Another perspective:
Quote:
As voter-intimidation exercises go, it wasn’t much. In 2008, a lone white voter reported he had encountered two black men dressed all in black, one carrying a nightstick, at his Philadelphia polling place in a predominantly black neighborhood. The armed man was escorted away by police, and no one reported the incident to the local district attorney. But the incident was caught on camera, making it great fodder for cable news because political campaigns were actively scouting for voter-intimidation cases they could use against opponents.
Several months after the 2008 Election Day incident (and 13 days before President Obama was sworn in) the Department of Justice filed a civil lawsuit against the NBPP under the Voting Rights Act, alleging voter intimidation. In May 2009, Justice—now led by Attorney General Eric Holder, Obama's appointee—successfully obtained an injunction against King Samir Shabazz, the man who carried the nightstick, then dropped the suit, Fox News reported. A spokeswoman at Justice says a career attorney made the call, which was then affirmed by an appointee, because "the facts and the law did not support pursuing claims against the other defendants in the case. A federal judge determined that the relief requested by the Department was appropriate."
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/14/t...ew-acorn0.html
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Voter intimidation cases are exceedingly hard to prove which is why there have so few in the 40+ years of the Voting Rights Act.
To have any chance of success, at the very least, there was be claims by voters that they were intimidated and at least some evidence to support it. This case had neither, which perhaps explains why the DoJ took the option of a civil injunction against the one guy rather than commit resources to a case they felt they could not win.
One final thought or question for The Mercinary:
Why is this case any different than the circumstances at a Arizona polling place where an avowed anti-immigrant Minuteman was at a poll place in 2006 armed with a 9mm Glock and questioning Hispanic voters to determine if they spoke English? The Bush DoJ chose not to pursue it.