Legal Insurrection:  Sotomayor dissent: Removal of “race-sensitive” preferences equals “stacking the deck” and “forcing the minority alone to surmount unique obstacles”

In his speech on race and voting, Obama included bogus numbers of total voting rights cases including military voting cases where DOJ failed to monitor the states, amicus briefs and even cases where DOJ was the defendant.  Politifact nails President Obama as telling “half-truths” which equates to a deceptive half lie and partial truths on most days.  Attorney General Holder says the American people are entitled to a frank and honest discussion on race.  Instead, it was full of half-truths and lies.

We sent a summary of DOJ’s explanation about the 102 cases to von Spakovsky.

“To say that it is a positive development when the department is a defendant in a lawsuit is silly – such an action is not being undertaken because the Department is being aggressive in launching lawsuits to protect voting rights. It is because a state or local jurisdiction has sued the Department claiming DOJ has done something wrong. Under that definition, if DOJ is sued 100 times because of its wrongdoing, this would be a positive development,” he told PolitiFact in an email. “This was deceptive claim by the president – to any layman, taking on cases means filing lawsuits to enforce the law on behalf of victims.” He also argued that it would be far-fetched to say that filing an amicus brief is “taking on a case.”

The Washington Post reports that Rand Paul believes dead people have voted, there is fraud but perhaps it has been overstated, early voting should not be eliminated and that he supports voter ID.

From the transcript:

PAUL: Dead people do still vote in some elections. There still is some fraud. And so we should stop that, and one way of doing it is (driver’s licenses).

AXELROD: Although the incidence of fraud is relatively small.

PAUL: It probably is, and I think Republicans may have over-emphasized this. I don’t know.

Paul did say that he supports voter ID efforts as a minimal standard and noted that you have to present an ID to enter government offices.

…“I don’t think early voting is biased one way or the other,” Paul said. “So I think eliminating it is a mistake for the — Republicans who want to make their whole thing eliminating early voting, I think that’s a mistake.”

Associated Press reports: 

Two Texas residents backed by a conservative legal group have filed a federal lawsuit in Austin challenging how state Senate voting districts were drawn, according to a published report Tuesday.

…The lawsuit argues that the way districts were drawn was unconstitutional since it was based on total population. The districts should have been drawn only based on the number of eligible voters, excluding children, felons and noncitizens, the lawsuit says. It also says that districts with fewer eligible voters have more influence than those in districts with more eligible voters, which is unconstitutional.

Turner, who represents Cleveland in the state Senate, said she understands why the party cares so much about her race, calling Ohio “the swing state of swing states.”  “A secretary of state can make or break the environment of voting — they can use the tools at their disposal,” Turner said. 

More of the background:

Yet this year, national Democrats laying the groundwork for their 2016 presidential candidate are working to ensure Turner won’t be on her own as she tries to pull in millions of dollars needed to make up the seven-to-one cash disadvantage she faced against incumbent Jon Husted at the end of January

Turner’s race is one of a handful of secretary of state contests drawing attention from the Democratic National Committee and two outside groups sending money, organizing infrastructure and the vaunted digital expertise of President Barack Obama’s campaigns to boost state-level candidates.

The central issue for Democrats is voting laws — a matter that has become increasingly divisive in recent years amid a state-level push by Republican legislatures to make changes across the country. All involved, to varying degrees, point to what may be the ultimate goal of this year’s effort: Putting friendly faces in these key offices which administer elections in advance of the 2016 presidential election.

Although the Left would have you believe otherwise, there are no Jim Crow laws or stealth poll taxes.  It would appear that it is the Left who has not opened their eyes and realized we live in 2014, not 1964.  It is they who are the greatest impediment to the realization of King’s “dream” of a color-blind nation.

More “nonexistent” voter fraud:

“Secretary of State Ross Miller says a woman has been arrested on two felony charges for allegedly using a false identity to register to vote and casting ballots in Nevada elections… Authorities confirmed she voted in the 2008 and 2010 elections.”

Rep. Hank Lott, R-Sumrall, agrees with Barker that having voters show identification at the polls prevents fraud.  “I understand we’ve had a lot of voting irregularity in certain parts of the state,” he said. “And going through what we just went through with the mayoral election in Hattiesburg, (voter ID) is progress.”  

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Department of Justice wants to expand the voting rights act preclearance measures to states never covered in the past: