Author Archives: J Christian Adams

Inspector General says DOD, FVAP failed to implement MOVE Act registration offices

In a report released yesterday, the DOD Inspector General goes after the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) on multiple fronts, including the finding of a failure to comply with the MOVE Act by not establishing voter registration offices at military installations.  In a nutshell, DOD is only about halfway through the job, three years after the passage of the MOVE Act.

First, we have DOJ failing to enforce the MOVE Act until the fiasco of 2010.  Now, with less than 70 days to the Presidential election and military voting participation rates plummeting, this IG report criticizes FVAP and DOD for not complying with the most significant military voting legislation in 20 years.  This report is going to send shock waves throughout the political and elections arena.  Politico predicts a nasty showdown between House Republicans and the Obama Administration on the delay and foot-dragging in implementing the registration part of the MOVE Act.  ELC predicts more of a bipartisan outcry from the Congress.

Questions to ponder:  When has the Obama Administration ever laid down on the job on requiring full compliance with voter registration laws at public assistance or DMV offices in any number of states that have been sued?  Why is it that military voter registration offices get short thrift under the watch of the Obama Administration? 

Much of the focus on the MOVE Act has been with how the states comply with law; however, the IG report reveals that the DOD is failing to comply in even more significant ways than the states and DOJ lifts not a finger.  ELC will continue to investigate who made the decision inside DOD and FVAP to ignore the Congress and slow walk the implementation of these installation voting registration offices prior to the 2012 General Election.

Texas will appeal flawed voter ID ruling to Supreme Court

Fox News reports that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is in Tampa for the Republican
National Convention, called the ruling “deeply disappointing.” He said
the state is trying to prevent “fraudulent voting,” claiming, for
example, that hundreds of dead people were listed as voting in the
state’s recent primary.  “This is actually a national trend, where states are trying to do a
better job of securing the integrity of the ballot boxes, and yet courts
(are) pushing back against that, seemingly promoting and allowing
illegal voters to participate in the election process,” Abbott said.   …The panel, in the Texas case, unanimously ruled that the law imposes
“strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor,” who are often racial
minorities.

The ruling by the self-proclaimed “inferior court” rests on the fact that “the poor” will have to travel to the DMV to get a free photo ID and because “the poor” in certain areas of Texas have to travel longer distances than the “non-poor” and accordingly may spend more gas money on the trip.  Of course, the detractors of Texas voter ID still have no actual impacted victim to place on the stand but the speculation was enough for this court.  Of course, “the poor” are not a class protected by the Voting Rights Act (VRA) but the federal court improperly bootstrapped the Hispanic population into the new class of “the poor” in rural Texas.  The court ignored the fact that if a member of the now-protected class of “poor persons” is driving to the DMV and spending more money on gas, then they should already have a valid photo drivers license which they can use for photo ID at the polls.

ELC will have more on how the federal panel improperly parsed the words of the Supreme Court in coming to its flawed decision in the Texas Voter ID case.  The panel found no intentional discrimination and was only able to come to its conclusion by improperly throwing out valid and substantive evidence that photo ID laws have increased turnout in Indiana and Georgia in past elections.  This will be a easy flip for the Supreme Court, much easier than dealing with the larger issues of Section 5. 

Daily Caller on Holder and Thin Skin

Matt Boyle at the Daily Caller has this piece.

“Holder also reportedly scolded  an intern for Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy for taking notes during a lecture he gave recently, and snapped at Republican Rep. John Culberson last year for questioning the attorney general about the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case in a congressional hearing, which he said demeaned “my people.”


Holder has been criticized for what his detractors say is an inability to handle criticism. Former George W. Bush speechwriter and Center for Individual Freedom senior fellow Troy Senik, for example, argued in an editorial for TheDC earlier this year that Holder is unable to accept accept a theory or argument different than his own, and has a tendency to see criticisms of his performance as racially motivated.


“This is the controlling thesis — perhaps the only thesis — that occupies Eric Holder’s mind: any public policy he disfavors can’t be motivated by honest disagreements about first principles or empirical realities; it must be the product of prejudices buried deep within the subconsciousness of its proponents,” Senik wrote.


In December 2011, Holder accused his critics of racial motivations in an interview with The New York Times.”

PJ Media recently had a similar piece on thin skin.

With voter ID law, minority turnout goes up in Georgia

Atlanta Journal Constitution reports:  When Georgia became one of the first states in the nation to demand a photo ID at the ballot box, both sides served up dire predictions. Opponents labeled it a Jim Crow-era tactic that would suppress the minority vote. Supporters insisted it was needed to combat fraud that imperiled the integrity of the elections process.

But both claims were overblown, according to a review of by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution of statewide voting patterns in the five years since the law took effect.

Turnout among black and Hispanic voters increased from 2006 to 2010, dramatically outpacing population growth for those groups over the same period.

Alabama state GOP leaders say voter fraud is alive and well

Top lawmakers in the Alabama Legislature said Thursday that more
people voting in the Uniontown municipal election than there are voting
age people is a prime example of why the state needs to fight voter
fraud.

…About
125 percent of the voting age population in the town voted on Tuesday
and 45 percent of those who voted did so through an absentee ballot,
although the state average for voting absentee is 3 percent to 5
percent, according to the News report. 

Waggoner,
R-Vestavia Hills, said he doubts the situation was an “isolated
mistake” and “serves as a glowing example to any naysayers that voter
fraud is real.” 

Link to full story.

Minnesota voter ID amendment heads to November ballot “as is”

The Republican-controlled state Legislature
enjoyed two major victories last week as the Minnesota Supreme Court
ruled to keep the Legislature’s titles and questions on the ballot for
the voter ID and marriage amendment questions.  Amendment supporters were pleased with the outcome while opponents
reiterated concerns that the question and title wording could mislead
voters.  Title changes and lawsuits over the summer left the ballot wording in
flux for the highly controversial proposed constitutional amendments.  Link to full story

Voter Suppression Myth: “The real myth lies in the claim that voter ID laws suppress minority votes.”


Is voter suppression by voter ID a myth?  Yes, Fox News Latino reports:


 


Eight states currently have voter ID laws in effect including Indiana and Georgia. So if they liberal hypothesis holds true that voter ID laws suppress minority voters you would expect to see depressed turnout numbers.


 


But numerous studies have shown that states with voter ID rules have increased voter turnout.


A University of Missouri study found that voter turnout increased by 2 percent in the state of Indiana. The state – which has a strict photo requirement – saw the number of black voters double from 2004 to 2008 and the number of registered Democrats increased 8.3% in that same period.


 


Georgia, which also has a strict ID law, saw their largest voter turnout in history in 2008 as Democrat turnout jumped over six percent from the previous election according to an American University survey. 


 


Similar studies conducted by the University of Delaware and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have also shown that voter ID laws do not suppress voter turnout.



Yet the anti-ID crowd continues to assert facts not in evidence – facts refuted by evidence – that the commonsense voting integrity measure of showing a photo ID will “suppress” or “disenfranchise” millions of voters.  Experience shows otherwise.