True the Vote Statement on Minnesota Supreme Court Opinion


TRUE THE VOTE REACTION TO MINNESOTA VOTER ID RULING



HOUSTON, TX. August 27, 2012― True The Vote (TTV), a nonpartisan election integrity organization, responded to the Minnesota State Supreme Court’s ruling handed down today that grants voters the right to adopt voter identification laws. 

    



“True The Vote celebrates this ruling but is not surprised,” True The Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht said. “We witnessed one of the saddest attempts to derail the good work of the greater election integrity movement by the hands of the League of Women Voters, Common Cause and others. The notion that voters must not be permitted to adopt enhanced election integrity measures such as photo voter ID is simply offensive. The Minnesota Supreme Court acted wisely and without partisan influence. This is a victory for voters and our judicial system.”




The League of Women Voters, Common Cause and others initially brought suit to disrupt the upcoming Minnesota ballot measure that if adopted, would amend the state’s constitution to require photo voter identification. Minnesota statutes allow the court to intervene should the initiative be misleading or a violation of standing law. The petition was denied today.






True The Vote (TTV) a nonpartisan, nonprofit grassroots organization focused on preserving election integrity is operated by citizens for citizens, to inspire and equip volunteers for involvement at every stage of our electoral process. TTV empowers organizations and individuals across the nation to actively protect the rights of legitimate voters, regardless of their political party affiliation. For more information, please visit www.truethevote.org.



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Washington Post Discovers “Vast White Wing Conspriacy”

Hot Air has more on News21.

I covered this same story at PJ Media - the racialist reporting and racially inflamatory quotes in the Washington Post.  It is amazing to watch the naked race baiting in some corners of the media when law abiding citizens decide to volunteer and become active in the electoral process, using legal means.  You’d almost think someone is trying to hide something.

Retired Command Master Chief in Navy responds to Professor Hasen

A retired command master chief in the Navy responds to Professor Richard Hasen’s editorial “Military voters as political pawns” with a response entitled “Give military voters extra consideration.”  According to Wikipedia, the position of command master chief is the most senior enlisted position in a Navy unit.   Not exactly a pawn.  Whew!!! I almost expected the former navy enlisted leader to ask for a retraction from the author of “The Voting Wars.”
  

My agreement with Professor Rick Hasen’s article (“Military voters as political pawns,” Aug. 19) begins with his statement ”Keeping the military out of voting wars would be especially good for the military and the country.” Unfortunately it ends there, too.


As a former Florida absentee voter, it is ridiculous that he based much of his claim of voter fraud in the Florida 2000 election on the consistency of mail patterns from troops on deployed ships and remote bases (that’s funny).


Isn’t his claim that voter fraud changed the results of the 2000 presidential election in direct conflict with the Democrats who claim voter ID laws are not necessary because of the lack of voter fraud?


But these are not the issues 15 veterans groups and myself have with the commander-in-chief’s campaign’s lawsuit.


For whatever the claimed intent, the lawsuit is based on the commander-in-chief’s legal argument that it is unconstitutional to give military voters any extra consideration for voting. There is a considerable difference between attacking a specific rule or consideration given and a blanket claim that any consideration is unconstitutional. It is the legal equivalent of using M-1 tanks to go after jaywalkers. If the courts rule in favor, it would be a new legal precedent that it is unconstitutional to give any special consideration to military voters.


To volunteer and serve in our military takes trust; trust in our government, our political system and our elected leaders. The Obama campaign’s lawsuit violates that trust. For it is President Obama and the Democrats, by filing a lawsuit using the claim it is unconstitutional to give our active duty military any special voting consideration, to have a law they do not like changed, who are using our military as pawns here, not the Republicans. – Warren J. Hendon, retired command master chief, U.S. Navy, Coronado





DOJ SC Voter ID Strategy: Portray SC as Racist

The central strategy of the Justice Department in this week’s voter ID trial about South Carolina Voter ID is to portray the state as virtually unchanged since 1965.  This McClatchy report provides some background.    DOJ will produce experts to testify that South Carolina continues to be a racist place, even if the racism has gone more underground. 

As someone who lived in South Carolina and saw race relations up close, this is a disturbing and deceptive argument. I even brought a Voting Rights Case against Georgetown County School Board.  That lawsuit did not include any claims of racially discriminatory intent.   Race relations in South Carolina are better now than they are in most parts of the United States, including the Northeast, Boston, Cleveland and elsewhere.  But to this Justice Department, the south is a strange and sometimes wicked place, where the ghosts of the past determine modern policy. 

Too bad.  It isn’t true.  Sure, there are isolated pockets, isolated events.  But that’s true everywhere.  DOJ will attempt to do so with an expert witness that will cost the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars.  That’s right, the citizens of South Carolina are paying tens of thousands of dollars for government experts to testify they are racists.

South Carolina will no doubt object to the introduction of this evidence, but they will probably lose, and the court will have to decide how much weight to attach to it, if any.  This is unlikely to be an appealable issue.  Indeed, few issues in these trial are set up well for appeal – except a challenge to the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights itself, something South Carolina has not done, even though they have filed an amicus brief in the US Supreme Court saying so in another case.

Perhaps the trial will reveal why South Carolina has filed the amicus calling for Section 5 to be invalidated, but refuses to avail themselves of the same defense in District Court.  I am sure that the trial lawyers from the Justice Department are highly relieved.

“Illegal Immigrants, Illegal Votes”

Another story you won’t find reported (so far) on other election law blog sites.  Verified illegal alien voting.

Speaking of which, this story in the Nation about why John Husted pulled out of the True the Vote summit in Ohio is inaccurate.  Some other blogs have linked to it.  Perhaps we can pretend we own those blogs and demand retractions.  In a few days it will be clear why Husted did not attend, and it is not because of the reasons the Nation reports.  We’ll keep our eyes open for retractions of previous posting, but we won’t demand them.

Alabama Women Jailed on Absentee Ballot Fraud Charges



Russell County District Attorney Ken Davis tells the Ledger-Inquirer:



“If you want to manipulate the absentee ballot system in Alabama you can because the system is designed to let people vote, not to keep people from voting,” Davis said. “If there are people out there that want to skirt the system, if they want to use the system, it’s liberal enough, it’s open enough, that they can, and that’s happened in Russell County many times.”


 


The 2008 city and county elections both prompted criminal investigations into absentee voting irregularities, but a grand jury “no billed” the case and no charges were filed. In 2002, Nathaniel Gosha, a former county commissioner and City Council candidate, was convicted of 25 felonies and 12 misdemeanors in a scheme to sell absentee ballots.


 


“Of course, we don’t know how many are out there that we haven’t intercepted,” he said of the allegedly forged applications.