PJ Rule of Law here.

“It seems photo Voter ID and Planned Parenthood have been in the news quite a bit lately. Today I gave a presentation at Duke University School of Law on Voter ID. I discussed both topics. How are they related?

One of the favorite canards of Voter ID opponents is that Voter ID is an intentional scheme to harm black voters. The theory supposes since black voters tend to have photo identification less frequently, then state laws requiring voter ID are a deliberate plot to harm black voters.  . . .”

Full story at link. 

The AFL-CIO will participate in Jubilee Weekend in Selma, Alabama.  T

Why are the laws “gathering momentum”?  Two words – Eric Holder.  From the American Thinker:

“The Department of Justice has exclusively chosen laws it wants to uphold, yet it looks the other way on laws that need to be enforced. Because Eric Holder’s Justice Department refuses to protect the integrity of the election process, the states must step in and fulfill that responsibility. American Thinker interviewed experts to get their opinion on how to make sure voters are not disenfranchised. . . .

Congressman Brian Bilbray (R-CA) is frustrated over the issue of voter registration since ‘in many states there are registration people that are being paid for every person that they register to vote. There is a financial incentive to have non-citizens register to vote. . . .  Someone illegally voting could cancel out your vote. In Holder’s Justice Department, the integrity of the electoral process doesn’t matter.’

. . .

Adams believes that this Justice Department is openly hostile toward bringing cases against minorities who violate the law. Kobach is outraged that the ‘DOJ does not go after voter intimidation and does not care to stop voter fraud.’

 . . .
Engelbrecht believes that ‘Eric Holder has a different set of lenses that he looks through, and unfortunately, these lenses are tainted with a radical agenda. He looks at a certain group of Americans as the perpetual victim. Holder is following through on his promise that no election law will be put in place unless it heavily favors minorities.’  Congressman Ted Poe (R-TX) cannot understand how Holder and his Justice Department would not support a law that ‘only represses fraudulent votes.’

Han von Spakovsky on DOJ’s Kinston retreat.

Voter fraud charges in Washington.

“A 35-year-old Glenoma woman who emigrated to the United States from Ghana, Africa, is accused of voter fraud in Lewis County Superior Court.

“Tim Tebow” and “Tom Brady” register to vote.  Project Veritas strikes again.  More at PJ Media.

NOTE:  Obvioulsy Tabella already had covered this story here.  These things happen when we don’t always coordinate the content here between us.  Some stories are worth posting twice, I suppose.

Examiner has some details. (The GOP part is innacurate.  The GOP has nothing to do with this).

More about the Section 8 press conference at CPAC here at Yahoo News. 

At a recent National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) conference televised on C-Span3, Secretaries of State Hosemann and Kobach challenged the analysis that Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas Perez and the Voting Section are employing to interpret the Supreme Court photo ID case of Crawford in relation to Section 5 preclearance states. 

1h8m into the video, Mississippi Secretary of State Hosemann points out that DOJ relied on statistics showing neglible differences on the possession by ethnic groups of a DMV license.  AAG Perez refused to answer the questions on the use of these limited statistics and quickly pointed out that the burden was on the jurisdiction.  Oh yes, the burden!  We know that without the ever-moving goalposts burden to hide behind, who knows how many more times DOJ would have been sanctioned for frivilous lawsuits and objections.  Yes, this is the same type of objection that DOJ is running away from in the Kinston case as the judicial guillotine is slowly placed over their head.

1h15m of the stream, Kansas Secretary of State Kobach questioned Perez on how DOJ (as an executive branch agency) was able to get around the Crawford ruling where the Supreme Court specifically noted that the trip to the DMV doesn’t qualify as a burden on voters.  Perez refused to discuss the factors involved in the decision; instead, he opted to discuss his new holilistic approach that he uses to address these issues. Apparently, it isn’t important to articulate the legal analysis to chief election officials or Section 5 legislatures that might want to pass healthy voter ID laws.  Instead, Perez told the election officials that the Voting Section would wait to address the legal factors until they got to court.      

Perez continued his mantra that DOJ was utilizing a “holistic look at the process” meaning that unless the voting procedure is preceived as “healthy” for the jurisdiction by a bunch of Obama political appointees, it would not be approved.  Since the Obama Administration is anathema to photo ID, we can safely assume that all proposed ID laws will be considered “unhealthy” upon arrival.

South Carolina pushes the Holder Justice Department to explain their distorted analysis of Section 5 and caselaw relating to photo ID.  The Voting Section will be forced to explain why they don’t seem able to comprehend what the Supreme Court meant when they wrote that photo ID was non-discriminatory and placed no additional burden on voters not already required by the act of actually visiting a polling place.  They will also have to explain why the Department is requiring South Carolina to provide proof of fraud to justify the photo ID requirement when the Supreme Court specifically noted that this proof was not necessary or required to jusitfy the reform as the state has a independent interest to increase voter confidence and belief that measures are being taken to prevent registration or voting fraud.   

The link to the story is here.

There has to be a better way to identify non-citizens but is there anyone who believes the Obama Administration or the Holder DOJ is going to cooperate. 

Supervisor of Elections Bob Sweat Monday said he is checking to make sure that those excused from jury duty because they are not U.S. citizens are not also listed on local voters’ rolls.

Sweat intended to ask R.B. “Chips” Shore, Manatee County clerk of circuit court and comptroller, for a list of jury excusals in an effort to cross-check the names.

“If they said they were not citizens, the first thing I would do is check with immigration, not just take them off the rolls,” said Sweat. “We would want some definite proof.”

Only those who are U.S. citizens and residents of Manatee County are eligible to vote here, Sweat said.

He had received an email earlier in the day from a local resident asking if the two lists are compared in Manatee County.

The email was linked to a report from a Fort Myers television station, which compared jury excusal forms and voter registration rolls in two counties it covers. The station found 87 people on both lists, according to its website.

The full story at Bradenton.com.