The Republican-led attempt to unseat from the Texas Legislature newly elected Democrat Hubert Vo, will require more voter intimidation, says a source close to the Vo campaign. In order to prove that Vo does not deserve to keep his narrowly won seat, Republican attorneys will have to produce alleged "illegal voters" in west Houston precincts, drag them into public view, and then compel them to testify under oath who they voted for.

"Conceptually speaking," says our source, "asking people who they voted for has a lot of implications. The easy part of voting is knowing that no one will ever know who I voted for. If this assurance is violated, then people may never vote against a powerful person again. Making people disclose their votes is the ultimate form of intimidation."

Intimidation before, during, and after elections is the Republican way. It is what connects Florida 2000 to Ohio 2004, and now to the Republican-led challenge against Hubert Vo. For this reason you may stay tuned to the Texas Civil Rights review for further updates. We will not be intimidated out of our civil rights.

The Texas Civil Rights Review is taking an interest in the Republican-led effort to unseat newly elected Democrat Hubert Vo. As argued in a recent article on the "Whitewashing of Election Fraud" (see below) we see the struggle to maintain Vo's seat as part of a national civil rights struggle.

Despite the intensity of the Republican challenge so far, our source reports that "things are going well--so far all the signals are in our favor." Yet that seems difficult to believe this week.

"From the beginning the Texas Speaker of the House has been sending signals that he doesn't want to proceed with this challenge," reports our source. "But the process keeps moving forward. How can the process keep moving forward without the Speaker wanting to proceed?"

So why does the source think that signals are good? For one thing, the deadline for producing a complete list of alleged illegal voters has been set for early next week. If the Speaker were more sympathetic to the challenge, he might be giving the anti-Vo camp more time to collect their case.

So far, the allegations include claims that 14 people voted twice, once via mail, and then again on election day. But our source tells us that the 14 people in question happen to live on the same block. This leads our source to believe that a "keying error" is a more likely explanation for the double count. (Frankly, we have to admit that we don't know enough about the "keying" process to make an independent assessment about this.)

Here's the tactical schedule:

--Dec. 14 (Tuesday): Deadline for submission to Vo campaign of complete list of alleged "illegal voters."

--Dec. 15 (Wednesday): Conference call between parties.

--Early January: Completion of discovery phase.

--Early February: Formal hearing on election contest in Texas legislature.