Democrat Sentenced for Voter Fraud: 2 Years

But why would anyone do anything like this, the academics wonder?  Surely nobody would risk jail for a couple of votes that won’t swing an election, they argue.  Link to the contrary reality:

“A former Bolivar city councilwoman was sentenced Tuesday to two years of community corrections.

Brenda Woods was convicted in March for procuring illegal voters in the city’s 2009 municipal elections.


Three people, two of whom are related to Woods, testified that they had felony convictions on their records in May of 2009 when voted.


At the time, Woods was running for mayor and for city council.


Woods lost the mayor’s race, but won the council seat.


The witnesses, who were granted immunity for testifying, said Woods took them to the polls at separate times to vote for her, even though she knew they were felons.”

“The Con Job on Voting Rights Cases”

National Review link:

“In a speech on April 11 to Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, President Obama claimed that his administration had “taken on more than 100 voting-rights cases since 2009, and they’ve defended the rights of everybody from African Americans to Spanish speakers to soldiers serving overseas.” The real numbers are far less impressive.

As we have separately pointed out, the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, where we both formerly worked, has taken on only 39 cases since 2009. Despite the president’s rhetoric, this is considerably below the record of the Bush administration. For all of the criticism leveled at the Bush Justice Department by Eric Holder and civil-rights organizations, the Bush Justice Department had a far more robust enforcement record on voting rights than the Obama Justice Department has.

Politifact took up this discrepancy in the president’s claims and obtained a list of 102 cases from the Justice Department. This list, however, does not hold up under scrutiny.”

“Nevada voter ID initiative revised, refiled”



“An initiative petition requiring voter identification, declared invalid by a district judge last week, has been corrected and was refiled with the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office on Wednesday…


 


“Angle of Reno said she will have 7,000 volunteers ready Saturday to start gathering the required 101,667 signatures of registered voters to put the issue on the November ballot to amend the Nevada Constitution.”


Federal Court strikes down Wisconsin ban on political spending by corporations and rules on issue advocacy

Wisconsin media reports:  A federal appeals court has declared key aspects of Wisconsin’s campaign finance laws unconstitutional, including a ban on direct spending by corporations.  The 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling came Wednesday in a lawsuit filed by Wisconsin Right to Life.  The court says the state can’t ban political spending by corporations or cap how much they raise for affiliated political action committees.  It also struck down some rules on so-called issue advocacy. Groups have been required to report their donors and follow numerous other rules if they support or oppose a specific candidate. The appeals court says those rules apply only if the ads use phrases such as “vote for,” ”elect” or “vote against.”

BREAKING: Arkansas Supreme Court tosses out ruling striking down state’s voter ID law

Arkansas court says judge went too far on voter ID


The Arkansas Supreme Court has tossed out a judge’s ruling striking down the state’s voter ID law, but stopped short of ruling on the constitutionality of the measure.


Justices on Wednesday vacated a Pulaski County judge’s decision that the law violates Arkansas’ constitution. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox had struck down the law in a case that had focused on how absentee ballots are handled under the law, but justices stayed his ruling while they considered an appeal.  Justices said Fox didn’t have the authority to strike down the law in the case focusing on absentee ballots.


The absentee ballot case pitted the Democrat Attorney General’s opposition to allowing absentee voters the same amount of time to show proof of ID as in-person voters against the Republican Secretary of State’s broader interpretation of the law:

Fox issued the ruling in a case that had focused on absentee ballots. The Pulaski County Election Commission sued the state Board of Election Commissioners for adopting a rule that gives absentee voters additional time to show proof of ID. The rule allows voters who did not submit required identification with their absentee ballot to turn in the documents for their vote to be counted by noon Monday following an election. It mirrors an identical “cure period” the law gives to voters who fail to show identification at the polls.

McDaniel, a Democrat, issued a legal opinion in February in which he said absentee voters could not be given additional time to cast ballots, because that wasn’t specified in the law. His opinion conflicted with advice that the Republican secretary of state’s office had given to local election officials.

Today’s decision makes no change to the earlier ruling that voters must present photo voter ID in Arkansas’ May 20 primary election.



Wisconsin AG appeals ruling striking down voter ID law



As promised:



State Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen on Monday appealed a two-week-old decision striking down Wisconsin’s voter ID law…

In his ruling, Adelman expressed skepticism that any voter ID law could pass court muster because minorities have a more difficult time than whites obtaining photo identification. He wrote that he would review any changes to the voter ID law that state lawmakers may make — something attorneys in Van Hollen’s Department of Justice said the judge doesn’t have the authority to do.

“By entering such an excessively broad injunction, the court aims to give itself the power of a second Wisconsin governor, equipped with the authority to judicially ‘veto’ future voter photo ID laws that the Wisconsin Legislature might enact. The court has no such power,” wrote Clayton Kawski, an assistant attorney general.