Via PoliticalMoneyLine comes news of Bush's newest nominee to the Federal Elections Commission, Hans von Spakovsky:

Nominated for the first time was Hans von Spakovsky, a Georgia Republican, and a Justice Department lawyer. Von Spakovsky was alleged to be one of the two Department of Justice lawyers who overruled the DOJ experts’ recommendation that the DOJ file a formal objection to the DeLay Texas redistricting plan under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Von Spakovsky has supported state programs to require voters to have photo identification. He has also written supporting stronger enforcement of the Beck decision, and informing workers they cannot be forced to pay dues for political, social or charitable contributions made by their unions. An October 2004 article by Jordan Green in Southern Exposure stated von Spakovsky worked as a volunteer for the Bush campaign during the Florida recount effort. Von Spakovsky would fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Republican Commissioner Brad Smith.

Here's what Jordan Green wrote on October 29, 2004:

Jeffrey Toobin, in the Sept. 20 edition of the New Yorker, reports that von Spakovsky is a longtime “voting integrity” activist from Georgia. Before coming to the Bush administration, he served on the board of advisers for an outfit known as the Voting Integrity Project (V.I.P.). In 1997, he wrote an article for the Georgia Public Policy Foundation advocating a campaign to “purge” felons from the voting rolls. The V.I.P. coordinated with Database Technologies, the company infamous for designing the program that disenfranchised thousands of legitimate Florida voters whose names were falsely matched with actual felons. During the 36-day recount in Florida, von Spakovsky worked as a volunteer for the Bush campaign.

Here's the article by Jeffrey Toobin:

One of the more controversial parts of the new law requires, in most circumstances, voters who have registered by mail to provide their driver’s license or Social Security numbers, and to produce an official photo I.D. at the polls, or a utility bill. Hans A. von Spakovsky, a counsel to Acosta and the main Justice Department interpreter of hava, wrote to Judith A. Armold, an assistant attorney general in Maryland, that the Justice Department believed states must “verify” the Social Security numbers that people submit on their registration forms. For most states, this requirement won’t apply until 2006, but it may be a major hurdle for both the states and newly registered voters. “What D.O.J. is saying is clearly contrary to the statute in our view,” Armold says.

Von Spakovsky, a longtime activist in the voting-integrity cause, has emerged as the Administration’s chief operative on voting rights. Before going to Washington, he was a lawyer in private practice and a Republican appointee to the Fulton County Registration and Election Board, which runs elections in Atlanta. He belonged to the Federalist Society, a prominent organization of conservative lawyers, and had also joined the board of advisers of a lesser-known group called the Voting Integrity Project.

The V.I.P. was founded by Deborah Phillips, a former county official of the Virginia Republican Party, as an organization devoted principally to fighting voting fraud and promoting voter education. In 1997, von Spakovsky wrote an article for the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, a conservative research group, that called for an aggressive campaign to “purge” the election rolls of felons. Within months of that article’s publication, the V.I.P. helped put von Spakovsky’s idea into action. Phillips met with the company that designed the process for the removal of alleged felons from the voting rolls in Florida, a process that led, notoriously, to the mistaken disenfranchisement of thousands of voters, most of them Democratic, before the 2000 election. (This year, Florida again tried to purge its voting rolls of felons, but the method was found to be so riddled with errors that it had to be abandoned.) During the thirty-six-day recount in Florida, von Spakovsky worked there as a volunteer for the Bush campaign. After the Inauguration, he was hired as an attorney in the Voting Section and was soon promoted to be counsel to the Assistant Attorney General, in what is known as the “front office” of the Civil Rights Division. In that position, von Spakovsky, who is forty-five years old, has become an important voice in the Voting Section. (Von Spakovsky, citing Justice Department policy, has also declined repeated requests to be interviewed.)

In a recent speech at Georgetown University, von Spakovsky suggested that voting integrity will remain a focus for the Justice Department, and that voter access might best be left to volunteers. “Frankly, the best thing that can happen is when both parties and candidates have observers in every single polling place, wherever the votes are collected and tabulated, because that helps make sure that nothing happens that shouldn’t happen, that the votes are counted properly, and that there is transparency to maintain public confidence in elections,” he said. “Not enough people volunteer to be poll-watchers. They ought to do that so that there are poll-watchers everywhere in the country throughout the whole election process.” The Bush-Cheney campaign has announced plans to place lawyers on call for as many as thirty thousand precincts on Election Day, to monitor for vote fraud. Democratic lawyers also plan to be out in force.

Will Senate Democrats confirm von Spakovsky??? Stay tuned...

Update: David Blue of Kos reports the nomination will go before the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. Chair is Trent Lott; ranking Dem is Christopher Dodd. Other Dems are Byrd, Inouye, Feinstein, Schumer, Dayton, Durbin, and Ben Nelson; other Republicans are Ted Stevens, Mitch McConnell, Thad Cochran, Santorum, K.B. Hutchison, Frist, Chambliss, Bennett, and Hagel. Some heavy hitters on both sides.