Conservative Groups Hunts for Incidents of Voter Fraud

True The Vote, a national group focused on voter fraud affiliated with the Tea Party Movement and the Koch Brothers.

Frederick Douglass

David Stone, a voter registration activist in my novel The Voting Machine, hangs a portrait of Frederick Douglass in his home.

The picture references Douglass' famous quote "If there is no struggle there is no progress".

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle."

As a fugitive slave in pre-Civil War America, Douglass had first-hand experience with voter suppression.

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/06/voter-suppression-then-and-now/

 

By the mid-1840s, he had emerged as one of the greatest orators and writers in American history. But legally, Douglass began his public life by committing what today we would consider voter fraud, using an assumed name.

As an escaped slave in Massachussets, he registered under the assumed identity of "Douglass" since he was still the legal property of a slave owner in Maryland. He took the name Douglass from the poem the "Lady of the Lake".

Douglass knew on a personal and strategic level, voting was at the heart of any struggle for political and social change. In the next twenty years, he live through a series of election that ultimately ushered in the Party of Lincoln. What he could not have foreseen, was that this same political party, which still cites Douglass as one of its founding members, would one day be the driving force in the creation of strict voter-ID laws and shorten early voting hours in urban districts.

Kos weighs in on Voter ID laws

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga has been one of my favorite bloggers for years now. For anyone who is passionate about progressive politics it's hard to exaggerate the importance of his Daily Kos platform.

In this excellent post, he points out the reality in the court of public opinion. Despite the fact there is no meaningful occurrence of voter fraud, despite the statistical evidence showing the chance of voter fraud is one in 15 million, most people support a photo ID required and show at least as much concern about voter fraud as voter suppression.

This Washington Post survey shows the 3 out of 4 American adults believe voters should be required to issue an official, government-issued identification.

Markos argues this is logical:

Voter ID laws poll strongly, and why not—we need ID to handle many routine day-to-day transactions. It's logical people would assume the same would be required for something as important as voting.Of course, there's no real evidence of voter fraud beyond James O'Keefe's shenanigans. But Republicans win this argument hands down in the court of public opinion. It's not even close. Indeed, rather than be skeptical of Republicans pushing these restrictive laws, it is the Democrats arguing against them that end up looking suspicious. Asking for ID is just not seen as a big deal for the vast majority of people.

The solution, he contends isn't fighting Voter ID laws but instead making them better and more reasonable:

The best, easiest, and cheapest solution is what California (mostly), Oregon and Washington already do—vote by mail. Ballots are mailed out to the homes of registered voters several weeks before election day, voters fill them out, and either mail them back in or drop them off at select drop boxes if you don't trust the USPS. Oregon has had this system since 2000 with zero problems.

While Ohio's Republican leadership has done much to try and restrict early voting, it is also aggressively promoting its vote-by-mail option. Thirty percent of Ohio voters voted by mail in 2008, and all Ohio voters will receive an absentee ballot application in the mail this year. As voters in the state become more used to voting by mail, it should mitigate all the other problems the state has historically suffered. Sure, black churches may like marching as a congregation to a polling place the Sunday before the election, but there's nothing stopping them from having parishioners show up with their absentee ballots that same Sunday and keeping voting a community event.

But if you're not going to do vote-by-mail, Virginia shows how a voter ID law can beinoffensive.

• If you show up without proper ID, you can vote provisionally, and you then have three days to come up with proper ID. And you don't have to show up in person to prove your identification. You can email, snail mail or fax the proof.
• You don't need a photo ID. Acceptable forms of ID are: driver's license, school ID, employee badge, utility bills, paychecks with an address, bank statements or a special voter ID card. Pretty much anything with your face and name, or name and address.
• A voter ID card will get mailed to every registered voter in the state. If you register, you get your card in the mail.

I just can't think of a case where a legitimate voter would be denied the ability to vote with these requirements, and the three-day grace period ensures that even those who forget their ID still get to vote.

This is nothing like Pennsylvania's ridiculously restrictive voter ID law, or Florida's attempts to purge its voter rolls of legitimate people.

The requirement for an ID may be unnecessary, but asking for ID seems commonsensical to most people. Fighting requirements for ID breed unnecessary suspicion. So let's focus on allowing people no-excuse vote-by-mail, or on voter ID laws like Virginia, which present little barriers to anyone trying to vote.

What I'd really like to see at some point is some institutional linkage of voter registration to the public education process. Make it a formal part of the public high school curriculum to sign people up to vote and get them a government issued ID that becomes active when they turn 18.

The Voting Machine - Book Cover

The book cover for The Voting Machine is ready. Thanks to my amazing designer Chris Clarke who also did the cover art for Employee of the Year.

Currently, the book is undergoing changes based on the final copy revisions submitted Wednesday. After that it will become available on Amazon.com in the second half of September and on the Kindle in early October. I will also make it available via Smashwords for readers on the Nook and other devices.

Ron Paul delegates on GOP nomination process: "They're cheating"

This from the floor of the Republican Convention in Tampa:

"This is just evidence of the manipulation of the Republican Party. They're not even allowing us to bring signs in, but they brought in their own [pro-Romney] signs. We couldn't nominate Ron Paul. The 'no' for not passing the rules was louder than the 'aye' and they ruled in favor of the rules. They're cheating. The Republican National Committee is not transparent and does not have integrity. They stole votes. They stole delegates. They refused to send buses for our delegates. It's a totalitarian process. This is not democracy. It's a really sad day for us. I've worked for Republican candidates since I was 16. We believed the Republican Party had more integrity. Boy, did they prove us wrong."

To quote my friend, the great author Daniel Keyes Moran: 

"... almost a perfect moment, isn't it? It's hard to be too angry at Republicans trying to disenfranchise Democrats, when they're so willing to do it to each other."

The Voting Wars

Richard Hasen, a professor at University of California at Irvine, has just published a new book chronicling a struggle that has continued to intensive ever since Bush vs. Gore: the legal wars around the right to vote and the parallel propaganda campaign to create an fake epidemic of voter fraud.

Hasen takes us through critical milestones in the past twelve years in this post on Talking Points Memo.

Federal court: Florida early voting curb is violation of 1965 Voting Rights Act

http://fcir.org/2012/08/21/scott-attempts-to-reduce-early-voting-in-all-counties/

A federal court has ruled that Republican Governor Rick Scott's new restrictions on early voting in five counties covered under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

The court claimed efforts to restrict early voting in these counties -- which target minority groups more likely to cast a ballot before election day -- are unfair and illegal. According to the judges, the Republican law runs afoul of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Scott's response: Let's limit early voting across the whole state. 

Reducing Early Voting Opportunities for "African-American Voter Turnout Machine"

The Ohio Republican Party has been pretty candidate about their efforts at eliminating early voting schedule - particulary after hours. Giving people the ability to vote after they finish their workday or on the weekends in the weeks leading up to November makes a huge difference in helping working people vote -- but the Ohio GOP aint having none of that.

In response to the public outcry, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, who intervened in favor of limiting early voting hours in Democratic counties, issued a statewide directive mandating uniform early voting hours in all eighty-eight Ohio counties. Husted kept early voting hours from 8 am to 5 pm on weekdays from October 2 to 19 and broadened hours from 8 am to 7 pm from October 22 to November 2. But he refused to expand early voting hours beyond 7 pm during the week, on weekends or three days prior to the election (which is being challenged in court by the Obama campaign)—when it is most convenient for many working Ohioans to vote. Rather than expanding early voting hours across the state, Husted limited them for everybody. Voter suppression for all!

Franklin County (Columbus) GOP Chair Doug Preisse gave a surprisingly blunt answer to the Columbus Dispatch on Sunday: “I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban—read African-American—voter-turnout machine.” Preisse is not some rogue operative but the chairman of the Republican Party in Ohio’s second-largest county and a close adviser to Ohio Governor John Kasich.

Voter Repression Industrial Complex

Talking Points Memo Muckraker on machinations of the Florida state government, a former Bush official and conservative think tanks to purge voter lists (targeting non-citizens but penalizing numerous legitimate voters in the process).

Hans von Spakovsky, the controversial Bush administration official who writes in support of restrictive voting laws, worked with the office of Gov. Rick Scott on the rollout of Florida’s voting list purge, according to documents shared with TPM.
Emails show that Scott’s communications staff planned to offer von Spakovsky up to local radio station as an expert on Florida’s effort to purge their voting lists back in June. While the purge targeted non-citizens, the state was using faulty data that included numerous legitimate voters.
Scott staffer Brian Burgess, in an email titled “Help In Florida!” told von Spakovsky he’d be “especially grateful if [he’d] be willing to work with my team [to] coordinate with you and the Heritage Foundation media relations folks to help get you booked on talk radio and TV here and nationally if possible.” The emails were obtained by the voting rights group Project Vote through a public information request.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/hans_von_spakovsky_helped_rick_scotts_office_with.php

Judge upholds PA Voter ID law

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/08/15/158827591/judge-refuses-to-block-pa-voter-id-law-appeal-headed-to-state-supreme-court

The law is now headed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court but is unlikely to receive any further decision prior to November.

Here's the status on some of the other state laws:

President Obama's re-election bid is pushing for strong turnouts of young and minority voters, whom plaintiffs in the cases say are among the likeliest to not have acceptable IDs. The Obama administration, through the Justice Department, has used the Voting Rights Act to block some of the initiatives, including voter ID laws in Texas and South Carolina.

With just 12 weeks before Election Day, photo ID laws in these other states remain in limbo:

Mississippi: A voter-approved constitutional amendment is under Department of Justice review. Mississippi is one of several states, including New Hampshire, South Carolina, Virginia and Texas, with a history of voter discrimination that must obtain federal approval to change election procedures.

New Hampshire: The measure is under Justice Department review after the state legislature overrode the governor's veto of the voter ID bill. Voters would be able to show a variety of identification forms, but several of the options will be eliminated in September 2013.

South Carolina: A trial before a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court in Washington is scheduled to begin Aug. 27. The Justice Department twice blocked the law. If it is struck down, a separate law would require voters to show a non-photo ID on Election Day.

Texas: The U.S. District Court in Washington is expected to rule by Aug. 31. If Texas loses, an existing law will require a non-photo ID at the polls.

Virginia: A version more liberal than most others, by allowing a wide range of picture IDs, is under Justice Department review. In a move apparently to pre-empt legal claims of voter suppression, the governor has ordered the state to send new registration cards to every active voter.

Wisconsin: The state is appealing a state judge's decision striking down the law in March as a violation of the Wisconsin Constitution. Two separate challenges have been filed in federal court in Milwaukee.

Chance of Voter Fraud? One in 15 Million

I am so glad states are busy focusing on this voter fraud problem, which doesn't really exist!

A News21 analysis of 2,068 alleged election-fraud cases since 2000 shows that while fraud has occurred, the rate is infinitesimal, and in-person voter impersonation on Election Day, which prompted 37 state legislatures to enact or consider tough voter ID laws, is virtually non-existent.
In an exhaustive public records search, News21 reporters sent thousands of requests to elections officers in all 50 states, asking for every case of fraudulent activity including registration fraud, absentee ballot fraud, vote buying, false election counts, campaign fraud, casting an ineligible vote, voting twice, voter impersonation fraud and intimidation.

Analysis of the resulting comprehensive News21 election fraud database turned up 10 cases of voter impersonation. With 146 million registered voters in the United States during that time, those 10 cases represent one out of about every 15 million prospective voters 

The Casino Man

The NY Times is taking a look at Adelson's casino empire.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/us/politics/sheldon-adelsons-dealings-in-china-are-under-investigation.html?pagewanted=all

The Players at the Game

The true identities behind the SuperPACs.

Voter Fraud was the argument for the original poll tax laws in the South

Opinion piece in Politico provides the historical context:

Southern states in the 1890s enacted literacy tests, poll taxes and other laws to regulate voting. Politicians who wrote these laws made no secret of their belief in white supremacy. And most Southerners understood that these laws were designed to keep African-Americans and other targeted groups from voting.

But there was a problem: the 15th Amendment to the Constitution. Adopted in 1870, the amendment prohibits any state from depriving citizens of their right to vote based on race. This meant that the poll tax laws could say nothing about race, and the Southern political leaders could not write their real intent into the law. They needed a pretext.

What they came up with was voter fraud. There was plenty of irony in this — because these same politicians who supported the poll tax had raised election-rigging to a high art. Many had been involved in vote-buying schemes, and fixing elections by “counting out” the other side.

The poll tax would do little to prevent such fraudulent voting tactics. But, just as its supporters intended, it put another barrier between minority and poor voters and the ballot box.

Anticipating Voting Machine Failures in November

The problem hasn't gone away.

"On November 6, 2012, it is highly likely that some voting systems will fail in counties across the country … [A]s the technology used for elections has become more complicated, the possibility of error has increased substantially."

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428731/anticipating-voting-machine-failures-in-november/?ref=rss

Plus a breakdown state by state on readiness.

Report of Republican Donor Pushing Romney to Release Israeli Spy

A recurring theme in my coming novel The Voting Machine is the idea of elections as a market place where the global elite invest in candidates the same way they do in stocks, bonds and other commodities.

One of the sub-plots deals with a fictional billionaire casino owner pouring money into Congressional candidates in exchange for voting "the right way" on Israel.

Given that sub-text, it's interesting to see this report about Sheldon Adelson pressuring Mitt Romney on the release of a Israeli spy. This is just a report and hasn't been substantiated to my knowledge. But it is interesting to ponder how far billionaire donors will push an explicit quid pro quo exchanging campaign money for policy commitments.

PA Voter ID ruling in two weeks?

A judge in the Pennsylvania Voter ID trial expects a decision during the week of August 13.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443545504577565293690229220.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Closing Arguments in PA Voter ID Trial

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/pennsylvania_voter_id_trial_ends.php?ref=fpa