The Section 5 fight over early voting in Florida has ended.  Florida will no longer have Sunday voting but will keep the same number of early voting hours.  After a federal court indicated that is a non-discriminatory change, the DOJ quietly precleared the changes that the NAACP spent so much money in a failed effort trying to stop.  Al Sharpton held rallies. Jim Crow was said to have returned.

The Baltimore Sun today claims that Voter ID wouldn’t have stopped Maryland political candidate Wendy Rose from voting twice.  Rosen is the Maryland congressional candidate registered in both Florida and Maryland, and who voted twice in the same federal elections.  (Paging Eric Holder, get to Baltimore, stat).  It might be true that the requirement to show ID would not have prevented her from voting.  But it is also true that a Voter ID requirement would make it easier to prosecute Rosen.

A defense to double voting might be – “the person who voted wasn’t me!  They had to have been an imposter.”  A jury might be persuaded by this defense, but not if there is a voter ID requirement.  If there is a voter ID requirement, an election official could testify to the jury that such a requirement exists.  They could testify that nobody is allowed to vote unless the photo id matches the registration information.  In fact, in Florida, the election officials have sophisticated photo ID readers at check in some (perhaps all?) counties that is linked into the DMV database. 

If Eric Holder ever gets around to prosecuting Wendy Rosen for violating federal law, if she was double voting in states with voter ID laws, she’d have no way out.

The Baltimore Sun today claims that Voter ID wouldn’t have stopped Maryland political candidate Wendy Rose from voting twice.  Rosen is the Maryland congressional candidate registered in both Florida and Maryland, and who voted twice in the same federal elections.  (Paging Eric Holder, get to Baltimore, stat).  It might be true that the requirement to show ID would not have prevented her from voting.  But it is also true that a Voter ID requirement would make it easier to prosecute Rosen.

A defense to double voting might be – “the person who voted wasn’t me!  They had to have been an imposter.”  A jury might be persuaded by this defense, but not if there is a voter ID requirement.  If there is a voter ID requirement, an election official could testify to the jury that such a requirement exists.  They could testify that nobody is allowed to vote unless the photo id matches the registration information.  In fact, in Florida, the election officials have sophisticated photo ID readers at check in some (perhaps all?) counties that is linked into the DMV database. 

If Eric Holder ever gets around to prosecuting Wendy Rosen for violating federal law, if she was double voting in states with voter ID laws, she’d have no way out.

The Voter Registration Integrity Act would required DMVs to identify new
voters in their state and ensure those individuals are removed from
their former state’s voter rolls.  link

The Voter Registration Integrity Act would required DMVs to identify new
voters in their state and ensure those individuals are removed from
their former state’s voter rolls.  link

Link - an excerpt from an SCOTUSblog online VRA symposium:

There is no question that in 1965, when there was widespread,
systematic, state-sponsored discrimination against black voters in
states like Alabama and Mississippi, that the Supreme Court could
justify an abrogation of “our historic tradition that all the states
enjoy ‘equal sovereignty’” and subject states engaging in such illicit
behavior to special rules.  As the Court said in NAMUDNO, “the
problems Congress faced when it passed the Act were so dire that
‘exceptional conditions [could] justify legislative measures not
otherwise appropriate.’”

But the conditions that existed in 1965 have almost entirely
disappeared.  No one can rationally claim that there is still
widespread, systematic discrimination in the voting context in the
covered states or that those “exceptional conditions” still exist.  As
the Court recognized in NAMUDNO, “Things have changed in the
South.”  The turnout of voters “and registration rates now approach
parity…discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare.  And
minority candidates hold office at unprecedented levels.”   As Justice
Thomas said in his dissent, “[t]he extensive pattern of discrimination
that led the Court to previously uphold § 5 as enforcing the Fifteenth
Amendment no longer exists.”  Not only has the disparity in black and
white registration and turnout “nearly vanished,” in some states like
Mississippi “black voter registration actually exceeded white voter
registration.”

The actions of Congress in 2006 and the enforcement history of the
Justice Department have only worsened the grave constitutional flaws of
Section 5. 

Link.
In the 20th century, and even the first few years of the 21st
century, if you were stationed overseas the practical nature of getting
an absentee ballot was – well, not practical; and even if you did get
your ballot, the chances of your vote actually arriving on time and
counting was a bit better than a “slim chance.”

No words need to be said.

I had a great visit as a guest of the Federalist Society at the Charlotte School of Law in North Carolina.  I talked about voter ID and voter fraud.

“Media reporting of Voter ID fails to meet basic standards of objectivity and integrity, says a new report, ‘Media Shows Pervasive Bias When Covering Voter ID’ by Justin Danhof.  In fact, Danhof says, the media in many cases is openly hostile to Voter ID.”