The chameleon Charlie Crist is set to testify against Voter ID to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Crist has bolstered his career by earning a well-deserved reputation for stabbing allies in the back.  Ask Rudy Giuliani about the lies that Crist told him just before he announced his endorsement of John McCain in 2008. 

But Crist has outdone himself in testifying against Voter ID, a law he once supported.

 Washington Times:

“But Cleta Mitchell, legal adviser to several GOP House and Senate leaders, said the RNC and the party have more fundamental problems.

‘Until Chairman Priebus and other GOP leaders focus on rooting out the greed, cronyism, and corruption of the ‘little white boy’ consultants who make millions of dollars, year in and year out, and yet lose elections — and until there is real accountability and transparency to donors to ensure that integrity is restored to GOP circles — none of these initiatives will matter,’ Mrs. Mitchell said.”

Linda Kerns writes at the Philly Inquirer about the cause of some of the unrestrained lawlessness at the polls in Philadelphia :

“When we appeared for their polling-place certificates, prior to Election Day, the attorney for the Democratic City Committee objected to all 307 petitions on a variety of grounds, including that we could not prove that many of our proposed workers were literate. (It’s ironic that Democrats seemed to be trying to bring back a literacy test for voting.) The court overruled every objection and, after two days of back-and-forth, we were the proud owners of 307 court-ordered certificates. . . .

On Election Day almost 100 Republican poll workers were told, in no uncertain terms, to go home by their Democratic counterparts. Despite my petition, the Election Court judge refused to issue an order directing that any persons with valid minority inspector certificates be permitted their rightful seat in their voting districts.”

Would the placement of Republican poll watchers have made any difference in President Obama’s landslide win in Philadelphia? Obviously not. However, in between presidential years, the city holds three general elections and three primaries. Turnout can be about 20 percent, and some races are decided by razor-thin margins. A couple of stolen votes, in just a few of the more than 1,600 voting precincts, could change an outcome.”

Hawaii Free Press Link.

This is why the voter fraud deniers and the organized left is leaving the voter ID debate and moving onto federalizing control over state elections: Voter ID worked.  Boston Globe Democrat link here.

A simple question: Did Prichard Alabama intentionally crack up white minority voting strength in 2011 redistricting and thereby violate the Voting Rights Act or 15th Amendment?

Another question: Did the Eric Holder Justice Department conduct a Section 5 review that made a single inquiry into any racial intent in Prichard’s redistricting?

Have the attorneys assigned to Alabama made a single inquiry if there might be a Section 2 violation in Prichard, especially given the number of phony “Section 2″ investigations the Section “initiated” a few months ago in response to sunshine and discontent among the groups?

A final question: why doesn’t this Prichard review show up in STAPS?  Might this be one of those special files that sit on desks in corner offices?

“Yet today, laws requiring would-be voters to verify that they are indeed eligible to vote are being challenged and overturned. This seems ludicrous to me. Convenience store operators train their employees to check identification before making tobacco, alcohol or lottery sales. Failure to do so can cost thousands of dollars; repeated violations can cause a store to be closed. But if you ask someone for their identification before they vote you could get your butt hauled into court.”  The National Association of Convenience Stores.

A new study shows that more than 98 percent of Mississippi voters who voted in the November general election have a valid photo identification that would satisfy the state’s new Voter ID law, which is on hold pending U.S. Department of Justice preclearance.

Indiana loses on standing and notice claims.  A win for the plaintiffs in True the Vote/Judicial Watch v. Indiana.  You can read the federal court ruling here.

• The court affirmed both Judicial Watch’s and True the Vote’s theories of standing (pp. 5-9). The court even added a piece at footnote 6 finding Judicial Watch satisfied associational standing, which Indiana did not even argue.

• The standard NVRA Seciton 8 notice issued by Judicial Watch and TTV was found to satisfy the statute (bad news for other non-compliant notice recipients).  True the Vote was found to be a proper party/

• The Secretary of State of Indiana is not dismissed and continues to be a party to this action (pp. 9-10).

• The NVRA records requirement at page 6 – “With regard to the Records Claim, the Defendants do not—and cannot—assert that the Plaintiffs lack standing. See, e.g., Federal Election Comm’n v. Akins, 524 U.S. 11, 24-25 (finding standing to bring suit to redress an “informational injury . . . directly related to voting, the most basic of political rights…”

• “The Defendants also argue that the Letter fails to provide sufficient details about any alleged violation of the NVRA to satisfy the notice requirement. It is not surprising that the Letter does not contain any detailed allegations, inasmuch as the NVRA provision at issue does not contain any detailed requirements; it simply requires “reasonable effort” on the part of the State. The Letter sets forth the reasons for Judicial Watch’s conclusion that the Defendants have failed to comply with that general requirement. The Court believes that was sufficient to satisfy the notice requirement of the NVRA with regard to Judicial Watch’s claims.”

A good ruling for election integrity.  I expect this will sharpen the case against non-compliant states and counties.