KS SOS Kobach targets mail-in voter fraud.  Absentee ballots are voter fraud magnets.  Very little has been done to address fraud associated with absentee balloting while in person fraud gets most of the attention.  From the Wichita Eagle:

“Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said Wednesday that he will include provisions dealing with mail-in ballots in his plan to enact the nation’s toughest election fraud law.”

Just the headline you want to see.  A great example for the students in Brooks County Georgia.  From WALB:

“Suspect selected as school board president

A suspect in a voter fraud case in Brooks County is now the new school board president.

Board member Nancy Dennard was elected in a 4 to 3 vote Tuesday night.

Dennard was one of ten people arrested last month on charges of illegally distributing and turning in absentee ballots for voters.”

Here.

A lawyer in Charleston County (SC) is looking to challenge the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act.  More at the Post and Courier.

Latest at Pajamas Meda.   One candidate is supporting avoiding the Constitution in Presidential elections. 

UPDATE:  A letter from the candidate supporting the national popular vote plan.

From the Atlantic City Press:   “After just five minutes on the stand Tuesday morning, Harris asked Batten if he could go to the bathroom. He quickly left the stand and returned later. After several more minutes of testimony in which Harris showed frustration after being asked to speak up and move forward in the witness box, he got sick again.  As the judge talked with attorneys at a sidebar, Harris sat in the witness stand, hunched over a trash can and could be heard heaving and coughing loudly. . . . ‘He actually was singing a song,’ said Michael Schreiber, who is representing defendant LuQuay Zahir. ‘He was saying the words, ‘God is on my side.’ ‘  . . . At one point, he posed as a Press of Atlantic City photographer snapped photos. Then, during another private meeting, he tried to shield himself from pictures, then gave the photographer the middle finger.”

From WTVA: “A judge on Tuesday ordered 40-year-old David Massey of Hickory Flat to serve five years in prison.  Massey was indicted on one count of conspiracy to commit voter fraud and three counts of voter fraud.  The attorney general’s office says the defendant was offered a plea deal but it was withdrawn because of a drug charge.  Massey is the last of 16 defendants to either plead guilty or be found guilty for voter fraud in the 2007 county election.”

Here. 

The Voting Section at the Department of Justice is going on yet another field trip.   Next week, the entire Voting Section will be travelling to the L. William Seidman Conference Center in Arlington, Virginia for a three day retreat.  The retreat will take place on January 18, 19 and 20.  The topic will be redistricting. 

The Seidman Center room costs $1,500 per day to rent.  Over three days, the cost to the taxpayers will be $4,500 plus the meals purchased for the employees, plus ancillary transportation reimbursements.  Not big dollars, for sure.  But it is thousands of tax dollars that someone elsewhere in America earned and sent to Washington that simply didn’t need to be spent.  President Obama has vowed that he wants federal agencies to cut wasteful or unnecessary spending.  The overseers of the Voting Section obviously didn’t get the memo.

One might also question the wisdom of shutting down an entire office for three days.   Then again, based on the litigation activity of the Voting Section, that really isn’t a problem.
 

So where else could they hold the retreat for free?  Lots of places.  For starters, the public press room on the 7^th floor at the RFK building is used all the time for such gatherings.  The tables are regularly rearranged for events this size.  Of course the Great Hall at RFK is another place where events like this take place all the time.  Both are available at no cost to taxpaying Americans.

In an economy as bad as it is, and with people hurting everywhere, wasting thousands of tax dollars on a retreat when free options exist is unfortunate.  This is what happens when zero oversight occurs, either by the media or by a Congress.   That appears to be changing, fast.

At the PJ Tatler.