Prosecutors say Smith cast fraudulent absentee ballots “in multiple elections in 2009 and 2010” and other government officials participated in the scheme, which the FBI says was the subject of a two-year investigation.
The Boston Herald reports that Democrat State Rep. Stephen Smith, a member of the Joint Committee on Election Laws, “has agreed to plead guilty to voter fraud charges stemming from an absentee ballot scheme in 2009 and 2010 and to resign from the Legislature.”
Eric Holder recently suggested that voter fraud rarely occurs, “because few people are willing to risk felony charges to influence an election.” Smith was certainly willing to take the risk, and his charges turned out to be just two misdemeanor counts and a five-year moratorium on seeking public office.
“ACRU Brief Supports Arizona’s Citizenship Law for Voting in Federal Elections”
The American Civil Rights Union filed a brief today with the United States Supreme Court in Arizona v. The Intertribal Council of Arizona in
support of Arizona’s Proposition 200, which requires prospective voters
to provide satisfactory evidence of citizenship to register to vote.
“Miami-Dade grand jury: Absentee voting fraud clouds confidence in tight election results”
Amazing story out of the Miami Herald where a grand jury hears evidence of vote fraud and provides recommendations to reign in illegal practices. There may be some debate over voter ID but there is certainly no debate over voter fraud. It is real and can swing elections, particularly in close elections:
Florida and Miami-Dade County should tighten rules for voting by
mail and make it easier to vote early in order to prevent fraud and plug
“gaping holes” in absentee voting, a Miami-Dade grand jury has
concluded.To prove their point, grand jurors made an astounding
revelation: A county software vendor discovered that a clandestine,
untraceable computer program submitted more than 2,500 fraudulent,
“phantom” requests for voters who had not applied for absentee ballots
in the August primary.The grand jury issued 23 recommendations,
from reinstating a state requirement that someone witness an absentee
voter sign a ballot — thereby making it easier for law enforcement to
investigate potential fraud — to urging the county to work closely with
assisted-living facilities and nursing homes to deter scammers from
targeting the sick and elderly.
Kansas Voter ID Stats Prove Critics Wrong. Again.
Compared to the last presidential election year in which Kansas had “no races for statewide offices, including U.S. Senate races”: 2012 voter turnout – 66.8 percent 2000 voter turnout – 66.7 percent “Sorry, Brennan Center. Your claim that voter ID laws reduce turnout goes up in smoke. Again.”
Hans von Spakovsky notes some “very interesting statistics” from Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach that “disprove — once again — the fallacious claims made by critics of voter ID.”
First Election Under South Carolina’s New Voter ID Law Set for January 8
Arkansas Proposes an Independent Voter Integrity Unit
“They’ll take the complaint seriously,” King said. “The biggest problem is actually prosecuting the people involved … and being proactive, so when we actually have election irregularities happen, and we’ve had them for years, that you have somebody actually go out and investigate it and then have a process where if you do find something there it is addressed and prosecuted, if needed.”
While Senator Dick Durbin badgers Judiciary Committee hearing witnesses about voter fraud conviction numbers he deems too low to merit attention, Arkansas legislator Bryan King is proposing a solution to the problem: a voter integrity unit with independent prosecutors and judges to investigate voter fraud cases, something he says the state Board of Election Commissioners hasn’t done aggressively enough.
“Miami-Dade Election Report: County to Blame for Some Problems”
“The waits of up to seven hours at some Miami-Dade polls during last month’s presidential election occurred in part because the county failed to estimate how much time it would take to fill out 10- to 12-page ballots, did not open more early-voting sites and decided not to draw new precincts this year as planned, a report issued Wednesday concluded. “… the 53-page report… also places responsibility on the county’s election department, run by Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s appointed elections supervisor, Penelope Townsley.” The report identifies seven problem-causing “key factors.” Not on the list: Florida’s voter ID requirement or fewer early voting days, the two items Nelson tried to scapegoat in Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing as Republican measures “clearly designed to disenfranchise likely Democratic voters.” Contrary to the Senator’s hackneyed hackery, poor planning by yet another Florida county elections supervisor was the main culprit in Miami-Dade. The Miami Herald has the story.
So, not a Republican plot to “suppress” Democrat voters? Someone alert Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL):
George Will Takes on Forced Voter Registration
George Will’s latest column. So is nonvoting. Remember this as the Obama administration mounts a drive to federalize voter registration, a step toward making voting mandatory. . . . Notice the perverse dialectic by which Washington aggrandizes its power: It promises to ameliorate problems exacerbated by its supposedly ameliorative policies. Notice, too, the logic of Perez’s thesis that “our democracy is stronger when more people have a say in electing their leaders.” Therefore the public good would be served by penalizing nonvoting, as Australia, Belgium and at least 10 other countries do. Liberals love mandates (e.g., health insurance). Why not mandatory voting? . . .
“The poet Carl Sandburg supposedly was asked by a young playwright to attend a rehearsal. Sandburg did but fell asleep. The playwright exclaimed, “How could you sleep when you knew I wanted your opinion?” Sandburg replied, “Sleep is an opinion.”
Those who think high voter turnout indicates civic health should note that in three German elections, 1932-33, turnout averaged more than 86 percent, reflecting the terrible stakes: The elections decided which mobs would rule the streets and who would inhabit concentration camps. “
Toxic Bias in Association of American Law School Meeting on Elections
Cross posted from PJ Media: If you needed another example of the extraordinary bias in law schools today, particularly when it comes to election law, take a look at the panel at the Association of American Law Schools annual meeting where election law will be discussed. It is stacked full of liberal leftists. Even the title betrays toxic bias in the meeting agenda (pun intended): Hot Topic Workshop on Democracy and the Public Trust: Equality, Integrity, and Suppression in the 2012 Election Moderators: Steven Bender, Seattle University School of Law Audrey G. McFarlane, University of Baltimore School of Law Speakers: Gilda Daniels, University of Baltimore School of Law Richard L. Hasen, University of California, Irvine School of Law Sylvia Lazos, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law Janai S. Nelson, St. John’s University School of Law Spencer Overton, The George Washington University Law School Terry Smith, DePaul University College of Law Zephyr Teachout, Fordham University School of Law [Former Howard Dean activist] The goal is to focus on how the voice of the powerful and the vulnerable were affected by laws regarding election registration and voter ID, election participation and felony disenfranchisement and how the new form of political voice through financial contributions from political action committees have affected the election landscape. The panel is stacked with liberal leftists, leftists who want to seize control over state elections and give it to the federal government, or leftists like Gilda Daniels who teach the next generation of lawyers crackpot critical race theories. One election law expert who could bring balance to this panel described it to me as an “amazingly unbalanced panel, even by the left’s standards.” The American Association of Law Schools should be ashamed of themselves. The groups funding the event, such as Thomson Reuters Westlaw, Lexis Nexis and Pepperdine Law School should demand balance, after all, their customers and student body are balanced. It isn’t hard to find conservatives or even moderates who could dilute the toxic bias of this panel. Some law professors actually teach election law from a perspective that doesn’t involve criminalizing free speech, federalizing state control of elections and using a rotten racial world view to craft public policy. Perhaps AALS head Susan Westerberger Prager (sprager@aals.org) will reassess this badly biased panel, or perhaps not. But balance isn’t what the academy is about anymore. Otherwise the Association of American Law Schools could have invited Brad Smith from Capital Law School, James Woodruff from North Florida or Gail Heriot from San Diego Law, among others. But inviting them would mess up the echo in the chamber.
Tweeting the Senate Judicary Committee Hearing
I’ve been live tweeting the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today on voting. I have to run, but perhaps they will get around to slavery issues later.