JACKSON, Miss. -- Mississippi will use its new voter-identification law for the first time Tuesday, culminating a long political fight in a state with a troubled past of voting rights suppression. People will be required to show a driver's license or other government-issued photo identification at the polls during the Republican and Democratic primaries for U.S. House and Senate.
Judge Ramona Manglona of the federal district court for the Northern Mariana Islands just threw out a blatantly unconstitutional provision of the territorial government that strictly limited registration and voting for a referendum to only those "persons of Northern Marianas descent." The Constitution of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) defines persons of Northern Marianas descent as those who are "at least one-quarter Northern Marianas Chamorro or Northern Marianas Carolinian blood or a combination thereof or an adopted child of a person of Northern Marianas descent if adopted while under the age of eighteen years." One is considered a "full-blooded" Chamorro or Carolinian if "born or domiciled" in the territory by 1950. There is no question that CNMI's voting prohibitions are racially discriminatory. In fact, they are reminiscent of the odious "one-drop rule" of racial segregation codes or the First Regulation to the Reichs Citizenship Law of Nov. 14, 1935, which similarly defined Jews based on their ancestry. Yet John Davis was forced to bring this suit at his own expense, with his own lawyer, because the Justice Department was nowhere to be found. It had no interest in filing a lawsuit under the Voting Rights Act against a blatantly discriminatory and repugnant law that prevented John Davis from voting because he doesn't have the right "blood" quantum.
By Hans von Spakovsky -- Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos recently published a commentary in the Hill claiming that "voting online is the future." He also accused me of being against Internet voting because I want to "suppress" votes. That kind of ad hominem attack seems to always be the first refuge of those who are unable to argue substantively about a particular issue. I am against it because of the fundamental security problems presented by online voting and the fact that it could result in large-scale voter disenfranchisement. Moulitsas claims that creating a secure online voting system is "possible given current technology." That is 100 percent wrong and shows how little he understands about the Internet or the voting process. You don't have to take my word for it -- that is the opinion of most computer scientists.
RALEIGH, NC -- Double voting among Florida and North Carolina (or FLANC) voters appears to be a crime committed equally by both political parties, according to a technical report produced by Voter Integrity Project and released May 21 to Legislators and election officials. "This report is a brief but dense description of the research led by our Research Director and a team of 22 volunteer researchers spread throughout the state," said Jay DeLancy, Executive Director of VIP. "It took 16 months and three iterations to achieve the level of quality we needed and the results were outstanding." Of the 149 double votes the group reported last month to election officials, there were 38 Republicans, 34 Democrats, 27 Unaffiliated and one Libertarian. Several of whom had voted in multiple elections. "We need to remind everyone: this research points to vote fraud," said DeLancy, "but cannot determine who actually cast the second vote. Some will be the same person voting twice, but others will involve identity theft, which is easily committed against voters who moved away without notifying their Election Boards."
Some 308,000 Virginia voters are also registered elsewhere, according to an analysis of 22 states' election records. The finding follows Watchdog.org's report of 44,000 people who appear to be registered in both Virginia and Maryland. The latest survey found the 308,000 double registrations by matching names, birth dates and the last four digits of Social Security numbers. The Virginia Voters Alliance, which reported the results, identified "big gaps" in the voter-registration process.
Ballots cast today are under scrutiny, and with 2014 mid-term elections fast approaching, we must be aware of potential abuses of our most basic right. We saw with the 2012 general election a glut of voter fraud. From Florida and Ohio to Pennsylvania and Texas, there have been reports of voting machine malfunctions, dead people on voter rolls and 99 percent of votes cast going to President Obama in some counties. This should be a concern for both parties and a non-partisan issue because no freedom-loving patriot wants the outcome of an election to be falsely skewed.
On April 29, federal-district-court judge Lynn Adelman -- a Clinton appointee, former Democratic state senator, and former Legal Aid Society lawyer -- held that Wisconsin's voter-ID requirement violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, as well as the Fourteenth Amendment, because it places "an unjustified burden on the right to vote." This decision has gotten a great deal of attention in the mainstream press (or the drive-by media, as Rush Limbaugh likes to calls them).What got almost no attention was a decision by another federal district court in Tennessee on February 20 over that state's voter-ID law. In that case, Judge Ronnie Greer upheld voter ID as constitutional.
COLUMBUS - The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups filed a federal lawsuit on May 8 against Ohio's elections chief over limits to when voters can cast an early ballot in the perennial battleground state. Ohioans can cast an absentee ballot by mail or in person before Election Day without giving any reason. About 33 percent of those who voted in the 2012 presidential election cast an early ballot. The lawsuit filed in Columbus federal court claims that recent cuts to early voting will make it difficult for tens of thousands of residents to vote and will unfairly affect black voters, who the groups say are more likely to use weekend and evening hours to vote early in elections.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane's "brazen unwillingness" to pursue bribery allegations sent a message that "criminal behavior" touching on elections will be tolerated, J. Christian Adams, an Policy Board member, told a state House committee considering an impeachment resolution.
WASHINGTON D.C. (May 8) Accuracy in Media has released a major report by James Simpson detailing vote fraud in the United States: "It is fitting to begin this report by recounting a story of deliberate, blatant official voter fraud. This April 17, the Illinois House Executive Committee voted to authorize $100 million to construct President Obama's future presidential library and museum in Chicago. AP reported that the Committee voted "unanimously," 9-0 to support the plan. The report was false. Only four of the 11 Committee members were in attendance--all Democrats. They did not even have a quorum. Furthermore, this was supposed to be a "subject matter only" hearing, i.e., entailing no votes. No matter; the legislators simply made up the results--even counting absent Republicans as "yes" votes. Republican State Representative Ed Sullivan observed, "In this case they didn't even care to change the rules; they just flat out broke them."