“Attorney General Greg Abbott’s investigation is centering on mail-in ballots cast during last March’s Democratic primary.”  Dallas Morning News (subscription).

Illegal voter assistance may have occurred in the November 2010 general election in Worcester, Massachusetts.  “Neighbor to Neighbor illegally accompanied people into voting booths and told them how to vote,” according to the News Telegram.  The reaction of Secretary of State Bill Galvin’s office?  More pollworker training.  Full stop.

Poll “observers have said that Neighbor to Neighbor clearly favors certain types of candidates, and have said its status as a lobbyist group registered with the state, along with its website’s statements about its goals and purpose, was enough to preclude it from accompanying voters into the voting area.”

After charges of voter fraud by Neighbor to Neighbor, Worcester Mayor Joseph O’Brien took the side of the accused and suggested a motive behind the accusation.  What motivated the complaints?  Naturally, it was racism. 

O’Brien “acknowledged that he has received support from Neighbor to Neighbor, and said some people don’t like that the election was decided by voters who don’t look like them, or maybe speak a different language. “

Neighbor to Neighbor has a broad agenda, including preventing landlords and employers from refusing to hire people who have been arrested.  Whether or not federal election law was violated by Neighbor to Neighbor was not addressed by the News Telegram story.

More at PJ Tatler.

Here.

“But Democrats believe the U.S. Justice Department review of the state’s redistricting grants them some advantages as well.”  Sid Salter in the Clarion Ledger.

Here.

“In a memo outlining his reasons for declining charges, Walter Forgie, felony supervisor for the State Attorney’s Office in Lake County, said prosecutors couldn’t prove Robbins intended to commit voter fraud. But Forgie also said the chief “should have used better judgment in assuring his voter registration information was accurate at the time of requesting the absentee ballot and voting in the general election.”

More here.

More.

This blog posted about the flawed position of Joe Reed, chair of the Alabama Democratic Conference.  Reed thinks the new Alabama law prohibiting PAC to PAC money transfers should be reviewed under the Voting Rights Act by the Eric Holder Justice Department.  One can only hope his request is dismissed out of hand.  If it is not, litigants challenging the Voting Rights Act have a tempting dish to serve to the United States Supreme Court in their challenges to Section 5.  For such a review would be well outside the constitutional scope of Section 5.  Section 5 does not relate to campaign finance issues.  Alabama should promptly report any inquiry whatsoever by the DOJ to the attorneys litigating the Section 5 challenges (and to the reporters covering the challenges also!) so that the inquiry becomes part of the litigation.  Hopefully, no Section 5 review will take place.

AL.com  has an editorial today on the matter.

“The Justice Department should reject this illogical argument on its face. Reed’s claim is a lame justification to go back to the deceptive system of financing political campaigns before the PAC-to-PAC crackdown.”

Washington Post.

Memo to Justices Scalia and Kennedy:  Take note that the State of Alabama, for reasons yet to be determined, feels the need to submit this legislation to the Justice Department for Section 5 preclearance under the Voting Rights Act:  “Representatives from the Alabama Education Association will be banned from visiting two-year college campuses to enroll new members, under a rule imposed last week by the state’s Department of Postsecondary Education.  The ruling comes in the wake of the passage of a law known as Senate Bill 2, or SB2, which prohibited teachers from having their union dues automatically deducted from their paychecks. . . .Supporters of the bill — mostly members the newly-elected GOP majority — said the measure was needed because taxpayers shouldn’t’t foot the bill for contributions that go to political candidates.”

In other words, rules implementing prohibitions on public sector unions and limiting campus access to violate this law are subject to review under the Voting Rights Act.  This is not what the Voting Rights Act is for and the power to do this doesn’t exist.

Is this because DOJ has said they believe the rules must be submitted for approval under the Voting Rights Act?  If so, the Alabama Secretary of State or Attorney General (where staffers frequent this blog) should contact the address at the side of the page.  Or, folks will be contacting you shortly.

More at PJ Tatler.

The Voting Rights Act was intended to leverage federal power to prevent states from backsliding towards discrimination.  It was not intended to create federal oversight over a wide swath of state political activities.  If the DOJ attempts to use the Voting Rights Act to control rules against union recruitment on campuses, then it is applying the Voting Rights Act in an unconstitutional fashion and it should be declared so by a court.  Better yet, Alabama shouldn’t be playing along with the charade and submitting these matters to the Justice Department in the first place.