Author Archives: ELECTIONLAWCENTER.COM

Romney calls Obama lawsuit limiting military voters’ rights an ‘outrage’

The Hill reports on the Romney statement and the immediate reaction:

“President Obama’s lawsuit claiming it is unconstitutional for Ohio
to allow servicemen and women extended early voting privileges during
the state’s early voting period is an outrage,” he said in a statement
posted to Facebook Saturday afternoon. “The brave men and women of our
military make tremendous sacrifices to protect and defend our freedoms,
and we should do everything we can to protect their fundamental right to
vote. I stand with the fifteen military groups that are defending the
rights of military voters, and if I’m entrusted to be the
commander-in-chief, I’ll work to protect the voting rights of our
military, not undermine them.”


Romney’s statement received a great deal of traction online — it had more than 10,000 “likes” on Facebook within an hour of being posted.

Update:  The statement now has 109,000 likes.

“Obama frags military voter”

excerpt from Washington Times Editorial on the Obama campaign lawsuit in Ohio: 


On Wednesday, AMVETS, the National Guard Association of the United
States and the Association of the U.S. Army — among other
military-affiliated organizations — petitioned a judge to dismiss the
lawsuit. “It’s disheartening given the full-court press of the Obama
administration to court if not pander to the military community,” said
our source, an overseas combat veteran. “There is an awful lot of effort
going into talking about wounded warriors, for example, and employment
for veterans. What’s going on in Ohio is discouraging but not surprising
since the administration’s outreach efforts have never seemed sincere.”

“Those
few who are making the effort to be citizens in every sense of the word
should be supported,” our source said. “It makes you wonder why they
are investing that much time and effort to keep the troops from voting.
They must be desperate.”  

The Obama campaign apparently sees no reason why military voters may need an extra few days of early voting and how their situation is very much different from the ordinary citizen voter who has plenty of opportunities to vote early, vote absentee, or vote on Election Day.

“Military Groups Oppose Obama Campaign Ohio Early Voter Suit”

Bloomberg News reports:

The National Guard Association of the United States and more than a dozen other fraternal military groups asked a U.S. judge for permission to intervene in and oppose a lawsuit filed by President Barack Obama’s campaign challenging the fairness of Ohio’s early voting rules.

The campaign sued Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and Secretary of State Jon Husted on July 17, claiming the state’s two-tiered early voting process violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection under the law.

State law allows families of armed forces members and civilians overseas to vote through the Monday before an election while early voting for all other Ohioans ends the preceding Friday. The campaign seeks a court order invalidating the statutes.

“Members of the U.S. Armed Forces risk their lives to keep this nation safe and defend the fundamental constitutional right to vote,” the military groups said in in their request to intervene in the case.

DOJ demands records from Hillsborough County, Fla. over removal of non-citizen voters

At Tampa Bay Online (TBO), the U.S. Department of Justice is demanding that Hillsborough turn over
voter-purge records, pulling the county into a growing legal fracas over Gov.
Rick Scott’s push to clean out the state’s voter registry.

The county received a subpoena Wednesday for documents dating to Jan. 1
relating to any efforts at identifying voters as potential noncitizens.

The subpoena stems from a lawsuit filed June 12 in Tallahassee by the federal
government against Florida and Secretary of State Ken Detzner over state efforts
to scrub voter rolls.

Hillsborough Elections Supervisor Earl Lennard said he would comply with the
subpoena. Like supervisors across the state, Lennard halted efforts to purge
voters when the tools to cross-reference citizenship and voter registration — a
Department of Homeland Security database and motor vehicle records — proved
unreliable, he said.

The subpoena landed on the same day the American Civil Liberties Union
claimed that more than 17,000 former felons whose civil rights have been
restored never received their notices of rights restoration. More than 13,000 of
them aren’t registered and may not know they’re eligible to vote, the ACLU
said.

Here we go again. More politicization of the voting process. DOJ just won’t let the non-citizen voting issue go.  Not surprising, DOJ and the ACLU are working together to get felons and non-citizens on the voting rolls.

Large scale fraud by “absentee ballot broker” in South Florida

Miami Herald reports on large-scale fraud by an absentee ballot broker:  Felony charges and abusing the helpless.  Disgusting.

A Hialeah boletera at the center of a weeklong absentee-ballot investigation that muddied the Miami-Dade mayor’s race was arrested Thursday after police say she fraudulently obtained an absentee ballot from a terminally ill woman in a nursing home.

Deisy Penton de Cabrera, 56, was charged with absentee-ballot fraud, a third-degree felony, and two misdemeanor counts of violating a county ordinance that makes it illegal for anyone to possess more than two ballots belonging to other voters. Investigators say Cabrera illegally collected at least 31 absentee ballots for the Aug. 14 primary election.

An absentee ballot broker?  Even the existence of “brokers” in absentee ballots is concerning.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/02/2927374/hialeah-absentee-ballot-broker.html#storylink=fb#storylink=cpy

Detroit Democrats lose clout due to population loss and redistricting

When the dust settles from the November election and new members are sworn in to the state House, Detroit will have far fewer representatives.  It’s mostly because of population loss: Detroit lost 25% of its residents, according to the last census, and was bound to lose some seats in the House.  But the loss of up to five Detroiters in Lansing — from 12 down to perhaps as few as seven — also reflects a Republican-controlled redistricting process. Six incumbent Democrats were put in the same districts.


link.

Voter ID Protects Poor and Minorities from Fraudsters



Most voter fraud victims are poor, minorities and seniors.  Most voter fraud perpetrators are Democrats.  So who benefits from voter ID laws, and who doesn’t?


 


Criminal justice data shows that blacks and poor people are the most common victims of voter fraud and are the greatest beneficiaries of voter identification rules, according to a new study. 


 


The courtroom evidence “completely contradicts the [progressive claim] that blacks, seniors, college students and other disadvantaged groups are being victimized.  The truth is … [that] the criminals — more often than not — are Democrats violating the rights of people who tend to be black or senior,” Cooper told The Daily Caller. 


 


Good voter identification procedures would reduce that fraudulent voting, and aid minorities most… Three times as many Democrats as Republicans have been charged with voter fraud, he said.

Tennesseans shatter early voting records (with photo ID law)

“For the last year, our Division of Elections has conducted an unprecedented voter outreach effort,” Secretary of State Tre Hargett said. “This campaign was launched to help educate people about Tennessee’s new photo ID law. Not only have election officials at the state and the county level done a good job in informing people about that law, but they have also raised awareness about this year’s elections. We see that reflected in these record early voting numbers.”  Link

But, But, But the New York Times calls it the Great Suppression.