Justice Scalia has weighed in on the Justice Department’s refusal to protect white victims of discrimination under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Wall Street Journal has the story (paywall): Justice Scalia, speaking Monday night at the University of California Washington Center, elaborated on remarks he made in February during Supreme Court arguments over the act’s Section 5, which requires states and localities that historically discriminated against minority voters to obtain federal approval to change election procedures. Section 5 functions as a racial entitlement because the federal government doesn’t take a similar interest in protecting the voting rights of white people from racial discrimination, Justice Scalia said.
This is precisely what I wrote about here at PJ Media when the Department was reviewing redistricting in Noxubee County Mississippi. The plan was designed in part by a defendant in a Section 2 case who was found to have committed intentional racial discrimination. The defendant had professed his desire to draw district lines to exclude the white minority from all county supervisor seats. But this didn’t matter to the Voting Section. Indeed, AAG Tom Perez later confirmed to the Inspector General that he does not believe whites are protected by the Voting Rights Act.
The racialist chickens are coming home to roost.
Just imagine how much might have been avoided, including possibly the loss of Section 5, if blind ideology hadn’t governed the review of the Noxubee County redistricting proposal. Imagine how easy it might have been to interpose a purpose objection given that the person who helped draw the district lines had expressed explicit desire to ensure that no members of the white minority won office. One thing is for sure, Justice Scalia wouldn’t have been able to say what he said last night. And in June, you would have no chance of a concurring (or majority) opinion saying that Section 5 is unconstitutional because, in part, the Voting Section refuses to protect white victims of discrimination. Blind ideological zeal, in this case, may contribute to the demise of Section 5. By now, blind ideological zeal in in vouge in certain places.
Colorado Dems push “convenient” all-mail voting with 21% of requested ballots rejected
The Democrats say it is convenient and the Colorado clerks say that
all-mail voting reduces the costs and complexity of elections overall.
The media plays along.
The Denver Post: Those promoting the changes said the bill is uniquely Colorado, and the
state could take the lead nationally on making elections more convenient
to voters.
However, the media ignores the data,
reporting only the shiny side of story and not the looming negative
impact on voters. Leading the nation in convenience? The big loser will
be the voters of Colorado. Without even getting into the increased
potential of absentee fraud with mail ballots, the big secret being kept
from voters is that all-mail and absentee voting balloting is not the
preferential way of voting because it has a much higher rate of
rejection due to voter errors and other issues that ultimately rejects
the ballot. And turnout will be reduced except in special and local
elections.
In 2012, the Scientific-American highlighted a report that exposed the weaknesses on mail voting:
A new report by the Voting Technology Project (VTP)—a
joint venture between the California Institute of Technology and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology—finds that even though absentee
ballots account for about only a quarter of all ballots cast during an
election, the number of uncounted absentee and election-day ballots may
be roughly the same.
The researchers estimate that
up to 3.9 million absentee ballots were requested but not received by
voters in the 2008 presidential election. Another 2.9 million ballots
sent to voters requesting them were not
returned for counting. And 800,000 returned absentee ballots were
rejected for one reason or another. In all, 21 percent of requested
absentee ballots were never counted in 2008—35.5 million requests for
absentee ballots led to 27.9 million mail-in ballots being counted.
Studies in Florida showed more issues and, more importantly, a much higher rate of
rejection of absentee and absentee provisional ballots. Additionally,
according to a University of California study (highlighted in article), “experimental evidence
finds that mail-in voting can actually lower turnout by about 2.6%,
except in special or less publicized elections, where it raises turnout
by 7.6%.”
“Far fewer voters” lack photo ID than critics claimed, new North Carolina data show
Surprise. “House Republicans say new data from the State Board of Elections show far fewer voters lack photo identification than the numbers cited by critics of a voter ID bill up for debate this week.” How many fewer? About half. New data, which State Elections Director Gary Bartlett says his office will publish Wednesday, put the number of registered voters without photo ID at about 318,000, down dramatically from the previously reported 610,000. There’s more. “A spokesman for Speaker Thom Tillis argues the number may be less because about 115,000 of those identified in the latest analysis haven’t voted in the last five elections.” So inaccurate, out-of-date voter rolls provide false support for the anti-ID crowd? One more reason it’s no surprise that the same parties who oppose voter ID also oppose cleaning up state voter rolls.
Conspiracy: Conservatives “invent” voter fraud to trample civil rights
Yes, that’s actually the headline. The person who believes this nuttiness?
“Gary May is a Professor of History at the University of Delaware.”
Notice the header on this webpage. Thank heavens so few people read nuttiness from the ivory tower.
“Obama’s Labor pick Thomas Perez abused power”
Washington Times: “Republicans have ramped up attacks on President Obama’s pick to head the Labor Department, releasing a scathing report that says Thomas E. Perez abused his power and negotiated a dubious deal while serving as head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.”
House Judiciary Testimony
Today I testified to the House Judiciary Committee on the Voting Section, Civil Rights Divison and more. My testimony is here. Getting ready for the hearing has resulted in slower blogging. Hopefully that changes soon. Some highlights:
*Tragically, the Civil Rights Division has also pursued abusive and meritless cases against Americans who are exercising free speech rights, as well as states enacting voter integrity measures – so meritless that courts have imposed cost sanctions against the Division. The Division has once again returned to the unsavory practice criticized by federal courts over the years by acting as advocates and partners of outside interest groups instead of behaving as a neutral and detached law enforcement agency.
* The Inspector General omitted entirely from the IG Report a second and far more serious instance of Mr. Perez’s inaccurate testimony – namely his false testimony under oath about an open and pervasive hostility toward race neutral enforcement of the law throughout the Civil Rights Division.
* AAG Perez has taken no steps, as far as I know, to terminate or otherwise discipline the wrongdoers described in the IG Report.
The Division is woefully lacking in enforcement of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is the broad prohibition on discrimination in elections, and frequently manifests as lawsuits against at-large electoral systems. While the prior administration vigorously enforced Section 2, enforcement under the current administration has been essentially dormant. . . . The enforcement record three years removed from Perez’s 2009 bravado at ACS paints a very embarrassing portrait of the Division’s voting rights enforcement record. In response to criticism for failing to enforce Section 2, last year the Division adopted a curious new public position – that it is conducting a “record number” of Section 2 investigations.
* Current Division Housing Section Chief Steven H. Rosenbaum directly supervised the conduct of the employee who committed the wrongdoing, and Rosenbaum is supervised by AAG Perez. Rosenbaum retained his position throughout this scandal. Even after this scandal was on the front page of the Washington Times, the Department saw fit to give Steven Rosenbaum one of the highest possible DOJ awards, the John Marshall Award in October 2012. . . . Steven Rosenbaum remains employed by the Division. His Senior Executive Service status permits him to be reassigned anywhere in the country to any federal agency. Such flexibility gives the administration the opportunity to distance attorneys from future decisions which may manifest his hostility toward enforcing civil rights laws in a race neutral fashion.
* Rather than confronting the racialist grievances of these political appointees and instructing them that it would be inappropriate, and potentially illegal, to target Coates for removal because of his willingness to protect Americans of all races from discrimination, the IG Report says Holder charged his subordinates to use their best judgment when it came to removing Coates. IG Report at 167-168. Instead of snuffing out the effort, the Attorney General gave it oxygen.
Fox: “Secret Deal” from the Civil Rights Division
Fox.
With high percentages of ballots not arriving back, “Connecticut weights e-voting for military voters”
For American service members overseas, trying to vote can be more of an exercise in bureaucracy than in democracy. “I witnessed service members receiving ballots days after the election had ended,” former Navy Lt. Emily Trudeau, a Connecticut resident who worked as a voting assistance officer in Iraq and Japan, told a legislative panel in February.
…In Connecticut, nearly 40 percent of ballots that soldiers said they
submitted never arrived to elections offices in a survey conducted in
conjunction with the Connecticut Military Department, said state Sen. Gayle Slossberg, D-Milford.
Link to story.
Tom Perez v. Religious Liberty
Ed Whelan has the story. It’s pretty hard to lose a controversial case 9-0 before the Supreme Court, but Perez and the Civil Rights Division managed to do just that.
New York Times decries the perceived mockery of the FEC
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is once again not proving satisfactory to the New York Times, precipitating another stale attack on Republicans.
…this is the F.E.C., one of the sorrier federal agencies, where
standoffs engineered by the three Republican commissioners on the
six-seat panel have stymied efforts to write regulations and enforce
them.
…“Everything gets objected to,” Ellen Weintraub, a Democratic
commissioner, told the journal CQ Roll Call. “Everything requires a
lengthy discussion.”
Well, after 10+ years on the FEC, maybe she should stop objecting.