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Lies, Damned Lies, and Vote Suppression AllegationsBy Kevin Rex Heine, Section News
Promoted for Ruth Johnson mention
To anyone with whom I've been in regular contact for the past eight months or so, what I'm about to say won't come as a big surprise: My wife, Christie, is about 33 weeks pregnant. I mention that to say this: I was with my wife in the doctor's office a couple of weeks ago, and the USA Today headline caught my eye. Evidently, there are some republican controlled state legislatures that are taking steps to crack down on the most dangerous form of fraud in any free society. Pay attention to the map available from the National Conference of State Legislatures, we'll be referring to it after the break.
If you're familiar with the PEW Center Election Preview 2008 and compare its map to the NCSL map, then you'll notice that there's been considerable change in identification requirements since three years ago. The NCSL map is based on the most recent enacted state-by-state legislation, and the article contains the most recent legislative activity as well as the current state-by-state identification requirements, so it's a considerably more reliable indicator of where things stand on a state-by-state basis.
According to the expanded online version of USA Today's dead-tree article:
"It's remarkable," Jennie Bowser, a senior fellow at the National Conference of State Legislatures, said of the proliferation of new laws. In all, 33 states have considered new voter ID laws this year. "I very rarely see one single issue come up in so many state legislatures in a single session," she said. "This issue has historically fallen along stark partisan lines. Democrats tend to oppose voter ID, and Republicans tend to favor it. This year, there are a lot of new Republican majorities in legislatures." Evidently, the 2010 elections swept republicans into two-chamber control of the legislatures of 26 states (a record, so I've been told), and many of them are acting like it. Of the 33 states either have taken or are taking some action to tighten down on identification requirements at the polls, many fall into the category of "competitive" or "battleground" when discussing presidential elections. And, as you might expect, BHO and his minions are none too pleased with this. From the same article:
David Axelrod, a top strategist in President Obama's re-election campaign, called the wave of new legislation a "calculated strategy" by Republicans to "hold down voter turnout." Mr. Axelrod, the only voter turnout that's going to be suppressed is that of those who don't belong at the polls in the first place. I know that you're going to be organizing vigorously around these new requirements, because ballot box integrity has to scare the bejesus out of the ACORN network. Predictably, this also includes La Raza, because tightened down identification requirements means that it'll be harder for the socialist-progressive party to round up the illegal vote come harvest time next year. Hell, even quietly loosening immigration enforcement, via a "prosecutorial discretion" memo (read: stealth-DREAM Act), may not be enough in those states where the ID requirements have been tightened down. And if pending bills in 12 states ultimately pass both legislative chambers and obtain gubernatorial signatures, then Alaska, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island will be joining those 9 states (see this article's tags) who've already taken action to make it a little tougher for election thieves to accomplish their dirty work. Realistically, all 12 of those states may not approve stricter voter ID legislation in time for the 2012 elections, but just the possibility of 21 to 36 states with stricter-than-minimum identification requirements for voting has the lefties in the media wasting no time editorializing about how all of this legislative activity to protect the integrity of the ballot box is really a partisan conspiracy to accomplish vote suppression. According to the "Our View" op-ed by J. Tyler Klassen:
Scratch just gently beneath the surface, and these new measures appear unnecessary at best. Voter fraud is rare and consists largely of the types of actions that IDs would not correct, such as vote-buying and voter intimidation. Fraud is already kept in check by elections officials, poll watchers from both parties, and acceptance of alternatives to photo IDs, such as utility bills. This, in spite of the acknowledgement by Mr. Klassen that there is theoretically nothing wrong with requiring photo ID to vote, and his admission that SCOTUS upheld Indiana's voter ID law, one of the strictest in the nation. You'll notice that he doesn't mention that the Georgia law was otherwise upheld, and that all states mandating state-issued identification as a voting requirement have provided ways for all adult legal residents to obtain a basic ID free of charge. (However, this fact was pointed out by Fredreka Schouten in the expanded online article I referred to earlier.) Nope, instead, Mr. Klassen sets up multiple straw man arguments to support his position, and appears to content himself with that as "evidence" to back up his case. Rather than shred him myself, I'll simply refer my readers to the "Opposing View" argument, authored by Hans A. vonSpakovsky:
Voter ID can significantly defeat and deter impersonation fraud at the polls, voting under fictitious names, double-voting by individuals registered in more than one state, and voting by non-citizens. As the Supreme Court has pointed out, "flagrant examples of such fraud ... have been documented throughout this nation's history." I suspect that I'm not the only person who finds it amusing that the NAACP, who are masters at victim fishing, couldn't find even one identifiable registered voter who would be prevented from voting under some of the strictest voter ID laws in the nation. To quote Daniel L. Whitney, "I don't care who ya are, that's funny right there." And before I go forward with some of the potential implications of tighter identification restrictions on the 2012 elections, let me sidebar briefly and identify the four categories into which the several states can be divided when it comes to voter identification requirements. Nine states (tagged in this article) have strict photo identification laws. This means that voters must show a state-issued photo ID in order to vote, or otherwise must cast a provisional ballot and follow up within a defined time period to prove eligibility. Alabama and Florida aren't as strict as the other seven in this category, but they are much stricter than the next group.
When considering presidential campaigns, the Electoral College requires a slightly different view of the ten-of-ten principle. The total votes available in the Electoral College is 538, which means - using the ten-of-ten principle - that one would need to steal 54 electoral votes worth of states. This means a scenario requiring enough tossup or leaner states to add up to 54 EV. According to Louis Jacobson, those states for the 2012 contest currently are:
And that's where this becomes a Michigan issue, because right now, Michigan has voter identification laws that are only slightly more restrictive than those in the Help America Vote Act. If a voter is in the poll book, but doesn't have ID, then all the voter has to do is sign a sworn affidavit stating that s/he is exactly who s/he says s/he is, and that s/he lives at the address specified in the poll book . . . and then the person is given a full ballot and proceeds to cast a vote just like any voter who has proper identification. And somehow this is supposed to provide Michigan (along with Idaho, Hawaii, Louisiana, and South Dakota, which have similar laws) with greater ballot box integrity than the states which currently use only the minimum requirements of the HAVA. Ruth Johnson, in her campaign for Michigan Secretary of State, promised to advocate for laws that closed loopholes in voter identification requirements at the polls. According to her campaign website, she's at least trying to make good on that promise, but when I checked Michigan Votes "Elections" category for bills initiated during 2011, nowhere among the 47 currently in the hopper did I notice even one moving Michigan into the strict-photo ID club (unless I've overlooked something). When that legislative package is ready to go, Secretary Johnson, please permit me to recommend Senator Colbeck, Senator Robertson, Senator Hildenbrand, Representative Agema, Representative Hooker, Representative Cotter, and/or Representative Franz, with whom you have at least one endorsement in common, as potential sponsors for that legislation. Regardless, we're going to have to do something; because the liberal-socialist-progressive democrats are going to stop at nothing, including backdooring the Constitution (which will be the topic of a separate blog post), to steal an election that they clearly seem to believe that they cannot fairly win. And the more opportunities for election theft that we can shut down, the better.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Vote Suppression Allegations | 1 comment (1 topical, 0 hidden)
Lies, Damned Lies, and Vote Suppression Allegations | 1 comment (1 topical, 0 hidden)
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Related Links+ USA Today headline+ National Conference of State Legislatures + PEW Center Election Preview 2008 + expanded online version + prosecutor ial discretion + Our View + Opposing View + Daniel L. Whitney + Louis Jacobson + in her campaign for Michigan Secretary of State + Michigan Votes "Elections" category + at least one endorsement in common + including backdooring the Constitution + Also by Kevin Rex Heine |