I was on the Huckabee show this past weekend to talk about Bhenghazi, the Justice Department, New Black Panthers and whistleblowing.
Author Archives: J Christian Adams
Felon Voters in Palm Beach County to go scot-free
The latest example of the lack of will of prosecutors and incompetency of election officials in South Florida. Where is Governor Scott to “fix this”?
The Palm Beach Post reports that: Eight Palm Beach County felons who voted illegally in the 2012 primary
election will not be charged because authorities couldn’t prove they
were aware they didn’t have the right to vote. Meanwhile, two of the
felons remain on the Palm Beach County voter rolls.
The standard of “proving” criminal intent seems to be a bit different in Palm Beach than in the rest of the country. The story reveals that prosecutors have the registration applications and the absentee ballot paperwork to prove the felons voted illegally. Note the lack of proof that the “investigators” point to in determining that there was a lack of evidence. The lack of a confession is not a lack of evidence.
…Romagnoli spoke with seven of the eight men, each of whom said they
hadn’t been told by the supervisor of elections that they couldn’t vote
and hadn’t been turned away at the polls.
Why does anyone believe a felon who again committed another felony by voting is simply going to confess to investigators and admit their guilt to multiple felonies. The felons deny and investigators simply buy the explanation? When has that ever been the end of the story. Since when is there an affirmative duty of a local official to inform citizens not to break the law. Imagine: “The Sheriff didn’t tell me I couldn’t not grow marijuana in my basement so it must be OK.”
Then there is the response of the local election official pointing fingers at someone else:
… Though Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher said she thinks
the system for verifying voter eligibility is “slow and onerous,” she
has few alternatives. By law she is allowed to act on information from
other sources to remove felons from the voter rolls, but doesn’t do so.
She admits she is not taking all steps available, instead relying on “slow and onerous” information. If the system is “slow and onerous” in processing felons that is something Palm Beach County, Governor Scott and the Florida Legislature should fix.
Colorado’s “Rush to Failure”
Following a secret, months-long process and without any input from my office, voters or Republican legislators, Democrats rammed through legislation that fundamentally changes how we run our elections. Unfortunately, this election-law rewrite will lead to disaster. To begin, the bill forces Colorado into election policy that performs worse than our current system. The new bill mandates mail ballots for every voter and election-day registration. [Colorado voters overwhelmingly rejected both all-mail ballots and same day registration in 2002 ballot initiatives – by 15- and 21-point margins.] Currently, Colorado ranks third best in voter turnout nationwide — one of the few states that increased turnout in this last election. Colorado outperforms every all-mail ballot state in the country. And we outperform six of the eight election-day registration states. It appears that this bill, ostensibly designed to increase participation, is a previously-rejected solution in search of a problem. Read the entire piece in the Pueblo Chieftan for more reasons why “even if you like the policy, this bill is a rush to failure.”
Secretary of State Scott Gessler says “Colorado voters deserve better” than the election bill soon to be passed out of the Democrat-controlled legislature on straight party-line votes, which “fundamentally changes” how the state will run its elections:
“Ticket please” – the home of a Mount Vernon, NY voter was a guard shack
Dead persons voting. Double voting. Citizens voting with the registration address of a tennis guard shack. Election official failures to be sure but the Department of Justice (DOJ) doesn’t enforce that part of the law. The unsurprising result: “Voter Fraud alleged in Mount Vernon,” and a cry for help to the DOJ by concerned citizens wanting fair elections. Don’t hold your breath citizens, DOJ is too busy monitoring photo ID elections in Kansas, that hotbed of historical racial discrimination and defiance of federal voting laws.
A group calling itself Concerned Citizens of Mount Vernon is claiming
the 2012 school vote was rife with fraud and has sent letters to the
U.S. Department of Justice and state attorney general requesting
monitors for this year’s election and budget vote.“We
have a school board election coming up, and we want a fair and level
playing field for all candidates,” said Maria Caraballo, one of the
group’s members. Caraballo ran for the board last year, losing by 144 votes.
“Ticket please”
“Possible voter fraud under investigation” in Ohio
“A Columbus County resident could face felony charges of voter fraud for casting a ballot twice in the November 2012 election… One of the ballots was cast at the board of elections headquarters and then another absentee ballot cast at a different one-stop site the next morning.”
“How this Immigration Lawyer Learned to Love Voter ID”
A very interesting Wall Street Journal article on how stringent Motor Voter laws, mistakes by local DMV bureaucracies, and the lack of citizenship ID verification mistakenly register legal resident aliens to voter rolls. The result is years of deportation hearings and litigation over the potential felony. Just imagine what “automatic registration” would do exacerbate the issue of “mistaken registration.”
Excerpts from the piece:
Both sides of the debate present compelling arguments: Requiring proof
of citizenship would no doubt guard against voter fraud but could also
inconvenience or deter legitimate voters. Yet witnessing firsthand how
Motor Voter registration plays out for immigrants in Illinois and
Indiana—like the scenario described earlier—I have come to see how a law
like Arizona’s, or at least some validation process, might be good for
noncitizen immigrant
….A legal mechanism requiring proof of citizenship for voter
registration—such as Arizona’s Prop. 200 or some other validation
process—would have saved Ms. Keathley and our overburdened courts years
of grief. One hopes the Supreme Court takes cases like hers into
consideration when ruling on Prop. 200 and the alleged supremacy of the
federal Motor Voter law.
“Justice Department approves council’s unbalanced districts”
Link.
“The Left’s Intimidation Campaign over Shelby v. Holder”
No surprise here. Glad to see the rotted racially selective enforcement of Section 5, formerly done behind closed doors at 1800 G Street, now in the wide open and part of the Supreme Court’s deliberations on Shelby. The Voting Section is reaping the whirlwind they have sown. (See my article at PJ Media first breaking this rotted practice for another example.) National Review: Instead, Justice Scalia’s controversial comments referred to the Department of Justice’s refusal to invoke Section 5 to protect white voters. As a March inspector general report explains: [extensive quotes about the Voting Section sowing the whirlwind.] . . .
“Justice Scalia’s comments relate to the Department of Justice’s controversial enforcement of Section 5, which requires covered states to pre-clear all voting-laws changes with the DOJ or the United States District Court in D.C. This enforcement rarely involves voting practices that exclude minorities from the polls – the last twelve years has seen three cases – and such measures would be illegal in any case.
Section 5 Makes CBC Members Unelectable Statewide
So says an MSNBC story.
“While black-majority districts all but guarantee African-American representation, they also have the effect of stamping the members, fairly or not, as simply representing black interests,” Martin reports.
That makes for safe seats, but not launching pads for higher office, when a Member of Congress must appeal to a broader electorate. “It’s a less than preferable training ground,” Martin argues, “for a politician who wishes to run statewide among a more diverse electorate.”
This conclusion might also apply to Section 2 in some circumstances.
For an example of an unelectable Congressman outside of his own gerrymandered district, see Imagine a World Without Balloons.
“Beaumont voting rights case sparks heated debate in Washington court”
Link.