Old Allegations of Voter Fraud Resurface in U.S. Attorneys Case

As the saga of the fired U.S. attorneys slugs along, the focus is zeroing in on allegations of voter fraud in both Washington state and New Mexico, both places where the U.S. attorney was sacked late last year. White House officials are now suggesting that a resistance to investigating allegations of election manipulation by Democrats was behind the firings of the two attorneys in those states, the Washington Post reports.

Here's a timeline of the allegations in Washington state put together by U.S. News librarian Jennifer L. Jack. We'll have another timeline for New Mexico later today, along with further analysis.

Sept. 19, 2001: John McKay is nominated by President Bush to be U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington.

Oct. 24, 2001: McKay is confirmed by the Senate.

November 2004: Initial vote count and machine recount show Republican Dino Rossi ahead in the Washington governor's race by 261 and 42 votes respectively. Democrat Christine Gregoire wins on a subsequent manual recount by 129 votes.

November/December 2004: A few weeks after the election, McKay receives a call from Ed Cassidy, the chief of staff for Republican U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington state, inquiring about possible voter fraud. He tells Cassidy the call is improper and also mentions the call to his top staffers.

Jan. 4, 2005: Craig Donsanto, chief of the Department of Justice's Public Integrity Election Fraud Section, tells McKay's office that they would likely not have the jurisdiction to prosecute any voter fraud allegations in the election of Christine Gregoire because it was a state race and that the should wait and see how the GOP challenge to Gregoire's election played out in court.

Jan. 7, 2005: Dino Rossi, state GOP Chairman Chris Vance, and other Republicans file a lawsuit alleging that illegal votes by felons as well as errors in the election count robbed Rossi of victory.

January 2005: McKay conducts a preliminary review of allegations of voter fraud. He, along with four lawyers and FBI agents talk with GOP attorney Dale Foreman and examine a shoebox of absentee ballots that Tim McCabe, executive VP of the Building Industry Association, alleged were forged. McKay concludes that there was no solid evidence of voter fraud.

April 7, 2005: The Evergreen Freedom Foundation files a complaint with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales about what they view as McKay's lax oversight in the 2004 gubernatorial election. Read the letter here.

June 6, 2005: Chelan County Judge John Bridges throws out the GOP's election challenge and says that while there were more than 1600 illegal votes, there was no evidence that ballots were changed, the ballot box was stuffed, or votes were removed from either candidate's ballot box. Gov. Christine Gregoire's election is upheld.

Dec. 14, 2006: McKay is asked to step down. He is not given a reason for his dismissal and is also notified that he would not be nominated to be a federal judge in Seattle. He announces that he will be retuning to the private sector effective Jan. 26, 2007.

March 6, 2007: At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Mckay was asked about his conversation with Cassidy regarding future investigations into voting fraud. Mckay testified:

"When Mr. Cassidy called me on future action, I told him that -- I stopped him and I told him that I was sure that he wasn't asking me on behalf of his boss to reveal information about an ongoing investigation or to lobby me on one, because we both knew that would be improper. He agreed that it would be improper and ended the conversation in a most expeditious fashion.

"I was concerned and dismayed by the call. I immediately summoned the first assistant United States attorney and the criminal chief from my office into my office, and I briefed them on the details of the call. We all agreed that I stopped Mr. Cassidy before he entered clearly inappropriate territory and that it was not necessary to take the matter any further."

Sources: The Associated Press, The News Tribune, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Seattle Times, and the Department of Justice.

Etc.: New Fights Over Who Gets to Vote, on USNews.com