Things get crazy in a California voter fraud trial.  Orange County Register:  Illegal immigration “activist and recalled former Santa Ana schools trustee Nativo Lopez was told by a judge Monday that he’s going back to jail if he doesn’t follow through with an order to see a prosecution psychiatrist.”

Where’s Mildred Ratched when you need her?

The Daily Caller provides this handy dandy summary of nationwide voter fraud convictions of ACORN employees arising out of the 2008 Presidential election.

Two women in eastern Georgia have turned themselves after charges were filed against them for felony voter fraud.  GPB news has more here.  Maybe someone should alert Tova Wang that she needs to amend her report on the absence of November 2010 voter fraud.

“The women were charged with three felony counts of mishandling absentee ballots, after a local postal worker tipped off authorities that one of them mailed a stack of ballots before the November 2nd general election.”

 

The AP has more on the Benton County (MS) voter fraud charges being upheld on appeal:

“Clinton Moffitt of Hickory Flat and Ada Moore Tucker of Ashland were convicted in 2009.  Moffitt was sentenced to five years in prison – two years to serve, one year under house arrest and two years suspended.”

Civil Rights Commissioner Peter Kirsanow sits down with PJTV DC Bureau Chief Richard Pollock for an in-depth interview about what the US Commission on Civil Rights found about the New Black Panther dismissal and the failure to enforce the civil rights laws in a race neutral fashion.  Full interview here.

Some of the worst coverage of the New Black Panther case came from an obscure little read outfit called the Washington Independent.  You can read some of their factually inaccurate and biased reporting here and here.

Proving that karmic justice affects even the news industry, the Washington Independent is soon to be no more – just another left leaning website where financial issues became existential issues.  The dramatic shift in conventional political wisdom in the last year couldn’t help either.   Pajamas Media has more coverage of the sinking of the Independent today.  It is so good to know the biased and misplaced coverage defending the New Black Panther dismissal was funded by the NEA, Barbara Streisand and the George Soros funded Open Society Institute.  I suspect most of the similar coverage has a similar financial engine.  Good to know for the future.  Bryan Preston at Pajamas:

“It was the victim of a political downturn and a change in strategy.  The Washington Independent is, or was, the flagship of an outfit called American Independent Media.  American Independent Media will live on past its D.C. child, as will several of its state-by-state children.  It’s just the eldest child, which is also apparently both the most expensive and the least effective, that’s getting killed off.

Killed off, I say?  By whom?  Why, by the man who’s apparently been funding it.  Take a look at the “Donate” page of American Independent Media, and look toward the bottom.  Here’s a screenshot, to focus in on the more interesting foundations that support the AIM.”

An article in the Daily Press discusses the Virginia redistricting to take place in 2011.  As has been posted repeatedly at Election Law Center, states like Virginia should consider bypassing Department of Justice preclearance procedures and go straight to United States District Court in D.C., as they have the right to do under the Voting Rights Act.  On November 17, I asked Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli whether Virginia is considering doing so.  He told me that there have been discussions to that effect but for now it is not likely. 

I am hopeful that Virginia reconsiders.  There is no advantage to proceeding administratively with the Justice Department.  A submission will have to carry the same evidentiary burden before the Justice Department as they would before the District Court.  The materials would be the same.  The evidence would be the same.  The burdens would be the same.

What would be different?  The decision maker would be a neutral magistrate instead of a gang of bureaucrats who have demonstrated some questionable history in the past on redistricting plans. 

Also different would be the fact that established rules would govern the process.  The Rules of Civil Procedure would establish timetables, guidelines and decisions, not the whimsy of bureaucrats working in relative secrecy. 

Instead of private secret “informers” acting as witnesses opposing or supporting a plan through secret communications to the DOJ, evidence before the District Court would be in the open and subject to the Rules of Evidence and right to cross examination.

Costs?  That wouldn’t be much different either.  And what is more important, getting a fair hearing with a greater chance of a favorable outcome, or keeping costs down?  As recently as last August, the Wall Street Journal reported that he DOJ had gone beyond its authority in a Section 5 review of a Georgia law.  As reported by ELC here, Georgia has wised up and has begun going straight to the United States District Court in D.C. to gain preclearance.  Other states like Virginia should follow suit.  They owe it to their taxpayers not to waste money on a less-fair administrative review when a more fair judicial review is available using the exact same evidence and burdens. 

The bottom like is that Virginia and all covered jurisdictions are more likely to have their plans approved, and more likely to have the original plan approved, if they bypass the Eric Holder Justice Department and instead go straight to court.  That means they bypass DOJ, period.

As much as it hurts to post anything from David Weigel because of his wholly inaccurate and incomplete coverage of the New Black Panther controversy,  he has an interesting piece at Slate about whether Democrats should scrap Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act:

“How obvious should this be? In 1990, 27 African-Americans were elected to the House of Representatives. In 1991, there was a round of congressional redistricting, and Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was applied to carve new majority-minority districts. In 1992, the number of African-Americans in Congress increased by 13, but even though Bill Clinton was winning the presidency, the number of Democrats in the House shrunk by 9. There were plenty of reasons for the Democratic losses, but the new majority-minority districts were key. They were key to GOP gains in 2002, after more redistricting — especially in Florida and Michigan — that shored up minority members, and they were key to the 2005 re-gerrymander of Texas.”

WTAQ  reports that a judge allows a Section 2 Voting Rights Act lawsuit to go forward to, not kidding, because laws prohibiting voter fraud are racially discriminatory.   Instead of dismissing the case, the judge allows it to go forward:

“Judge Richard Sankovitz says the Voting Rights Act claim should be heard.  Sankovitz issued what he called an ‘unofficial excerpt’ of his ruling Friday.”