Author Archives: J Christian Adams

Election Fact Checking the State of the Union


National Review: 

Obama’s Voting-Rights Obfuscation


By Hans von Spakovsky


Barack Obama was much more diplomatic in this year’s State of the Union speech when it came to the Supreme Court and a discussion of campaign and election issues. It was only four years ago that he very directly criticized the Court for its decision in Citizens United, leading Justice Samuel Alito, who was sitting in the audience of senators and representatives, to shake his head at the misstatements the president made about the case. 


In 2014, President Obama simply claimed that “last year, part of the Voting Rights Act was weakened,” indirectly referring to the Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder. He solicited support for the effort by “conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats . . . working together to strengthen it.” This is a reference to the Voting Rights Act Amendment of 2014, which Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R., Wis.) and Senator Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) recently introduced to overturn Shelby County. 


Of course, the Shelby County decision didn’t actually weaken the VRA. It simply recognized that it is 2013, not 1965, and that the South no longer needs to be in federal receivership. The Court did not touch any of the other provisions of the law that protect Americans from voting discrimination, including Section 2, which is a nationwide, permanent provision.


Obama also called for support for the recommendations of his Advisory Commission on Election Administration, which was chaired by Republican lawyer Ben Ginsburg and former White House counsel Bob Bauer.


NRO’s own John Fund analyzed their conclusions last week. The president referred specifically to the report’s recommendation that, as the president said in his speech, no one should have “to wait more than a half hour to vote.” But, as Fund pointed out, an MIT study of the 2012 election found that the average waiting time for voters was only 14 minutes anyway, so this recommendation is one that the vast majority of jurisdictions in the U.S. already meet.


As John also noted, that same report recommended expansion of early voting and absentee voting, which is not a good idea without the security measures needed to protect against fraud (like voter ID), something this president’s attorney general is dead set against. Of course, the president did not mention the best recommendation in the report: that voter-registration lists be cleaned up. Attorney General Eric Holder has refused to enforce federal requirements in the National Voter Registration Act mandating that states maintain the accuracy of their voter lists.


Finally, the president said that “it should be the power of our vote, not the size of our bank account, that drives our democracy.” This is, to say the least, an interesting statement coming from someone who raised more money as a candidate than any other presidential candidate ever and was the first presidential candidate to forgo public funding so he could keep raising private contributions.

The Case Against Early Voting

 A Politico story says what I say in any speech on early voting:  early voting is bad. It increases political polarization as thousands of unwavering voters who have stubbornly made up their minds go to the polls.  It doesn’t increase turnout (as if that is an end in itself).  It creates ill-informed voters who check out of the debate early.  It fractures America further and eliminates a common cultural experience – voting together on election day.  More:

“Why? For all its conveniences, early voting threatens the basic nature of citizen choice in democratic, republican government. In elections, candidates make competing appeals to the people and provide them with the information necessary to be able to make a choice. Citizens also engage with one another, debating and deliberating about the best options for the country. Especially in an age of so many nonpolitical distractions, it is important to preserve the space of a general election campaign — from the early kickoff rallies to the last debates in October — to allow voters to think through, together, the serious issues that face the nation.


The integrity of that space is broken when some citizens cast their ballots as early as 46 days before the election, as some states allow.”

California Senator Convicted of Voter Fraud

“California state Sen. Roderick Wright was convicted Tuesday of perjury and voter fraud for falsely claiming he lived in an apartment in the district he represents when he actually lives elsewhere.

The conviction on all eight felony counts doesn’t immediately bar Wright from the Senate, though his colleagues could decide to remove the long-serving Democrat before he is sentenced.”  SF Gate.