawing the procedure.

Whitehouse’s testimony clearly explained the tactic, which gained prominence during the U.S. attorney scandal. Karl Rove pushed heavily for the ouster of the U.S. attorney in Arkansas in order to install his protege, Tim Griffin. During his time as research director for the Republican National Committee in 2004, Griffin allegedly engaged in the caging of African-American servicemembers.

As Whitehouse notes, caging is a three-step process that targets voters of the opposite party, who are often minorities. The campaign sends “do not forward/return to sender” letters to those individuals, and then challenges the votes of those whom do not respond — even if they are servicemembers stationed abroad, as happened in 2004. From his remarks:

Indeed, vote caging was used as early as 1960 in Arizona and continued, in fits and starts, through the 2004 elections — when evidence surfaced that voter caging lists were being compiled. While not every voter caging effort is successful in disenfranchising large numbers of voters, the failure of a voter suppression effort is no excuse for its legality.