ACRU Policy Board Member J. Christian Adams, in an Alabama speech, said Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and political appointees are undermining the rule of law. The framers drafted the Constitution to prevent that kind of corruption, he said. "They had these guys in mind," he said.
J. Christian Adams warns that, "Something is happening in Colorado, and you better pay attention. Colorado Democrats, with the active help of some Republican county election clerks interested in shirking work, have devised a revolutionary plan to remake future Colorado elections. "The plan is simple - ballots are automatically mailed out to every single person on the voter rolls. Ballots are even mailed to people listed as "inactive" voters at their last known address. Ballots are then voted and returned by mail. No more polling places. No more voters actually demonstrating an interest in participating in an election."
The wants local election officials to clean up voter rolls in Mississippi. Last Friday, the group filed suit against two counties that have more registered voters than the Census says they have voting-eligible citizens. The ACRU is stepping into the breach left by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department. Under Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez (now nominated to head the U.S. Department of Labor), the division has refused to enforce Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act, also known as the Motor Voter law. Section 8 requires states to remove ineligible voters from their registration lists.
Jefferson Davis County in southwest Mississippi has the distinction of being named after Confederate States of America President Jefferson Davis. That's good or bad, depending on whether you regard what occurred between 1861 and 1865 as the Civil War or as the War Between the States. Jefferson Davis County may soon have another distinction as the place where a serious national legal effort to push back against vote fraud was launched. On April 26, three former U.S. Justice Department attorneys filed lawsuits on behalf of the ACRU in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi seeking an order to compel election officials in Jefferson Davis County, as well as in nearby Walthall County, to clean up their voter rolls.
Nothing is quite so implausible as a Democrat claiming he's against something because it's "too expensive." Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe says he vetoed a prospective law requiring voters to show identification before casting a ballot because it would cost $300,000. "At a time when some argue for the reduction of unnecessary bureaucracy and for reduced government spending," he says, "I find it ironic to be presented with a bill that increases government bureaucracy and increases government expenditures." Nearly three dozen other states are still solvent after adopting similar voter-ID laws. On Tuesday, Virginia became the latest, with Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell's signature on a voter-ID bill that takes effect in November 2014. Read more: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/apr/1/securing-the-ballot/#ixzz2PDz5JCTA Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
In a new report, Heritage Foundation scholar Hans von Spakovsky examines "universal voter registration" and finds that it "could significantly damage the integrity of America's voter registration system. The 'voter registration modernization' concept of automatically registering individuals through information contained in various existing government databases would throw the current system into chaos.
President Obama's State of the Union address last month provided the latest national crisis to be solved by Washington, D.C.: waiting in line to vote. The president shared the emotional saga of Desiline Victor, a Florida centenarian who waited six hours to vote. He announced a presidential commission to address the matter. Unfortunately, the president didn't tell the whole story about long lines and why he has suddenly become concerned.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a question not touched for nearly 50 years - namely, the question of whether parts of the landmark Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 still stand the test of constitutionality, and specifically a section that has long plagued states' rights advocates. Unfortunately for liberals, who view the VRA as one of their landmark legislative achievements, the answer to that question may well be "no," as many court analysts seem to have viewed the oral arguments in the case as either an unadulterated disaster for the government, or at least as a strong sign that a majority of the court is willing to consider striking down at least part of the act.
Before the 2000 presidential election, most Americans assumed the mechanics of elections functioned smoothly. The thirty-six day battle for the presidency demonstrated otherwise. Today, most Americans still assume the institutions, firms and foundations that fight about election law disputes are equally matched and similarly funded as between left and right. That is a dangerously incorrect assumption
President Obama's State of the Union address contained a justification for more federal control over state elections. In the past, creeping federalization over state elections was properly justified by state racial discrimination, then the sketchier reason of inadequate numbers of welfare recipients registering to vote.