The case in Troy, New York, which saw a guilty plea, has taken a strange turn, including that an FBI agent was out to arrest the prosecuting attorney pushing the voter fraud case. 

WNYT:  “NewsChannel 13 has uncovered more sensational accusations tonight in the Troy voter fraud case. John McLoughlin has gotten hold of an email in which the special prosecutor, Trey Smith, accuses the FBI agent involved in the case of being out to arrest Rensselaer County District Attorney Rich McNally just to further his career.”

At the link, word that DOJ won’t oppose South Carolina’s plans for redrawing its  Congressional lines and adding a new seventh district along the coast.   What’s interesting is what the head of the Democratic Party predicts what the Supreme Court will do with DOJs approach to the Voting Rights Act:   

Meanwhile, state Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian said Monday he plans to file a lawsuit within two weeks challenging the new district lines, saying the Justice Department is using an “antiquated standard” on race that improperly concentrates black voters to ensure black candidates have a chance at winning seats. 

Justice “uses an antiquated standard which will not pass U.S. Supreme Court muster,” Harpootlian said.  “The view in Washington and the Justice Department is the South has not progressed in race relations in the last 40 years,” Harpootlian said. “They’ve got a bunch of 1960s liberals still working in the Justice Department.”

At this link, the U.S. Supreme court has affirmed a lower court ruling on redistricting, allowing state lawmakers to run in their current districts this year.  The Justices rejected an appeal from the Mississippi NAACP. Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said Monday that the decision reaffirms the legislature’s right to redistrict itself. “They affirmed the three judge panel,” said Hosemann. “What that means is that validated all of the elections going on now next Tuesday, in the process that we incurred to get to this point. It also dumps the ball clearly in the Legislature for next year to redistrict themselves.”

PoliticsPA reports that Republicans scored a big victory today as the Chairman of the panel charged with drawing new legislative districts voted to advance preliminary maps drawn by the Republican caucuses.  The maps would make a Democratic comeback in the Pa. House, not to mention the Pa. Senate, more difficult.  Stephen McEwen, a retired Judge of the Pa. Superior Court, voted with Majority Leaders Dominic Pileggi of the Senate and Mike Turzai of the House over the objection of the panel’s two Democrats.  Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa and House Minority Leader Frank Dermody said the maps represented a sharp departure from terms previously negotiated by both parties and amounted to a partisan power grab.

Several lawmakers crowded large copies of the new maps printed on poster boards to see how their districts – and their colleagues – had turned out.

@ Politic365 with the headline “Davis tells Black Politicos to kiss his Bumper on Voter ID” 

“Bit of chatter in Black political circles about former Alabama Rep. Artur Davis’ (D-AL) rather peculiar about-face op-ed in his state’s largest newspaper regarding his feelings on Voter ID laws.  Folks feeling a bit burned about that; he appears to be the first prominent African American politician – that’s not officially a Republican – to come out for a Voter ID law.”

I will be on KFXR-AM in Dallas Monday in the 3pm  4pm hour. 

 Miami Herald: “Berke also says that the Miami-Dade Elections Department delayed the release of hundreds of absentee ballots, and said his campaign mailbox suddenly stopped receiving mail even though he sent out thousands of prepaid cards that voters could return to him to get an absentee ballot. “

At the link, a powerful article on how FVAP, the agency responsible within DOD for military voters, is manipulating military voting data to serve its purposes.  As this article revealed, DOD spent over $2.3 million for this survey – almost $1 per military voter and is now attempting to permanently wrestle away the reporting of data away from EAC to the Department of Defense.  It is noteworthy that the head of FVAP, in his oral testimony to Congress (at minute 14:12 and 14:44), specifically argues that DOD should be the sole collection authority for election data and that states should only be required to report these voting statistics to DOD.  However, his written testimony failed to make these same assertions so the question remains.  As noted here, it is unusual that DOD would go after another executive branch agency such as the EAC, especially with so many House and Senate Democrats are trying save it.  With all the pending cuts to DOD warfighters, this appears to be a costly and ill-conceived effort to gain control of the collection and reporting of military voting data. 

Unlike the EAC data, which relies on actual absentee ballots sent and received by state officials, the FVAP reaches its conclusions based on survey responses from 15,037 military members and their spouses, although it sent out more than 123,376 surveys. The low response rate is the first red flag about the credibility of the FVAP’s report — a fact that the Government Accountability Office has repeatedly emphasized to the FVAP.  In 2010, the GAO criticized the FVAP’s reporting methodology because “FVAP does not conduct a non-response bias analysis” that the Office of Management and Budget has said is “a necessary step in determining whether survey findings are biased.  Not conducting such an analysis limits data reliability.” The report was aptly named, “DOD Can Strengthen Evaluation of Its Absentee Voting Assistance Program.” Yes, it can (but it hasn’t).

 News5: “Democratic leaders in the state are set to kick off a series of events to combat the new voter ID law.  Organizers will begin in Nashville on Monday with a press conference at Legislative Plaza at 11 a.m.”

 The Tennessean.  “A Nashville woman was the first to take Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey up on his joking offer to give a ride to anyone who needed transportation to get a new picture identification card to vote.