At the "">link, an shameful example of corruption where the “elect few” use intimidation and manipulation of the levers of the election process to retain political power at any
cost. This is the type of unfortunate situation where DOJ should be quietly observing the voting process to deter illegal activity that harms
voters and provide legitimacy to election results when the rules are followed. Because of the city’s rich history for black Americans, the
blatant corruption found in the “Black Pearl” is simply ignored by the Holder Civil Rights Division.

ATLANTIC BEACH, SC – The Atlantic Beach election commission Saturday overturned the Nov. 1 municipal election after the results were successfully
appealed by three candidates. A new election will be held in 180 days. Benny Webb, town administrator, said the commission accepted that the evidence and witness testimony was solid enough to uphold
the appeals and overturn the election. Windy Price, Misty Umphries and James Van Fleet appealed after the votes were certified on Thursday. Webb said the three claimed there was intimidation to both
voters and candidates and that there was possible voter registration and vote fraud. The trio also questioned some of the voting machines. The commission apparently agreed.

The Sun News adds more insight
to a concerning situation:

Only in Atlantic Beach can a fraudulent election be fraudulently overturned. A new election was ordered after an almost 9-hour meeting that was more akin to a “Saturday Night Live” skit laced
with dark comedy than a legitimate display of representative democracy.

…That’s in addition to testimony that said one voter declined to vote because he was paid not to, a couple of white residents saying they were intimidated – including the lone white candidate
vying for a council seat – and allegations that maybe 35 voters, enough to affect the outcome of the election, were denied the vote, either because scare tactics or landlords who supposedly
threatened eviction of anyone …

At the target="">link. The Republicans had their first opportunity in decades to draw the district lines during this dicennial
redistricting. Despite an outcry of “intentional packing” and resegregation by the trifecta of media, interest groups and Democrats, North Carolina received prompt administrative
clearance from DOJ for its new maps. Even the Obama DOJ couldn’t find a reason to object to a plan that included the creation of multiple new majority minority seats. "FONT-SIZE: 12px" face="Verdana">What has to frustrate North Carolina Democrats the most is that they are no longer able to illegally racially gerrymander to retain
artificial control of the levers of government. 

North Carolina has had a checkered history of redistricting. Since 1981, the Justice Department has rejected plans eight times. Legal challenges delayed N.C. elections
in 1998 and 2002. North Carolina’s 12th Congressional District was the subject of four decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Make no mistake about it, this Republican redistricting plan will re-segregate North Carolina,” state Democratic Party Chairman David Parker said in a release after the preclearance,
adding that “the shapes of the resulting districts make a mockery of the redistricting process and the Republicans should be ashamed of themselves.”

…

Georgia, Florida
and Alabama.

The state of Georgia and its voters are being subjected to the continued extraordinary intrusion into its constitutional sovereignty through Section 5 and its outdated preclearance formula based
upon discriminatory conditions that existed more than 47 years ago but have long since been remedied,” the state says in its filing.

Attorney General Sam Olens said the state’s argument against the Voting Rights Act is simple: “we’re no longer in 1964,
there’s no longer poll taxes, there’s no longer cases where less than 50 percent of the minority population is voting.” Of Georgia’s 5.7 million registered voters about one-third are minorities.

Imagine arguing the constitutionality of Section 5 with Obama, Biden v. Cain, Rubio race as the backdrop. Perhaps Justice Thomas would get the nod from
the rest of the court.

…

Here is the  "">link at Roll Call as Emanuel Cleaver and Artur Davis spar over voter ID laws:

 “I have heard many Democrats criticize Republicans for imposing litmus tests on their membership,” he said. “I certainly hope that Congressman Cleaver and others are not suggesting that if
a Democrat does not hold a certain position that he is no longer fit to be a Democrat. Since I am not a candidate for office, I don’t have to grapple with the question of what party label to wear,
but I know that the quickest way for an organization to lose a member is to suggest that he is no longer welcome.”

In the column posted Oct. 17, Davis wrote: “When I was a congressman, I took the path of least resistance on this subject for an African American
politician. Without any evidence to back it up, I lapsed into the rhetoric of various partisans and activists who contend that requiring photo identification to vote is a suppression tactic aimed at
thwarting black voter participation.”

Davis continued, “The truth is that the most aggressive contemporary voter suppression in the African American community, at least in Alabama, is the wholesale manufacture of ballots, at the
polls and absentee, in parts of the Black Belt.”

…

Palm Beach Post "">reports:

TALLAHASSEE — A federal judge in Miami has thrown out a lawsuit against Gov. Rick Scott and his administration over
the state’s new elections laws.

U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore ruled that the ACLU, which filed the lawsuit, lacked standing to sue and that it’s too early to rule on whether the new law is unconstitutional.
Scott applauded the decision. “I have always been confident that our elections have been conducted fairly and meet every legal requirement. Today’s decision only confirms that opinion.
As we draw nearer to nationally significant elections in 2012, I will continue to ensure the integrity and fairness of Florida elections,” Scott said in a statement.

and this:

Last week, Browning asked the Washington judges to expedite their review of the elections laws and challenged the constitutionality of the “preclearance” requirement.   If the
ACLU continues to believe as we do that Florida’s 67 counties should implement election law at the same time, they should support our amended complaint in the federal district court in Washington,
D.C., that the coverage formula subjecting five of the state’s counties to preclearance must be declared unconstitutional and removed from law,” Browning said in a statement issued after Moore’s
Tuesday ruling.

…

At the "">Montgomery Advertiser, former Congressman Artur Davis offers his confession of using race to whip up opposition to voter ID and the fact that the fraud of reverse voter suppression has
resulted in the changing the results of close elections. Not such a myth is it?

“I’ve changed my mind on voter ID laws — I think Alabama did the right thing in passing one — and I wish I had gotten it right when I was in political office.

When I was a congressman, I took the path of least resistance on this subject for an African American politician. Without any evidence to back it up, I lapsed into the rhetoric of various
partisans and activists who contend that requiring photo identification to vote is a suppression tactic aimed at thwarting black voter participation

The truth is that the most aggressive contemporary voter suppression in the African American community, at least in Alabama, is the wholesale manufacture of ballots, at the polls and absentee, in
parts of the Black Belt.

Voting the names of the dead, and the nonexistent, and the too-mentally-impaired to function, cancels out the votes of citizens who are exercising their rights — that’s suppression by any light.
If you doubt it exists, I don’t; I’ve heard the peddlers of these ballots brag about it, I’ve been asked to provide the funds for it, and I am confident it has changed at least a few close local
election results.

…

A presser from the Minnesota Majority:

113 convictions represent small fraction of total unlawful votes

St. Paul – Minnesota Majority today "http://www.electionintegritywatch.com/documents/2011-Report-Voter-Fraud-Convictions.pdf">released a report on voter fraud convictions to date stemming from
Minnesota’s 2008 general election. The report finds that 113 individuals who voted illegally in the 2008 election have been convicted of the crime, “ineligible voter knowingly votes” under Minnesota
Statute 201.014.

“As far as we can tell, this is the largest number of voter fraud convictions arising from a single election in the
past 75 years,” said Minnesota Majority president Jeff Davis, “Prosecutions are still underway and so there will likely be even more convictions.”

The highest number of convictions ever recorded in the United States came from the 1936 Jackson County, Missouri
elections in which 259 individuals were convicted of voter fraud. A more recent five-year probe by the United
States Department of Justice identified just 53 convictions for voter fraud nationwide.

“It’s mind-boggling to me that as a tiny non-profit corporation, we netted more than double the number of convictions
in one year than the US Department of Justice was able to find in five,” said Davis.

Minnesota’s recent charges and convictions stem from research initiated by
Minnesota Majority. The research identified upwards of 2,800 ineligible felons believed to have unlawfully voted in Minnesota’s 2008 general election.

“These convictions are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Davis. “The actual number of illegal votes cast was in the
thousands. Most unlawful voters were never charged with a crime because they simply pled ignorance. We have evidence of these …

The interview at target="">Roll Call with Assistant Attorney General Perez that must have taken place after the daily yoga session.

No magic formula?  A holilistic approach? Should not the law be the magic formula. Perez wants to look at all aspects of the voting process and
this approach may be the current Department’s problem. Perez is essentially telling states that there is no magic formula to receive preclearance from him. But he knows
discrimination when he sees it and when a voting change fails to meet this subjective holilistic standard. The law requires guidelines that set
standards and actually provides guidance, provide bright lines and safety harbors, applies consistent retrogression standards, and does not rely
on some “holilistic” analysis that involves casting judgment on the vastly different voting processes across the country. It …

Here is the target="">link at TPM describing why DOJ is limited to fighting the voter ID wars on the little Pacific island called Section 5. "http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/04/the-bailout-bait-and-switch-dojs-last-ditch-attempt-to-rescue-section-5-of-the-voting-rights-act" target="">Experts have argued that
Section 5’s constitutionality is already hanging tenously. Why not politicize it some more.

Herein lies the problem with the way Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is being exercised by the Holder DOJ. The Voting Section is inappropriately inserting themselves into a
political question much like partisan gerrymandering. The actual analysis under Section 5 should be much more circumspect and targeted because the executive branch is actually using the
full power of the federal government in the most invasive manner possible on state power under the Constitution – stopping a state law from being enacted on the subjective
analysis (not endorsed by a Court) that it may be racially discriminatory. …

 Pajamas Media.

“I find myself uncomfortable even discussing the subject, because for most of my life I was a liberal Democrat — I was on the front lines of the
original civil rights movement of the ’50s and ’60s as a protester on the streets and as a federal civil rights official. I was present in the deep South to expose and dismantle the vast machinery of
violent racial discrimination which was truly a stain on our national honor. . .

What outrages me is that despite our country’s wonderful successes, too many seek to gain and hold power by cynically perpetuating and exploiting racial grievances. These racial racketeers
seek to convince minority members that nothing will help them improve their lives unless they buy into the myth of racial helplessness and continuing victimhood.

Those leading this destructive scam are both blacks and whites in positions of power, including — to my astonishment — lawyers in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division who once were
involved with me in securing the destruction of racial segregation.”

Full story here.

…