Author Archives: ELECTIONLAWCENTER.COM

“Colin Powell’s Rank Falsehoods”

 Hillyer: “I and others have rightly blasted some of Colin Powell’s cheap shots in his Meet the Press interview yesterday, but I missed one of them until just now. He accused Republicans of deliberately “making it hard for these minorities to vote, as they did in the last election.” He also said “the courts struck most of that down.” Both parts of that allegation are incorrect.”

“Republicans soften voter ID stance”

The Charlotte Observer reports:  Gov. Pat McCrory and House Speaker Thom Tillis said they favor allowing
voters to show other forms of identification that don’t include a photo,
such as a registration card or other government documents. “I would
still like a photo on it, but I would also be willing to accept other
options,” McCrory said. “I’ll let the legislature work to develop those
bills. I expect a voter ID bill to be passed in the very near future.”

Democrat Nevada Secretary of State pitches different type of photo ID concept

In Nevada, the Secretary of State looks for a compromise to the partisan standoff over photo ID.  It appears from this story that he is getting some Republican support.  Despite the fact that with the concept voters don’t have to lift a finger, some Democrats are still unsure whether to support it. 


Miller, a Democrat, was complimented by many in the audience for what
he called “stepping into the lion’s den,” and presenting his plan to a
group of Republicans.

Yet Miller could get a better
reception from the GOP than from his own party, noted State Senate
Majority Leader Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas, who spoke earlier in the day and
questioned the $10 million possible price tag for the bill.

Miller’s
proposal would provide for voter photos be included in election board
resister and rosters for early voting and provide for the Department of
Motor Vehicles to provide color photos of voters to the secretary of
state and county registrars.

“Galvin vows to oversee vote; Smith pleads guilty to rigging”

The Boston Globe reports on sentencing in the absentee voter fraud case in Massachusetts:


Secretary of State William F. Galvin said
he will oversee an upcoming election in Everett, specifically the use of
absentee ballots, after a federal investigation found that a former
state representative rigged ballots in three recent elections.

Galvin’s announcement was made Friday as Stephen W. Smith, who
resigned his seat after he was implicated, pleaded guilty in federal
court to two civil rights violations of deprivation of rights under the
color of law, for infringing on others’ voting rights.

...In some cases, prosecutors said ineligible voters filled out the
ballot and ­returned them. In other cases, the ballots sent to unaware
voters were intercepted and unlawfully filled out on their ­behalf.

Prosecutors would not say exactly how many people participated in the scheme or why no one else has been charged.

In court, Assistant US Attorney Eugenia M. Carris said only that the
scheme “deprived qualified voters . . . by diluting the valid ballots
that were cast.”

McConnell Responsible?

This article blames Senator McConnell for holding up nominations to the FEC.

It states:

“The reason there were no nominations, I think, is because the administration knows that any nominations will be blocked by Republicans in the Senate,” says Rick Hasen, an election law expert. “I think (Senate Minority Leader Mitch) McConnell is very happy with status quo, which is that the FEC does very little and often deadlocks.”

A reader replies:

Obama nominated John J. Sullivan in 2009 to the FEC. He was a lawyer for the SEIU. His nomination was stopped by Senators Feingold (D) and McCain (R), not McConnell, who put a hold on him. The WH finally withdrew his nomination in August of 2010. The president has sent no further nominations to the Senate to replace any of the five commissioners whose terms have all expired. Only one FEC commissioner has an unexpired term – Caroline Hunter, whose term expires in April 2013.

Felon Voting: Why focus on Voting? What about guns?

Hans von Spakovsky, a Senior Legal Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, points out that liberal groups that push for felon voting rights have a major failing in their advocacy that reveals their true motivations. In most states, felons lose many other rights in addition to voting when they are convicted of a felony. This includes the right to own a gun, sit on a jury, be a notary public, obtain certain types of professional licenses, or engage in some kinds of public employment (like being a police officer). Yet the Left never mentions any of these other losses of civil rights. If they really believe in restoration of such an important right as voting based on the argument that the felon has paid his debt and this will help reintegrate him into civil society, why don’t they push for automatic restoration of these other rights, too? If voting is a constitutional right that should be restored, why don’t they believe that the constitutional right to own a gun should be restored at the same time? Why do they trust that a felon will responsibly exercise his right to vote but not his Second Amendment right? If they believe that a felon will make the right choices of candidates in elections, don’t they think a felon will make the right choices sitting on a jury?

According to von Spakovsky, the fact that liberals have no apparent interest in restoring any of the civil rights that felons lose other than the right to vote shows that they are engaged in this purely for partisan political reasons, not because they have any true concern over the rights of felons or their reintegration into the civil society whose laws the felons knowingly and intentionally violated.