Delicious Irony.

Two candidates who appeared to lose the Republican primary election for
seats on Parsippany’s Township Council are alleging that illegal mail-in
votes were cast and have filed full-blown legal challenges to the
results.

Link to story here.

The New York Times couldn’t help themselves. So the Demolition Derby between North Carolina and the New York Times continues with one additional pearl of wisdom from the Editorial Page Editor’s Blog.  Gentlemen, start your engines. 

An editorial last week lamented North Carolina’s abandonment of progressive policies in the
seven months since Republicans took control of both the executive and
legislative branches in the Tar Heel State for the first time since
reconstruction. The piece cited backward slides in areas such as public education,
tax fairness, voting, abortion rights and the mean-spirited slashing of
federal unemployment benefits for roughly 70,000 residents.

To that depressing list, I would add one more item: the destruction of North Carolina’s public financing system for judicial elections.

...The Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizen United ruling and subsequent
campaign-finance decisions diminished the program’s effectiveness. Now,
instead of making changes to strengthen it, North Carolina is on the
verge of eliminating it. The state legislature is finalizing a budget
that eliminates financial support for the program, making it a hollow
shell.

There’s also a chance the legislature will compound the damage to the
judiciary. A bill expected to be introduced this week would turn the
state’s non-partisan judicial elections into partisan elections with
heightened involvement of the political parties.  Just what North
Carolina needs.

Another loss for election integrity.  Sixth Circuit opinion here.

NBC29.com out of Virginia reports:

A judge has dismissed all the charges
against Colin Small, who was accused of voter fraud. The judge said
Small was careless but none of his acts were criminal.

The political operative was charged with
misdemeanor voter fraud after investigators say he dumped a bag with
eight voter registration forms into a recycling bin last October.

Small, 23, took the stand in his own
defense. After a judge dismissed eight felony counts of misusing Social
Security numbers, five misdemeanor voter fraud charges were brought
against Small, but those too were dismissed Tuesday.

The Corner is following the back and forth between the New York Times and North Carolina. My only comment:  I doubt any member of the New York Times editorial board has ever been to a demolition derby. 

On July 9, the New York Times editorial page portentously announced “The Decline of North Carolina.” “The editors warned that ever since last November, when Republicans won
the governor’s mansion and both legislative houses for the first time
since Reconstruction, the government of the Tar Heel state has become “a
demolition derby, tearing down years of progress in public education,
tax policy, racial equality in the courtroom and access to the ballot.”

The response from North Carolina.

…..Although, your “demolition derby” of hyperbole did miss the mark on our
legislative agenda. The voter ID laws we’re “rushing” through have
actually been in the works since January. The convicted death row
inmates you defend – those guilty of some of our state’s most egregious,
violent crimes – already have an avenue to prove discrimination, one
that doesn’t rely on faulty political science research. What was it, exactly, about North Carolina that you found so
“farsighted”? Was it double-digit unemployment? Horrendous dropout
rates? Declining wages? The highest taxes in the Southeast?

After fraudulent votes are cast, some prosecutors in Minnesota are willing to go after voter fraud crimes. However, the key is to implement laws and procedures to prevent double voting.  In the Faribault Daily News, at least today, voter fraud exists. Tomorrow, the voter fraud deniers will claim it doesn’t. 

Voter fraud charges have been filed against two Somali women who
say they didn’t realize they voted twice in the general election last
November.

Farhiya Abdi Dool, 38, and Amina A Hassan, 31, each face one
felony charge for voting once by absentee ballot and once at a polling
place during the 2012 general election. The women, both naturalized U.S.
citizens, were charged June 21 via complaint summons and will make
their first appearances in Rice County District Court next Monday.

Neither woman has an attorney listed in court
documents as representing them. But supporters of Dool’s say that her
actions were an honest mistake that shouldn’t be punished with a felony
charge.

Each woman faces five years in prison and a $10,000 fine for the offense.

Republicans focused on 107 state legislative seats in 16 states where GOP wins in four or five Democratic districts per state would enable the Republicans to re-shape about 190 congressional districts. Leading GOP strategist Ed Gillespie ran this operation. He took over the Republican State Leadership Committee, and the party poured more than $30 million into these contests. It also spent many millions on various gubernatorial contests.

REDMAP succeeded brilliantly. In 2010, the GOP netted some 700 state seats, increasing its share of state House and Senate seats by almost 10 percent, from approximately 3200 to over 3900. It took over both legislative chambers in 25 states and won total control of 21 states (legislature and governorship) — the greatest such victory since 1928. In 17 of these states, GOP legislatures controlled the congressional redistricting for 173 seats. The other five GOP states have only one congressional district or rely on an independent commission.

Republicans promptly went on a gerrymandering spree. In 2011, the GOP remapped these states to protect congressional and state Republicans in newly acquired competitive districts.

I will be on with Lou Dobbs tonight on Fox News.  7 pm.

Link