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To: puborectalis who wrote (660732)	7/3/2012 8:23:06 PM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Respond to of 1572643

No Vote Fraud? Tell it to Rangel’s Opponent. by Jonathan S. Tobin 07.03.2012 commentarymagazine.com In the last year as Democrats have tried to oppose all efforts to ensure the integrity of the vote in the fall election, they have derided voter ID laws as not only racist in motivation but also unnecessary. Though the basic proposition that anyone who shows up at the polls ought to be able to prove they are who they say they are and are registered voters seems like common sense, liberals have claimed such measures are utterly superfluous because voter fraud is not a problem in the United States. And because there is no problem to be fixed, any effort that might stop those not qualified to vote from casting ballots is, they claim, rooted in prejudice and aimed at “suppressing” the minority vote. One would think that the long history of election fraud in this country which dates back to the colonial era and was a staple of machine politics in the 20th century would have caused Democrats to stop making such weak claims. But they are undaunted and have even gone so far as to assert that efforts to hold Attorney General Eric Holder accountable for his failures and stonewalling in the Fast and Furious scandal are evidence of the Republicans’ desire to get back at him for opposing voter ID laws. But in case the Democrats needed a reminder about why voter integrity laws are necessary, they have just gotten one from a stalwart of the Congressional Black Caucus and a leading opponent of such measures. Charles Rangel’s “victory” in the Democratic primary in which he sought to ensure for himself a 22nd consecutive term in Congress from New York is being disputed by his opponent, State Senator Adriano Espaillat, who claims what took place last week was a “phantom election” in which Board of Elections officials may have “hidden” votes. Ironically, Espaillat also claims that not only is the vote count in question but that Rangel’s forces may have suppressed the Hispanic vote by reassigning bilingual poll watchers and turning some voters away by requesting they identify themselves. That voter fraud and other shenanigans might have taken place in the district which stretches from Harlem to The Bronx will surprise no one familiar with the grand traditions of New York politics. Nor is there anything particularly innovative about the allies of an establishment figure like Rangel working within the system to make it more difficult for a challenger to take him on. Given the way these things generally work in New York, we may never know whether Espaillat actually beat Rangel. Nor can we be sure whether the voters allegedly turned away at the polls were really ineligible (in which case Espaillat’s camp was trying to game the results). But what we do know is that wherever politicians and their friends are tempted to cheat, that is exactly what they will do. The stakes involved in such races are high, and anyone who assumes Rangel or any other entrenched officeholder will not stoop to twist, bend or otherwise mutilate the results in order to hang on knows nothing about American political history or politicians. All of which is a reminder of why voter integrity measures are necessary. Moreover, the fact that Rangel’s allies were prepared to challenge the identity of potential votes for Espaillat not only shows why such measures are reasonable, it also illustrates why greater attention to voter fraud–no matter who might be doing it–is vital. That a race involving the senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus should prove this point isn’t just a form of poetic justice. It also shows just how transparently fraudulent the claims made by Democrats against voter ID laws have been.

To: puborectalis who wrote (660732)	7/3/2012 11:15:59 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572643

Florida Voter Purge Is Unlikely to Resume Ari Berman on July 3, 2012 - 10:37 AM ET Last week Florida federal district court judge Robert Hinkle ruled against the Justice Department’s motion for a temporary injunction against Florida’s voter purge. The ruling was widely portrayed as a victory for the state, by Florida Governor Rick Scott and many in the media. Yet the ruling itself was less of an endorsement for Florida and more of a rebuke. “There were major flaws in the program,” Hinkle wrote. “The [Florida secretary of state] compiled the list in a manner certain to include a large number of citizens…The program was likely to have a discriminatory impact on new citizens.” Hinkle ruled in favor of the state “primarily because the Secretary has abandoned the program.” In case you’ve forgotten, Florida’s voter purge was riddled with errors (“98.4% of the 2,625 people identified by the Florida SOS as ‘potential noncitizens’ remain on the rolls because the Supervisors of Elections found insufficient evidence that they were ineligible to be registered voters,” found University of Florida political science professor Daniel Smith), racially biased (minorities comprised 80 percent of the list but only 30 percent of Florida’s population) and blatantly partisan (Democrats outnumbered Republicans by two to one). That’s why Florida’s supervisors of elections overwhelmingly refused to implement the purge—which remains their position following Judge Hinkle’s ruling. “The supervisors are where we were before—we’ve stopped the purge,” Vicki Davis, president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections, told me. “The list was much too flawed for the elections supervisors to move forward with in the same format and without backup documentation.” “We’re not going to see any further activity in most of the counties in the state’s direction,” adds Ion Sancho, supervisor of elections in Tallahassee’s Leon County. “It’s just too close to the election at this point.” Two heavily Republican counties, Collier and Lee, are the exceptions, comprising 65 percent of the 107 potentially ineligible voters purged in Florida from early April to early June. Collier County, which includes Naples, removed 26 alleged “non-citizens” from the rolls based on the state’s list—eight of whom did not respond to contact attempts from the county to determine whether they were or were not citizens. “The worst-case scenario is that we’ve wrongfully removed somebody from the rolls,” says Tim Durham, the county’s deputy elections supervisor. If that’s the case, legitimate voters wrongly branded as “non-citizens” would have to cast a provisional ballot, which may or may not be counted (Durham says two-thirds of provisional ballots are counted in Collier County). Lee County, home to Fort Myers and fittingly named after the Confederate general, is the other rogue county—and the only one in the state still purging voters. Lee removed forty-four suspected “non-citizens” from its rolls from April to June, according to Daniel Smith, but only two were from the state’s list. The other forty-two were evidently based on the county’s records of people who identified as non-citizens in order to avoid jury duty, a highly unreliable way to determine citizenship. (Lee County election officials were out of the office and did not respond to interview requests). So what happens now? Collier is one of five counties in Florida subject to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), meaning it must seek approval from the federal government to make sure any voting change does not discriminate against minority voters (which the county failed to do). The Justice Department, whose lawsuit against Florida under the National Voter Registration Act is moving forward in Hinkle’s court, could also challenge the voter purge under Section 5. The ACLU and Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights are already suing Florida under that provision, alleging that the counties needed preclearance for the voter purge, while the Advancement Project and other voting rights groups filed another lawsuit under Section 2 of the VRA, noting the purge’s discriminatory impact. Florida has said the voter purge will not resume unless the state gains access to the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE database—which tracks government benefits for non-citizens and is not intended as a tool for purging ineligible voters. “The State's insistent claim that access to the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program will resolve any deficiencies in the current match process seriously overstates the usefulness and accuracy of SAVE for the purposes of verifying names in a voter list maintenance program,” writes the Brennan Center for Justice. Moreover, Florida lacks the identifiers necessary to properly use the database. Yet although the purge remains suspended, Florida has yet to admit to any wrongdoing or to address the widespread confusion surrounding the program, which may scare some minority voters away from the polls in November for fear of retaliation. “The state needs to publicly acknowledge, to both election officials and voters, that there were errors, that they’re checking to make sure no one has been wrongfully removed and that the list won’t be used anymore,” says Diana Kasdan, counsel at the Brennan Center’s democracy program. Judge Hinkle ended his opinion with a warning to the state. “If the secretary or the supervisors of elections go forward with the program the secretary says he has abandoned,” he wrote, “the issue can be revisited.”