Democrats are enraged again. Not on photo ID, not on citizenship verification, not even on removing dead or ineligible voters. That’s so yesterday. No, this time the outrage is caused by seeming reasonable absentee ballot reforms (endorsed by local election officials) and third party ballot access changes. The reasonable reforms struck quite the nerve, enough so that opponents obtained enough signatures to put it to a referendum.
Selected Texas driver’s license offices are expanding their days of operations to include Saturdays, offering potential voters another window to apply for a free photo IDs required of voters. The electronic identification certificates are valid for six years, and can only be used for voter identification. Nearly 50 offices around the state will be open for four hours on Saturdays, solely to handle requests for the certificates. They are intended to aid voters who do not yet have a viable form of ID. The extended hours begin Saturday and end Nov. 2.
The Daily Caller reports on highly partisan activity by two major institutions in our federal government.
“[The CBC] had the IRS members there specifically to advise them on
how far to go campaigning without violating their tax-exempt status,”
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told The Daily Caller.
“I viewed the meeting as highly problematic. Eric Holder
heads the agency that prosecutes organizations who give false
information to the government. The Justice Department coordinates with
the IRS on actions taken against not-for-profits. These ministries are
given not-for-profit status on the basis that they are not engaging in
any political activities. Here, the Obama administration was clearly
encouraging them to maximize their efforts by showing them where the
lines were drawn in federal case law,” Turley said.
“It is a fundamental precept that cabinet members should not engage in political activities.
The most important of those cabinet members would be the attorney
general of the United States. To have the attorney general actively
advising political allies of the president showed remarkably poor
judgment on his part,” Turley told TheDC.“I believe this session undermined the integrity of the justice
department, signaled to other Justice Department officials that the
attorney general wants to support these black ministries as much as
possible,” Turley said.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
“Authorities in Virginia are investigating a potential voter fraud case involving former congressional candidate Jeffrey Barnett, an active member of the Democratic Party and supporter of gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe.”
Based on “a cursory public records search” it seems “the Belluccis were no longer residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia when they voted in November 2012,” Cameron Quinn, general registrar of Fairfax County’s Office of Elections, wrote in her Aug. 14 letter.
Information gathered by the office of elections “appears to show voter registration fraud,” Quinn wrote. A spokesman for the Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney, to whom the letter was sent, would not comment on an ongoing investigation, but said that potential criminal cases are generally referred to state law enforcement authorities for investigation.
When the Belluccis showed up to vote in November, an election officer, Virginia Norton, challenged their Virginia residency, saying she personally knew that they had moved to Annapolis, Md. The couple said they were “homeless” at the time, according to a letter Norton sent to her state delegate, and living in a guesthouse at 1135 Basil Road in McLean, Va., a property owned by Jeffrey Barnett since 1999, according to state records.
Washington Free Beacon.
Naturally, because the accused are Democrats, the Washington Post has zero coverage of the matter as of now, except to note that the accused bought a home in Maryland in the real estate transactions section.
A New Mexico man recently convicted of conspiring to steal money intended for voter education efforts was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release.…Prosecutors said the two consultants conspired to get more money than they were due out of New Mexico’s $19 million share of Help America Vote Act funds. The indictment charged $2.5 million in fraud.
More at the Link.
Prosecutors say $2.5 million was bilked. While Vigil was not indicted, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tara Neda said in federal court that the former secretary of state was involved in the scheme. Neda said Vigil hired Gutierrez and his media company to produce commercials, and that Gutierrez used the HAVA money to pay cash to buy a home in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Capitol Soup in Florida provides the details here. The Florida Secretary of State will conduct roundtable discussions on the integrity of the voter rolls at regional meetings throughout the state.
“I am embarking on the Project Integrity roundtable tour to collaborate with Supervisors to protect the integrity of our voter rolls,” said Secretary of State Ken Detzner. “Through transparency and the statutory due process protection afforded to every voter, we can ensure the continued integrity of our voter rolls while protecting the voting rights of eligible voters from those who may cast an illegal vote. Our elections process must uphold the integrity of local voter rolls, and I look forward to the participation from Supervisors of Elections to strengthen our elections statewide. As Secretary of State, it is my duty to defend the right to vote in Florida. Project Integrity will provide needed information on the process used to safeguard our voter rolls.”
In Texas, as everywhere: “The problem with in-person vote fraud is that there is almost no way to detect it under the current system. “Changing the system to require voters to present a trusted form of identification will put in place a manner whereby fraud can be detected. Currently, the sheer number of registered voters on the rolls versus the number who actually vote makes it easy to impersonate other voters and very unlikely that anyone would notice. And if they did? It would only be noticed by the legitimate voter only after the fraud had occurred and the impersonator had long left the polling place. There is no way for officials to know who the person was who committed the fraud and thus you get no meaningful investigation and prosecution.”