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| Hillary and Me |
We've been hearing quite a bit of complaining lately about new Voter ID requirements in several states, my own Pennsylvania among them.
South Carolina and Texas are in court fighting to overthrow a peremptory Department of Justice order, imposed under the 1964 Civil Rights act, barring implementation of their new requirements.
Pennsylvania's law is currently 'under investigation' by the DoJ, which is presumably waiting to see if a pending ACLU suit succeeds in blocking it's implementation, or if they'll have to try to stop it themselves. Florida is being besieged once more by the DoJ over it's efforts to purge the dead, missing, and otherwise disqualified from it's records.
We've all heard the dismissive argument that there is not enough voter fraud to justify enacting photo ID requirements, and purging the rolls of ineligible entries . Not so fast say John Fund and Hans Von Spakovsky in their new book "Who's Counting".
We've all heard the dismissive argument that there is not enough voter fraud to justify enacting photo ID requirements, and purging the rolls of ineligible entries . Not so fast say John Fund and Hans Von Spakovsky in their new book "Who's Counting".
Do the Math
Among other cases where proven fraud has had a direct effect on the outcome of elections, they highlight the story of the 2008 Minnesota Senatorial race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken. Coleman was initially declared the winner by 725 votes, a recount cut that margin down to 206. After eight months of litigation Franken was declared the winner by 312 votes out of 2.9 million cast and took the seat in the Senate. Then came an independent investigation of the voter rolls which uncovered the fact that among other problems, 1,099 convicted felons, disenfranchised by reason of their crimes, had participated in the election.
"So what?" says the left. "That's only a tiny fraction of the votes cast! 0.03789% There's more important issues to deal with!"
Or are there?
Obamacare by Felony
While it's a tiny fraction of the total vote, it is 352% of Al Franken's margin of victory. It may be open to question how all of those criminals voted, but the consequences of that election are not. Franken became the 60th member of the Senate voting Democratic, giving them a filibuster proof majority, and securing the passage of the single most contentious piece of legislation of most of our political lifetimes, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
If 1,099 illegally voting felons gave us Obama-care, affecting every single American, and encompassing one sixth of our entire economy, then the cries of ‘statistical insignificance’ pale in the face of practical effect. When the only direct control we have over our political representatives is at the ballot box, elections, like Caesar's wife, must be above reproach.
H/T to the ever-excellent blog, GeeeeeZ!
Links:
Byron York: When 1,099 Felons Vote
True the Vote 2012
Obamacare by Felony
While it's a tiny fraction of the total vote, it is 352% of Al Franken's margin of victory. It may be open to question how all of those criminals voted, but the consequences of that election are not. Franken became the 60th member of the Senate voting Democratic, giving them a filibuster proof majority, and securing the passage of the single most contentious piece of legislation of most of our political lifetimes, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
If 1,099 illegally voting felons gave us Obama-care, affecting every single American, and encompassing one sixth of our entire economy, then the cries of ‘statistical insignificance’ pale in the face of practical effect. When the only direct control we have over our political representatives is at the ballot box, elections, like Caesar's wife, must be above reproach.
H/T to the ever-excellent blog, GeeeeeZ!
Links:
Byron York: When 1,099 Felons Vote
True the Vote 2012
36 comments:
How would voter ID have had any effect on the hypothetical Minnesota issue?
The problem of maintaining the rolls has nothing to do with voter ID.
@ ducky -What is your suggestion to correct the "insignificant" yet possibly chilling effect of voter fraud.
Voter fraud is un American, and it is illegal.
Keeping the voter rolls up to date always presents a logistical issue and probably can't achieve perfection.
Now again, what does that have to do with voter ID?
OK Canardo, Voter ID is one piece of it. Did you read the whole thing? He also addresses voter rolls.
Incidents like felons and other ineligible people getting registered are a direct result of motor-voter laws that encourage Democrat party government union employees to sign up anyone and everyone regardless of status.
Got anything besides "Hey! Look Over There!" Canardo.
Go read FreeThinke's post today on Cultural Marxists. It fits you perfectly.
Thanks for this blog, we all knew this was going on with the lefties, it's been going on for years
Don't think for a minute that Obama's campaign money is the only tool to seed this corruption. He has any number of government agencies for him to use. Cheating is in a liberal's DNA .
Those lefties kept finding boxes they "did not know" about until they get enough votes than his opponent.
Te question of maintaining the voter rolls has always been with us.
I notice the article doesn't show any concern about purging eligible voters. That's something the right won't discuss.
It's an imperfect system, yes and talk of improvements are simply too often partisan. Repubs are convinced you simply come in by the truckload from Mexico and vote in assorted state elections.
I read an article recently that in Chicago Republicpoll observers are intimidated and litterally kicked out of the strongly Democrat precincts. I don't like it when my candidates lose; but I would like to think they lost by an honest election. We kmow exactly why Democrats are against voter IDs, don't we?
Why wouldn’t a responsible citizenry want to ensure a completely legal, fraud-free election process? The electoral process is our guarantee of the will of the people. Few things in a free society can be more important than that. To argue that no citizens should be required to prove who they are is like insisting a police office should take my word for it when I tell him that I am licensed to operate a motor vehicle, or that store owners have no right to demand an ID to verify age of people purchasing alcohol.
We do not want election results skewed by individuals voting more than once; we do not want dead people voting; we do not want “handlers” processing homeless people through several voting precincts in exchange for booze, cigarettes, or a twenty-dollar bill. We do not want anyone serving in the Senate unless that is, in fact, the will of citizens who are entitled to make those decisions.
And while we’re at it, we don’t want thugs showing up to intimidate people away from voting booths, as happened in 2008 —and we don’t want county election supervisors turning in fraudulent counts in order to save his party’s nominee. Neither do we want to impede the voting process, a favorite claim by the leftists once they implement the “Oh yeah” rule. Does anyone know what the statistics say about those kinds of incidents?
Ducky is correct to observe county voter registration is imperfect. This is why we should be working together, looking for ways to protect the integrity of our system. Voter ID won’t solve all of these problems, but it is a step in the right direction. More importantly, it is the proper thing to do. For me, it is difficult to imagine any Attorney General of the United States would attempt to deny states their right to preserve and protect the electoral process.
And while we’re at it, we don’t want thugs showing up to intimidate people away from voting booths, as happened in 2008
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Where? I assume you mean the New Black Panthers.
Just a reminder.
1. There were no complaints of intimidation filed.
2. A passerby contacted police that there was a man with a baton outside the polling place.
3. Police told him to leave and he left.
Big fucking deal.
There you go, Mustang. Responsible citizenry.
How would voter ID have had any effect on the hypothetical Minnesota issue?
“Thank you for showing me your ID sir. I see here that you’re a convicted felon whose right to vote remains suspended because you’re on probation. Have a nice day.”
“Thank you for showing me your ID madam. I see here that you died 12 years ago. Let me introduce you to this other fellow … you have so much in common. He’s a convicted felon. Officer! Over here, please.
Ducky
Are you saying every vote doesn't count? Granted it is the liberals who have the most to gain by not requiring verification to vote, you seem to be OK with voter fraud as long as it favors the left.
I lived in Chicago for a number of years and the vote early vote often was a lawful practice.
Ducky: "The problem of maintaining the rolls has nothing to do with voter ID."
As I mentioned, that's the other half of the problem, but decades into the Information Age it's hardly an insurmountable one. Unless the rolls are being kept by Bartleby the Scrivener those records are on computer and can easily be updated, and queried. The problem there lies with politicians in both parties who, like Bartleby, would prefer not to.
skudruner - Here I'll say it. Republicans are wetting themselves over ginned up stories like the NBP voter intimidation and massive voter fraud by illegals.
However when the Supreme Court by a single vote margin decides a presidential election and major voter suppression takes place in Ohio that might have influenced a presidential elections they don't say a damn thing.
You are a hypocrite. Got it. Clear enough.
Now Go Do It For Breitbart.
After 50 years, Ducky remains a tabula rasa.
Well only .001627 percent of us rob banks, so I suppose we can save a lot of tax dollars if we stop enforcing those laws too.
After all there were only 5014 bank robberies in 2011, less than the number of people voting fraudulantly.
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/bank-crime-statistics-2011/bank-crime-statistics-2011
Cheers!
http://votingrights.news21.com/article/election-fraud/
Mustang: "Why wouldn’t a responsible citizenry want to ensure a completely legal, fraud-free election process? "
We do.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/poll-concerns-about-voter-fraud-spur-broad-support-for-voter-id-laws/2012/08/11/40db3aba-e2fb-11e1-ae7f-d2a13e249eb2_story.html
@ Ducky: However when the Supreme Court by a single vote margin decides a presidential election and major voter suppression takes place in Ohio that might have influenced a presidential elections they don't say a damn thing.
Another Canardo diversion.
False equivalency, Ducky. You are overlooking that the Supremes decided against Gore, 7-2 that the State of Florida has acted improperly. 5-4 was the Remedy. Either way, it would have went back to square one, before Gore started disenfranchising military voters, and Bush would have won the count anyway.
Ohio? Nothing but leftwing wackadoo fever swamp gas.
Thanks for the laugh.
LETTER to an EDITOR on VOTER ID from a LIBERAL NONAGENARIAN (A Masshole, Naturally ;-)
Dear Virginia,
There is a God! I'm sure you are familiar with all the fuss relevant to the voter ID laws that are promulgated by certain states under the control of Republican legislatures. The rationale for passing said laws is the prevention of voter fraud-actually not a problem since only a handful of fraud cases have been validated; thus the law offers a solution to a non-existing problem.
The law is justified by the fact that photo ID's are required in many aspects of life so why not for the right to vote. That sounds cool; but not all Americans travel by air, buy cigarettes and alcohol; but many people of all stations in life go out to vote. Moreover, The Voting Rights Act of 1965 makes it perfectly clear that the right to vote shall not be impaired in any way (paraphrased).
So why is photo ID an issue today and not yesteryear?
Clearly, the issue has political roots, not from assumptions but from Republican gaffes, as when Rep. Turzai of Penn. said publicly that requiring voter photo ID would give Romney a win in Penn.
The same thought was uttered by Republican politicians in Wisconsin and Virginia in unguarded moments. But the icing on the cake occurred when the former Chairman of the Republican Party of Florida Jim Greer appeared on television and spoke at length of the discussions that took place among Republicans as to how to win the coming election for Romney in Fla.
Their focus is to impair voting capabilities on the young and minorities, who had won for Obama in '08, and to enervate early voting.
Photo ID requirement is not an unusual requisite and not even unreasonable. Rather it is the intent of the law, which is to win an election that is " vicious", a term used by a recent writer to describe Obama's campaign. Furthermore, putting impairments on voting rights not only is against the law but also against the spirit of the law, which was established after years of suppression and the shedding of blood.
Yes, Virginia, when truth exposes malicious intent, a higher hand must have prevailed.
Signed,
“Ancient Liberal from Assachusetts"
[NOTE: FT’s response addressed to the same editor follows in another post]
Submitted by FreeThinke
Dear, Editor:
Ancient Liberal’s opinion is skewed by partisanship and his reasoning heavily flawed. Everyone is required to have an official identification. What do you think BIRTH CERTIFICATES are for, Ancient Lib?
Why do you think we are issued SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS?
Why do you think we natural-born American citizens now have to produce a BIRTH CERTIFICATE in order to renew a driver's license held in some instances for more than FORTY YEARS?
Why was I, a natural born American citizen 71 years of age, recently asked to provide not only a BIRTH CERTIFICATE but a SOCIAL SECURITY CARD in order to be able to close on a house I was buying from FANNIE MAE for CASH? Why even then, would FANNIE MAE not accept a CASHIER'S CHECK, but instead forced me to have the money WIRED DIRECTLY from my bank to theirs?
~ FreeThinke
The following [redacted] article presents just ONE example of why proper ID must be required at the polls to insure the integrity of the vote:
ELECTION WATCHDOG:
160 COUNTIES HAVE MORE REGISTERED VOTERS THAN ARE ACTUALLY ELIGIBLE TO VOTE
Posted on August 6, 2012 at 9:09 AM by Madeleine Morgenstern
A nonpartisan election integrity group has sent legal notices to 160 counties across the U.S. that it says have more voters on its registration rolls than actual live, eligible voters — and thus represent potential hotbeds for election fraud ...
The Houston-based True the Vote said the counties may be in violation of Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act, which mandates that election officials maintain clean voter rolls by removing people who have died, moved away or are no longer eligible to vote. True the Vote is demanding each of the counties show proof of compliance or they’ll bring civil suit.
The counties in question are spread across 19 states that together account for 203 electoral college votes ...
“It’s simply unacceptable for any county to have more voters on its rolls than people who are alive and eligible to vote,” True the Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht said in a statement. “Failing to maintain accurate voter registration records is a flagrant violation of Section 8 in the NVRA.
True the Vote identified the county irregularities by matching 2010 Census data to publicly available information ...
“We are deeply concerned by our discovery [that] voter rolls across America contain substantial numbers of ineligible voters ...
True the Vote filed a joint lawsuit against the state of Indiana with the conservative foundation Judicial Watch in June, alleging similar violations of the National Voter Registration Act.
SOURCE: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/election-integrity-watchdog-sends-notice-to-160-counties-it-says-have-more-registered-voters-than-are-actually-eligible-to-vote/
Submitted by FreeThinke
DEMOCRATS ARE NOT ONLY DISGUSTINGLY DISINGENUOUS, THEY ARE AN AFFRONT TO HUMAN DECENCY.
Thanks for the plug, Kurt. Its much appreciated.
~ FT
@Steve
Interesting article. Did you read beyond the headline? It's almost, as the saying goes "Fair and balanced" It even quotes one of the authors of "Who's Counting"
"Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington, D.C.-based policy center, is a staunch supporter of voter-ID laws. He said “there’s no way to detect” voter-impersonation fraud unless states have voter-ID laws."
The point of using Minnesota's felons as an example was to show that even an 'infinitesimal' number of ineligible votes can have far reaching effect. Like the butterfly's wings in Chaos Theory, they may well have brought about the political storm of the century.
Ducky: "Where? I assume you mean the New Black Panthers.
Just a reminder.
1. There were no complaints of intimidation filed.
2. A passerby contacted police that there was a man with a baton outside the polling place.
3. Police told him to leave and he left.
Can we safely assume that you would be as casually indifferent to the appearance of Billy Bob Beauregard at a polling place in Biloxi, sporting a Stars and Bars tee shirt and idly slapping his hand with his autographed Lester Maddox axe handle?
No one in South Philly complains of intimidation, or much of anything else. It's hazardous to your health. The passerby goes home, the cop goes home, and you still live there. I had a Philly cop acquaintance tell me that when anything goes down you'd swear that everyone on the block was related to Sargent Schultz. They know nothing.
Viburnum, super post and thanks very much for the hat tip...what a compliment.
You know, it seems such COMMON SENSE that ANYBODY would say "LET'S MAKE SURE ONLY LEGAL VOTERS ARE VOTING AND THEY ONLY VOTE ONCE"
WHy's the left fighting that so hard? WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN? When did we start allowing absentee ballots just because we're too lazy? Let's give them out only like handicap car stickers get handed out: IN NEED ONLY. Or if you're going on vacation and can prove it.
Let's do like Europe does and vote ON THE WEEKEND. NOBODY should register the day of voting and nobody should vote a week before. Why set a date at all!?
WHat's the left scared of?....This is NOT about RESTRICTING VOTERS: we will HELP LEGAL VOTERS GET ID...in states where it exists, MORE people are voting, not LESS! THat's a statistic.
Well...we'll never fix this. We all know that.
In Germany, you can't vote anywhere else and you can't vote without an id. You vote, they swipe your ID through some machine and THAT'S IT. And you can only vote on a Saturday or Sunday of ONE WEEKEND and that's it. Maybe only Saturday, I'm not sure.
the left is doing all it can to make voting a mess, not the great privilege it is; and, if you can't figure out how to get an ID, you may not be smart enough to cast a vote, anyway.
man
Z-that's a good rule to be able to vote on the weekend being that's when most "working" people are able to get there.
That Al Franken win was one of the most underhanded things the democrats pulled. They said they even found ballots in the trunk of someone's car.
It's amazing how easily they can pull the wool over people's eyes? They have mastered distraction that's for sure.
They denigrate minorities and women by appealing to their lack of abilities or their"reproductive" systems instead of their brains.
The worst part of this is there is no remedy, for either the man who lost because of fraud, or the people who lost their liberty to select their candidate of choice.
The election of Al Franken to the U.S. Senate turned our electoral process into a farce worthy of Gilbert & Sullivan at their cheekiest. The difference, of course, is that Franken's disgustingly inappropriate presence in what-is-supposed-to-be an august body -- is not the least bit amusing. It is a great triumph for Corruption and Dissimulation.
Maybe God really is in the process of damning America?
It does look that way too much of the time, these days.
~ FreeThinke
Z: ""LET'S MAKE SURE ONLY LEGAL VOTERS ARE VOTING AND THEY ONLY VOTE ONCE"
Purple thumbs for all!
You just lost in Penn., rightfully so. It will be the same around the country. Get used to it.
You lose in court and will lose at the ballot box. Get used to it, or possibly (impossible) learn from it.
Not so according to the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pa-voter-id-law-gets-approval-of-state-judge/2012/08/15/8b7fef94-e6ec-11e1-8f62-58260e3940a0_story.html
Or NPR http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/08/15/158827591/judge-refuses-to-block-pa-voter-id-law-appeal-headed-to-state-supreme-court
Or AP http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jUZ4K9qJs8-tVbHOjRq5zgL9bSuQ?docId=f09da751582a4ee28e3d208349931658
And BTW Steve, data shows that Vote ID has actually increased voter turn out where it's been implemented. See 3 Chapter 3 of Fund's book.
Oh. And forget the Federal Courts, they've already ruled on the issue.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-21.pdf
The opinion written by that notorious right wingnut Justice John Paul Stevens
It seems that the felons names must have been on the state’s records as being eligible to vote. No one can just walk up to the polls and vote. The state has to verify them.
Showing an ID would not have corrected a state’s records.
And who knows whether these felons knew they could vote or not? If I went to a polling place and was told I could vote, I’d vote.
And who’s to say the felons voted for Franken? Being felons many of them probably like their guns… and voted Republican.
Why is it assumed that the felons voted Democratic and gave the race to Franken?
I don’t know any other details that what’s in this article. This is the first time I’ve read it.
And it seems like just another way to get conservatives riled up about Democratic voter fraud… when I don’t think there’s evidence that ANY of these voters voted for Franken. Though I’m sure some of them voted for Franken, and some for Coleman. Why claim the felons gave the edge to Franken when there is no proof of that? What is anti-American is pointing your finger at another group of people and using scare tactics and crazy arguments to get your way. Actually never mind. That is a very Republican tactic, whether it’s over voter fraud, same-sex marriages, Obamacare, welfare (people on welfare do not deserve it (that’s all I hear from all my Tea Party conservative contacts), etc. This ties the Democratic Party and liberals, felons, Obamacare all together in one package. When in fact there was no concerted effort on the party of the Democratic Party to commit voter fraud. This charge makes it appear that Democratic Party is against voter fraud, when Democrats are very much against voter fraud and want it cleaned up. Any and all American citizens who are eligible to vote should vote and should not be suppressed by the repeated Republican efforts to keep Democrats from voting. THAT’S un-American…. the suppression of eligible voters because you don’t like they way they vote.
If the Republicans want clean voting registers then maybe they should raise taxes and fund government jobs so the state’s records could be clean and accurate.
thanks
----------------
Abacus
Well, here's the thing about Pennsylvania, the Voter ID law, of which Pennsylvannia House Majority Leader Republican Mike Turzai said, "Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done." was sadly upheld today.
Even though: The state signed a stipulation agreement with lawyers for the plaintiffs which acknowledges there “have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania; and the parties do not have direct personal knowledge of any such investigations or prosecutions in other states.”
So, the Right-Wing effort to keep people from being able to vote once is winning! Because only the right people (cough)the Rich and the racists(cough) have the right to vote!
@ Gene
No one is trying to keep any legitimate voter from voting. The problem is with both registration and identification and both need to be addressed, preferably concurrently. We need to clean up the rolls, and make sure the voter is both on the roll, and who they claim to be. When you can pay someone $20, hand him an index card with a name on it and send him in to vote then we have a problem. It does happen and both parties are guilty of it at various places and times.
BTW I am neither rich NOR racist just interested in an honest election.
@ ctsseo
I did say we don't know who they voted for, but the fact that they voted at all calls the integrity of the results into question. My point was to highlight the spurious argument that since voter fraud is such a miniscule proportion it's not worth doing anything about. Here is a clear case where the outcome may have been affected by people who had no business voting, and showing the far reaching consequences of that contest.
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