Rigged? Five Ways the Election Is Under Attack
The integrity of our elections is suffering from a coordinated multi-million dollar attack on multiple fronts.
Voter ID and the Real Threat to Democracy
The Supreme Court concluded in 2008 that voter ID is constitutional and doesn't impose an unreasonable burden on voters.
How Two New Court Rulings Are Impacting the November Election
The same week that Republicans were formally nominating their 2016 presidential candidate in Cleveland, two different courts issued decisions, one positive and one negative, that may affect the security and integrity of the November election in Virginia and Texas.
Attorney General Warns: Not Enough Federal Oversight of November Election
Attorney General Loretta Lynch and top Justice Department political appointees are warning that the upcoming federal election will not have enough federal oversight of state election officials.
A Great Win for Election Integrity
By Hans von Spakovsky (June 30) Yesterday was a great day for election integrity and everyone (other than the Obama administration and its political allies) who wants to make sure non-citizens don't illegally vote in our elections. Federal district-court judge Richard Leon issued an order Wednesday refusing to grant the injunction sought by the League of Women Voters (and the U.S. Justice Department to its everlasting shame) against the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) in litigation over a state requirement that individuals registering to vote provide proof of citizenship. As I previously explained to readers of The Corner in February, several well-funded groups including the League and the NAACP filed a lawsuit trying to reverse a decision by the EAC granting the requests of Kansas, Georgia, and Alabama to modify the instructions on the federal voter registration form. The modification would notify residents of those states that they have to provide proof of citizenship if they use the federal form to register to vote. The U.S. Justice Department, which is charged with defending federal agencies when they are sued, tried instead to throw the case. It came into court, to Judge Leon's great surprise, attempting to concede the case and agreeing to the temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction the plaintiffs wanted. Commissioner Christy McCormick, the chairwoman of the EAC, was so concerned over the Justice Department's misbehavior and potentially unethical conduct, that she sent a letter to Leon asking for permission to get outside counsel to represent the EAC. She expressed her "grave concerns regarding the potential conflict of interest and failure of the Department of justice to provide" the EAC with proper representation. DOJ later requested (and got) a protective order sealing her deposition, which apparently included discussions of DOJ's potentially improper behavior and prior involvement in EAC decision-making. Makes you wonder what DOJ wants to hide. In February, Leon denied the request for a temporary restraining order. Yesterday in a 25-page opinion, he also denied the request for a preliminary injunction -- the same injunction the Justice Department wanted to agree to when it tried to lose the case. Leon held that the plaintiffs had not proved they will suffer an irreparable harm from this change in instructions on the federal registration form. He obviously did not put much stock in their claim that this would damage them because their voter registration drives would be less successful and require more effort on their part to educate the public about the fact that you have to be a citizen to register to vote. But as Leon said, "let's be candid; doing so pales in comparison to explaining to the average citizen how the ACA or tax code works!"
Voter ID Opponents Insult Latinos, Candidate Says
ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO -- Refusing to be defined as a victim within a vulnerable population, Roswell's candidate for secretary of state said Wednesday that those who assert Hispanics lack the ability to obtain IDs to vote insult all Latinos. State Rep. Nora Espinoza, R-Rowsell, the guest speaker at Wednesday's monthly luncheon of the Chaves County Republican Women, said that when one person votes illegally, all other voters are disenfranchised. "Let me tell you what disenfranchisement really is," Espinoza said. "If a single ineligible voter casts a vote, every single honest voter in New Mexico is disenfranchised. If anyone votes in the place of someone else, whether that person be alive or dead or barks, every honest New Mexican is disenfranchised." Espinoza, who is Hispanic, said she supports combating voter fraud with a state voter ID law. Espinoza said she will press the issue in her campaign for secretary of state, the third highest office in state government after governor and lieutenant governor, to ensure the integrity of elections. "The more people believe the system is honest, that your vote will count, that someone can't steal a vote and therefore wipe out your vote, and that the election will be fair to all, well, the more likely they are to believe it's worthwhile, the more likely they are to participate," Espinoza said. "If we elect someone who doesn't believe in these common sense [auth] ideas, they are electing someone with a another agenda in mind altogether. And that agenda does not include safeguarding your vote and the assurance of integrity in the voting system." Espinoza said her Democratic opponent, Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver, is espousing the same liberal ideas that Toulouse Oliver ran on unsuccessfully in 2014. "What were those ideas?" Espinoza asked. "In 2014, that candidate said she is against voter ID, wants to register voters as they walk up to the polls on Election Day, believes voter fraud is a myth. Every poll shows that 75 percent of all New Mexicans, Democrats, Republicans, independents alike, all support voter ID. All New Mexicans want fair elections."
The Coming Ohio Election Mess
By J. Christian Adams Left-wing organizations and Soros-funded lawyers have been busy making a mess in Ohio just in time for the Presidential election. They have been engaged in a multi-year litigation campaign to make it easier for Hillary Clinton to win the state this coming November. Unfortunately, their campaign has been largely successful. Important election integrity reforms implemented by the Ohio legislature and Secretary of State John Husted have been recently undone by multiple federal courts relying on dubious legal theories. Whoever says voter fraud is a myth doesn't know much about Ohio. Just last month, Rebecca Hammond was charged with filing thirty-five fictional voter registration applications. An election in Lorain was invalidated because voter fraud made the difference in the outcome. Aliens are voting in Ohio elections. In 2008, Obama campaign volunteers such as Amy Little and Yolanda Hippensteele committed criminal voter fraud when they illegally voted in Ohio even though they lived elsewhere. And who can forget Cincinnati election official Meloweese Richardson who boasted she voted six times for President Obama and was treated as a hero by Ohio Democrats when she was released from jail? Meloweese Richardson Meloweese Richardson Criminal voter fraud in Ohio helps Democrats win elections, and Democrats know it. That's why they are pouring millions into overturning election integrity laws in the federal courts. The laws enacted in Ohio were specifically designed to stop election gangsters like Little, Hippensteele and Richardson. Without winning Ohio, the Left cannot retain power over the executive branch in November. That's why Democrats are fighting so hard in court to strike these election reforms down. That's why they've brought so many lawsuits, to undo the efforts of Secretary Husted and the Ohio legislature to stop the gangsters. As a result, a mess may come this November.
Terry McAuliffe vs. the Rule of Law
By Charles J. Cooper Virginia's Gov. Terry McAuliffe recently signed an executive order restoring, with the stroke of a pen, the right to vote for all 206,000 Virginia felons who have completed their terms of incarceration and supervised probation. This includes more than 40,000 felons convicted of violent crimes. The order also restores the rights to serve on a jury and to seek and hold public office, and it makes each of them eligible to ask a court to restore their right to own and carry firearms. The sweeping order has no precedent in Virginia history, and last week Virginia's Republican House Speaker William J. Howell and Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr. and four other state voters filed a challenge to its constitutionality. Their petition asks the Virginia Supreme Court to invalidate the governor's order before votes are cast in November, lest the validity of the general election be cast into doubt. Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the state's high court issued an order on June 1 calling a special session of the court to hear argument in the case on July 19. The executive order defies the text of the Virginia Constitution. Article II flatly prohibits all felons from voting, but it grants the governor a narrow power to restore voting rights to deserving felons on an individual, case-by-case basis. Nothing in the constitution gives the governor power to restore political rights en masse to virtually all felons, no matter how heinous or numerous their crimes. Gov. McAuliffe, a Democrat, has acknowledged that for 240 years none of the state's 71 other governors exercised wholesale clemency power. In 2010 another Democratic governor, Tim Kaine, expressly declined to issue a blanket restoration order like Gov. McAuliffe's, concluding that such an order would "rewrite" the law rather than follow it. Three years later, a bipartisan committee convened and headed by Virginia's then-attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, advised Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell that a blanket order restoring voting rights would be unconstitutional. Gov. McAuliffe has attempted to justify his order by claiming that Virginia's felon-disenfranchisement provision was introduced into the Constitution after the Civil War in a racist effort to disenfranchise African-Americans. He told the Nation magazine in April that "in 1901 and 1902 they put literacy tests, the poll tax and then disenfranchisement of felons into the state's constitution." This is not true. The prohibition on felon voting dates back to 1830--a time when African-Americans were prohibited from voting altogether. The felon disenfranchisement provision could not have been introduced for the purpose of disenfranchising them. No wonder the federal courts have uniformly rejected the claim that Virginia's prohibition on felon voting discriminates on the basis of race.
California’s Zombie Voter Apocalypse
By Hans von Spakovsky and Jana Minich Hollywood has always loved making films about the walking dead, but in Southern California it appears they have a real life problem with "zombie" voters. An investigation by CBSLA2 and KCAL9 found that hundreds of deceased persons are still on voter registration rolls in the area, and that many of these names have been voting for years in Los Angeles. For example, John Cenkner died in 2003 according to Social Security Administration records, yet he voted in the 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2010 elections. His daughter told the station that she was "astounded" and couldn't "understand how anybody" could get away with this. Another voter, Julita Abutin, died in 2006 but voted in 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014. According to CBS, the county confirmed they have "signed vote-by-mail envelopes" from Abutin since she passed away. So either someone has been forging her signature or her ghost has quite an earthly presence. The investigation revealed that 265 deceased persons voted in Southern California, 215 of them in Los Angeles County. Thirty-two were repeat voters, with eight posthumously-cast ballots each. One woman who died in 1988 has been voting for 26 years, including in the 2014 election. This report comes twenty years after the contested election of Rep. Loretta Sanchez. D-Calif., from this same area. An investigation by a U.S. House committee found that hundreds of illegal ballots were cast by noncitizens and improper absentee ballots
Hundreds of Dead Voters Found in California — Will Media Cover It?
By Tim Graham With the presidential candidates arriving in California to campaign and raise funds, this report from the Los Angeles CBS affiliate should become national news: "A comparison of records by David Goldstein, investigative reporter for CBS2/KCAL9, has revealed hundreds of so-called dead voters in Southern California, a vast majority of them in Los Angeles County." Voter fraud? But liberal Democrats like to claim there is zero evidence of voter fraud. CBS2 compared millions of voting records from the California Secretary of State's office with death records from the Social Security Administration and found hundreds of so-called dead voters. Specifically, 265 in Southern California and a vast majority of them, 215, in Los Angeles County alone. The numbers come from state records that show votes were cast in that person's name after they died. In some cases, Goldstein discovered that they voted year after year. Across all counties, Goldstein uncovered 32 dead voters who cast ballots in eight elections apiece, including a woman who died in 1988. Records show she somehow voted in 2014, 26 years after she passed away. It remains unclear how the dead voters voted but 86 were registered Republicans, 146 were Democrats, including Cenkner.