Author Archives: J Christian Adams

New York counted lowest percentage of overseas, military ballots

No surprise @ the link.  New York had the poorest showing in the country when it came to counting overseas and military ballots last November, a new report from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission found. The national average for ballots counted was 93.2 percent. But in New York, 73.9 percent of the 22,303 ballots cast were counted.

A lack of enforcement by DOJ and willy-nilly waivers granted by FVAP results in thousands of voters being disenfranchised in 2010.  Of course, New York’s intransigence in failing to enact legislation to become fully MOVE compliant is part of the problem.  New York won’t budge until DOJ goes belatedly to a federal judge and finally begs the court to order New York into some state of compliance. 

I bet the co-author of the MOVE Act, Senator Schumer, didn’t expect New York to be stuck with the 2010 scarlet letter for throwing out the most military and overseas votes.   

EAC: Overseas and Military voters disenfranchised at higher rates than other voters

Some preliminary hard numbers received from the Election Assistance Commission’s (EAC) new study on UOCAVA voting in the 2010 election. 



  • Of the 211,749 UOCAVA ballots submitted for counting, States reported counting 197,390 (93%). The same percentage of UOCAVA ballots were counted in 2008.

Unfortunately, the 7% of individuals who had their ballots discarded is significantly higher than other comparable methods of voting.  Modifications to the MOVE Act may be necessary to reduce that rejection rate to comparable percentages for regular absentee ballot rates for non-UOCAVA voters.  It will be interesting to dig into the data and determine if the number of UOCAVA ballots used by the EAC in this analysis includes absent military voters in the Continental United States.  While absent military voters in the U.S. are defined as UOCAVA voters, they may not have the same challenges as overseas and military voters in remote locations. The UOCAVA voters in the U.S. would presumably have an increased rate of return and their inclusion in the numbers would skew the numbers upward.   From the report:    



  • States reported rejecting 14,824 ballots. The most common reason for rejecting a UOCAVA ballot was that the ballot was not received on time. Thirty-two percent of the ballots were not counted for this reason.

The large numbers of people directly disenfranchised by postal service limitations is very unfortunate.  The primary rejection cause for UOCAVA ballots is simply not enough time being provided for the ballot to make the lengthy and slow transit to an overseas location and back.  This failure rate more than justifies the MOVE Act’s 45 day requirement for mailing ballots and requires strict DOJ enforcement of this hard deadline.  The fact that time and distance is still the overwhelming obstacle to voting for UOCAVA voters argues for consideration of other methods and technologies that would shorten the transmittal process of the ballot.  The one issue that will take longer to glean from the data is the total participation rate of UOCAVA voters in the voting process.  More to follow.

Adams vs. X – Houston, Texas. October 18


I will be debating Quanell X, the head of the Houston chapter of the New Black Panther Party, on October 18 at the South Texas School of Law in Houston at 3:30 in the afternoon. Mr. X makes an appearance in my new book Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department. PJM reported on election day 2010 that Mr. X was barging into polling places and having white poll watchers ejected by African-American election officials. Naturally, Eric Holder’s Justice Department Voting Section did precisely nothing about it.


Mr. X’s organization plays a large part in my book Injustice and it will be interesting to see his take on the history of voter intimidation by his organization.

Nevada Redistricting hearings being held

In Nevada, redistricting positions laid out by the parties in whether Hispanic majority districts can or should be created.  Hearings are being held.

“Attorney Mark Hutchison, representing the Republican Party, argued that the Hispanic community
in central Las Vegas should form the basis for one of the four
congressional districts in any new redistricting plan.

Attorney Marc Elias, representing Democrats, argued that while communities of interest
should be considered, there is no requirement in the federal Voting
Rights Act that a predominantly Hispanic district be created.”

and more:

Attorney Daniel Stewart, representing Clark County resident Daniel
Garza, who opposed SB497, said the congressional districts in the bill
inappropriately “fractured” the Las Vegas Hispanic community into three
different districts to create three safe Democrat congressional seats.

 “This is a perfect example of what I think the masters shouldn’t do,” he said.

But Elias warned that any effort to focus exclusively on creating one
Hispanic congressional district could lead to “racial gerrymandering”
which would put any plan approved by Russell at risk for a federal court
challenge. It is not possible to draw a congressional district in Las
Vegas that would have a majority of eligible Hispanic voters, he said.

On the Source, natiowide right now

Until 9pm EDT.  Talking about Injustice.

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Brewer describes AZ redistricting map as “thievery” and alleges Commission of gross misconduct and neglect of duties

In Arizona, a link describing the aftershocks of the so-called “compromise plan” which takes a red state majority and flips it to Democratic majority status.  These compromise lines in a state where Democrats fail to occupy any statewide office, Senate office and Republicans maintain veto-proof red margins in the state legislature.  



Gov. Jan Brewer criticized a proposed redistricting map that virtually guarantees at least four of the state’s nine congressional districts will be represented by her fellow Republicans and makes three others competitive. “It’s like thievery,” Brewer said “It’s absolutely egregious as far as I’m concerned,” she said of the maps adopted Monday night by the Independent Redistricting Commission.



….Brewer suggested, though, that her objections may go beyond simply voicing her concerns.  The law empowers the governor to recommend the Senate remove any member of the commission who is not doing her or his job. And Mathis has come under fire from Republicans who charge she sides too much with the Democrats.  The governor wouldn’t say on Wednesday whether she intends to exercise that option. “But, obviously, someone is not doing their job,” she said.…Colleen Mathis, the registered independent who chairs the panel, defended the plan.  “It’s a compromise map,” she told the Arizona Republic. 

However, observers are pointing to comments from political experts on the partisan tilt leftwards and the long-reaching ramifications of this map: “National political analyst Stuart Rothenberg, author of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report, said the proposed congressional map has “significant partisan implications,” and “really helps Democrats and screws Republicans.”

Based on the statements below from Gov. Brewer,  repeated missteps of the independent redistricting commission have raised questions of neglect of duty and gross misconduct:


“Allegations have been rampant throughout the redistricting process that the IRC has violated the law, from its refusal to cooperate with a state investigation, to its disregard of procurement procedures and Arizona’s Open Meeting Law,” Governor Brewer said. “I’ve held my tongue, waiting for the results of the Arizona Attorney General’s investigation and hoping the IRC would put forward a fair proposal consistent with the requirements set forth in the Arizona Constitution. This map dashes those hopes, and I’ll be silent no longer. Arizona voters are owed a redistricting process that is lawful and transparent. The Arizona Constitution mandates that IRC members conduct redistricting ‘in an honest, independent and impartial fashion, upholding public confidence in the integrity of the redistricting process.’ Based on this proposal and the IRC’s prior behavior, it seems clear the commission is bent on awarding to the Democratic Party control of congressional districts that it could not win on Election Day. This is nothing less than neglect of duty and gross misconduct.”

Brennan Center exposed

One of the topics of my book Injustice are voter fraud deniers like the Brennan Center.  They serve as an ideological smokescreen for verified criminal activity.  I received this from an election lawyer today:

Yesterday the “nonpartisan” Brennan Center released a report (http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/voting_law_changes_in_2012) attacking state legislation to improve the integrity of the voting process, such as voter ID requirements. A perfect example of Brennan’s actual partisan bias appears in the report, which explicitly treats statements by Republicans as not credible and statements by Democrats as inherently authoritative. A passage on page 18 reads:


 


“Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, for example, claimed that up to 11,805 non-citizens were registered to vote in Colorado, while Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach claimed to have found 67 noncitizens illegally registered to vote in Kansas. These claims were hotly disputed, and they have since been debunked. [FN148] Nonetheless, Representative Gregg Harper (R-MS) called the finding “shocking,” and at a hearing he chaired on the topic, said, “[w]e simply cannot have an electoral system that allows thousands of non-citizens to violate the law and vote in our elections … [w]e must do more to protect the integrity of our electoral processes.””


 


So what do they mean when they say Secretary Gessler’s claims have been “debunked”? The footnote cited for that claim (FN148) says:


 


“See Keesha Gaskins, Smoke and Mirrors: Alleged Non-Citizen Voting in NM and CO, Brennan Center for Justice (Apr. 1, 2011), http://www.brennancenter.org/blog/archives/smoke_and_mirrors_alleged_non-citizen_voting_in_new_mexico_and_colorado/. Congressman Henry [sic] Gonzalez (D-TX) questioned Mr. Gessler’s claims, saying “No attorney would go before a judge with a report in which the main claims are preceded by such terms as ‘inconclusive’, ‘incomplete’, and ‘impossible to provide a precise number’ … ensuring the integrity of our elections is far too important a matter to base decisions on a study that mischaracterizes empirical data, neglects even the most obvious analysis of that data, and hides these failings behind terms like ‘tentative’ and ‘preliminary.’” Press Release, Kyle Anderson, Colorado Voter Registration Study Questioned during House Administration Hearing On a Look Back at What Went Right and Wrong with the 2010 Election (Apr. 1, 2011), available at http://democrats.cha.house.gov/press-release/colorado-voterregistration-study-questioned-during-house-administration-committee.”


 


There are two sources in that footnote. One is a post on Brennan’s own blog, which says of Secretary Gessler’s research: “Without the underlying reports and methodologies from New Mexico and Colorado, the conclusions cannot be fully supported or dismissed. With the information we have to date, for all the reasons stated above, any conclusions drawn from these two states must be scrutinized and cannot yet be taken at face value.” Hardly a scathing rebuttal. The other source is Representative Henry Gonzalez, a Democrat on the Committee on House Administration who attacked Secretary Gessler for being honest enough to state the limitations of his work — without offering any evidence the Colorado report was incorrect.


 


So a Democrat’s unsupported attacks are to be taken as both true and sufficient to counter the carefully described research of one Republican and the commentary on that research by another. “Nonpartisan” indeed.


 


Oh, and by the way – a credited contributor to the report is Myrna Perez, whose nomination to serve on the Election Assistance Commission is pending in the Senate.