|
|
|
Jewish World Review Oct. 28, 2010/ 20 Mar-Cheshvan, 5771 Progressive Determination to Undermine American Elections By Arnold Ahlert
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The progressive assault on America continues, and their favorite whipping boy remains Arizona. A three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned that state's requirement that people show proof of citizenship to register to vote, calling it "inconsistent" with the National Voter Registration Act. In other words, a United States court considers that proving one is an American citizen in order to vote in an American election an "undue burden." How in the world did we come to this?
The National Voter Registration Act, or as it's more familiarly known, the Motor Voter Bill, was passed by a Democratically-controlled Congress in 1993 and signed into law by president Bill Clinton. It was called the Motor Voter Bill because it allowed people to register to vote when they applied for driver's licenses or social services. Such registration can be done either in person or by mail. The Act was established for four primary reasons: to establish procedures increasing the number of eligible citizens who register to vote in Federal elections; to enhance the participation of eligible citizens as voters in elections for Federal office; to protect the integrity of the electoral process; and to ensure that accurate and current voter registration rolls are maintained.
Here's the kicker: the federal law requires applicants to "attest to their citizenship under penalty of perjury," but, according to this court's ruling, such registration does not require providing documentary proof of such citizenship. What does this mean?
It means registering to vote is based on nothing more than an honor system. How's that honor system working out? In the 2008 election, just one community activist group, the radical leftist, and now-disgraced ACORN, submitted 1.3 million voter registration applications.
400,000 of them were rejected.
Why would ACORN and other groups submit bogus registration forms knowing that would more than likely be disqualified? John Samples, Director of the Center for Representative Government at The Cato Institute testified before the Committee on Rules and Administration, United States Senate, on May 14th, 2001:
"The Act made it harder to verify the identity of voters seeking to register. It also considerably complicated the states' task of keeping the registration rolls clean. For example, to remove a voter who has moved from the rolls of a voting district, the local jurisdiction has two choices. First, they could get written confirmation of the move from the citizen. Lacking that, the jurisdiction had to send a notice to the voter. If the notice card was not returned and the person did not vote in two general elections for Federal office after the notice was sent, then the jurisdiction could remove their name from the rolls."
"The cost of these mailings is significant. In Indiana, for example, such a mailing would have a price tag of about $2 million or about twice the Election Division's entire annual budget (emphasis mine). Given this price tag and the limited resources of most local election boards, we should not be surprised that the registration rolls throughout the nation are enormously inaccurate. In some counties, election administrators report, the voting roll numbers are bigger than the voting-age population."
In short, the objective is to overwhelm the system, and the only entity with the ability to put a stop to these and other attempts to commit voter fraud is the Voting Rights Section of United States Department of Justice.
Where do they stand on the issue? I refer you to the testimony of former Department of Justice Voting Section Chief, Christopher Coates, before the United States Civil Rights Commission earlier this year. Coates was testifying mostly about the dropping of the 2008 voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. But the far more damning part of his testimony was virtually ignored by the mainstream media:
"The NVRA (National Voter Registration Act) has three provisions that have led to enforcement activity by the Voting Section…During the Bush administration the Voting Section began filing cases under the list management provision of Section 8 to compel states and local registration officials to remove ineligible voters. These suits were very unpopular with a number of groups that work in the area of voting rights…"
"As chief of the Voting Section I assigned attorneys to work on the matter…During the time I was Chief, no approval was given to this project and it is my understanding that no approval has ever been given for that Section 8 maintenance project to date. That means we have entered the 2010 election cycle with eight states appearing to be in major non-compliance with the list requirements of Section 8 of the NVRA and yet the Voting Section which has the responsibility to enforce that law has yet to take any action…"
"I do not believe the Voting Section has recently been involved in any list maintenance enforcement during the Obama administration."
In keeping with their whacky reputation, this latest ruling by the 9th Circuit Panel, which included former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Conner sitting in as a "temporary judge," overturned a previous ruling--by the same 9th Circuit which ruled Arizona's Prop 200 did not violate the NVRA.
Thankfully, this decision can't affect this election since the deadline for registration has already passed. But there is little question where the American left is headed with this. The voter registration movement was one of the pet projects of two Columbia University sociologists named Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. If those names ring a bell, perhaps it's because they are also the authors of the "Cloward-Piven Strategy," a plan designed to destroy capitalism by overloading government with impossible demands as a means of fomenting economic crisis and eventual collapse. And who did both men cite as their "inspiration?"
Community organizer Saul Alinsky. The same Saul Alinsky who wrote "Rules For Radicals," and whose Marxist theories were taught in a series of workshops--by the president of the United States, Barack Obama.
What's the best way to destroy our democratic republic? Getting enough Americans to question the integrity of our election process has to be high on the list. And since every case ever litigated in this country with regard to voter ID has had Democrats lined up on the side where less proof is required for voting--using the phony "disenfranchisement" argument as an excuse---an unmistakable pattern is emerging. A pattern which can be reduced to one simple idea:
The acquisition and/or maintenance of power by any means necessary.
Every state needs to have a law requiring both proof of citizenship and a photo ID requirement to vote. Even a mail-in vote--or should I say especially a mail-in vote--should also be accompanied by a picture. States should also write laws by which state-issued ID cards can be given to those who claim that producing a birth certificate, a driver's license or any other form of ID constitutes an "undue burden." Maintaining the integrity of our election process far outweighs any individual undue burdens, and the overwhelming majority of Americans know it. Those who are determined to fight such commonsense provisions aren't fooling anyone, except perhaps their fellow travelers. There is absolutely no reasonable argument to offer against making sure that Americans, and only Americans, vote in American elections--none.
One more compelling reason for decent Americans to get out and vote next Tuesday. Maybe the most important one of all.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment on JWR Contributor Arnold Ahlert's column, by clicking here.
© 2010, Arnold Ahlert |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||||
