“In a memo outlining his reasons for declining charges, Walter Forgie, felony supervisor for the State Attorney’s Office in Lake County, said prosecutors couldn’t prove Robbins intended to commit voter fraud. But Forgie also said the chief “should have used better judgment in assuring his voter registration information was accurate at the time of requesting the absentee ballot and voting in the general election.”

More here.

More.

This blog posted about the flawed position of Joe Reed, chair of the Alabama Democratic Conference.  Reed thinks the new Alabama law prohibiting PAC to PAC money transfers should be reviewed under the Voting Rights Act by the Eric Holder Justice Department.  One can only hope his request is dismissed out of hand.  If it is not, litigants challenging the Voting Rights Act have a tempting dish to serve to the United States Supreme Court in their challenges to Section 5.  For such a review would be well outside the constitutional scope of Section 5.  Section 5 does not relate to campaign finance issues.  Alabama should promptly report any inquiry whatsoever by the DOJ to the attorneys litigating the Section 5 challenges (and to the reporters covering the challenges also!) so that the inquiry becomes part of the litigation.  Hopefully, no Section 5 review will take place.

AL.com  has an editorial today on the matter.

“The Justice Department should reject this illogical argument on its face. Reed’s claim is a lame justification to go back to the deceptive system of financing political campaigns before the PAC-to-PAC crackdown.”

Washington Post.

Monday’s hearing is getting more reaction beyond the push to pass legislation stripping DOJ of monopoly enforcement powers and give soldiers the right to sue to get ballots.  Some more:

Rep. Aaron Schock:
“Some election authorities were derelict in their duty, but were let off too easy by the U.S. Department of Justice and it was the military personnel serving overseas who paid the price by not being allowed to participate in an American election,” continued Schock.

Memo to Justices Scalia and Kennedy:  Take note that the State of Alabama, for reasons yet to be determined, feels the need to submit this legislation to the Justice Department for Section 5 preclearance under the Voting Rights Act:  “Representatives from the Alabama Education Association will be banned from visiting two-year college campuses to enroll new members, under a rule imposed last week by the state’s Department of Postsecondary Education.  The ruling comes in the wake of the passage of a law known as Senate Bill 2, or SB2, which prohibited teachers from having their union dues automatically deducted from their paychecks. . . .Supporters of the bill — mostly members the newly-elected GOP majority — said the measure was needed because taxpayers shouldn’t’t foot the bill for contributions that go to political candidates.”

In other words, rules implementing prohibitions on public sector unions and limiting campus access to violate this law are subject to review under the Voting Rights Act.  This is not what the Voting Rights Act is for and the power to do this doesn’t exist.

Is this because DOJ has said they believe the rules must be submitted for approval under the Voting Rights Act?  If so, the Alabama Secretary of State or Attorney General (where staffers frequent this blog) should contact the address at the side of the page.  Or, folks will be contacting you shortly.

More at PJ Tatler.

The Voting Rights Act was intended to leverage federal power to prevent states from backsliding towards discrimination.  It was not intended to create federal oversight over a wide swath of state political activities.  If the DOJ attempts to use the Voting Rights Act to control rules against union recruitment on campuses, then it is applying the Voting Rights Act in an unconstitutional fashion and it should be declared so by a court.  Better yet, Alabama shouldn’t be playing along with the charade and submitting these matters to the Justice Department in the first place. 

North Carolina. 

More North Carolina.

Missouri.

I’ll be on the Martha Zoller show statewide across Georgia on Thursday in the 11 a.m. hour to discuss how military voters were disenfranchised in 2010 and what Senators Cornyn and Barrasso are doing to try to help them.  Here are the 19 affiliate stations.

“The politicization of the Justice Department”