Obama/Holder DoJ Blinds Itself to Voter Fraud Concerns

Obama/Holder DoJ Blinds Itself to Voter Fraud Concerns

 by Patterico

A couple of things happened recently that deserve to be noticed in the same place. First, some Democrats pled guilty to felonies involving voter fraud — just another example of an increasing number of similar cases around the country.

A total of four Democratic officials and political operatives have now pleaded guilty to voter fraud-related felony charges in an alleged scheme to steal a New York election.
The latest guilty pleas expose the ease with which political insiders can apparently manipulate the electoral system and throw an election their way, by the forging of signatures of unsuspecting voters that are then cast as real votes.
. . . .
Former Troy Democratic City Clerk William McInerney, Democratic Councilman John Brown, and Democratic political operatives Anthony Renna and Anthony DeFiglio have entered guilty pleas in the case, in which numerous signatures were allegedly forged on absentee ballots in the 2009 Working Families Party primary, the political party that was associated with the now-defunct community group, ACORN. 

Funny how ACORN always seems to come up whenever we hear about voter fraud.
One way you might combat phony registrations like the kind described above would be to demand voters present proper identification at the time of registration and/or voting. And guess what? The Obama administration is invalidating a voter ID law in South Carolina, a move which seems to signal that DoJ will nix a similar effort in Texas. And Eric Holder seems to think the only reason to demand voter IDs is to keep minorities from voting:

At a high-profile speech in Austin earlier this month, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder echoed Democratic critics in arguing that in-person voter fraud is not a common problem and that photo identification measures may do nothing but suppress turnout of minority and low-income voters.

I guess if you’re not looking hard for voter fraud, you’re not going to see it. But in the story about the Democrats pleading guilty to voter fraud — interestingly, in a case investigated and prosecuted by state officials and not Holder’s DoJ — we are told that a Democrat operative believes such devious practices are a “commonplace and accepted practice.” (On both sides of the aisle, he claims, though no evidence is offered to support this claim.) Granted, the fraud in that instance was absentee ballot fraud and not in-person fraud — but that’s just a reason to tighten controls on absentee voting, not to shrug our shoulders at potential in-person voting fraud.

In addition, forging signatures on absentee ballots is only one source of potential fraud . . .


As I noted in 2010:

[L]et’s just take one likely rich vein of illegal votes: votes cast by illegal immigrants. What’s that, you say? Votes cast by illegal immigrants? Yes. Estimates say that there are anywhere from 10 million to 18 million illegal immigrants in the country. This means millions are of voting age. What’s more, many of them are experts at obtaining false documents, allowing them to work, drive, and participate in all other aspects of civic life. Do we really think that none of them vote? None? Let’s go with a conservative estimate of 10,000,000 illegal immigrants. If only one percent of them vote — just one percent! — that’s 100,000 illegal votes. That is voter fraud on a massive scale — certainly enough to tip a close election. This sort of thing dilutes your vote.

Now, I’m “bipartisan” about the issue of voter fraud, in the sense that I take up causes advanced by both sides. I want voter ID laws and greater investigation of voter fraud (causes typically pushed by Republicans) — but I also want to eliminate e-voting machines that are subject to hacking (a cause typically pushed by Democrats). In 2000, I was initally all for letting Al Gore do a full manual recount of all counties — but opposed the travesty that ensued when he sought a partial recount in Democrat-controlled counties whose officials manipulated the standards to achieve their partisan ends.

To me, it’s a matter of fairness. If your vote can be cancelled by an illegal immigrant, or an ACORN scammer, or an Anonymous hacker, then we might as well be a Soviet bloc style satellite state. It is unfortunate that election integrity, an issue of fundamental fairness, should become the province of partisans, scammers, and criminals. If our vote doesn’t mean anything, what does?
UPDATE: Thanks to Instapundit for the link. For those who have missed me, I am back blogging regularly — or at least trying my best! Please bookmark the main page and come back!

http://patterico.com/2011/12/26/obamaholder-doj-blinds-itself-to-voter-fraud-concerns/