Voter suppression has been one of the hallmarks of the Republican Party but has reached its zenith under the Bush/Cheney administration.  It's implementation has taken many forms including: phone jamming,voter ID laws, which are essentially poll taxes, voter caging, and other forms of voter intimidation and dirty tricks.

This Segretti/Atwater/Rove legacy is still alive and well and thriving in the GOP which illegally tries and often succeeds in suppressing the votes of minorities, the poor, and others who tend to vote Democratic.

It's latest re-incarnation appears in the Department of Homeland Security, one of Bush's loyalist, heavily politicized government departments. 

As reported in the Washington Post, "The Department of Homeland Security failed to prepare for a massive influx of applications for U.S. citizenship and other immigration benefits this summer, prompting complaints from Hispanic leaders and voter-mobilization groups that several hundred thousand people likely will not be granted citizenship in time to cast ballots in the 2008 presidential election."

Is this just another example of Bush administration incompetence, the Bushite infested government intentionally working ineffectually, or is it a deliberate voter suppression policy, hidden by the unpreparedness excuse, so that hundreds of thousands of new citizens may be unable to vote in 2008?

It smells of the latter.  Citizenship applications that took about seven months to process will now take 16 to 18 months, causing future citizens to miss the voter registration deadlines for the 2008 elections.

Poor planning and coordination between the DHS and the State Department, plus increased citizenship application fees from $410 to $675 are the excuses being given for this supposed backlog.  But it could also be a convenient cover for suppressing former immigrants, future American citizens, from exercising their right to vote in 2008; probable votes for Democratic candidates.