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Jewish World Review March 26 , 2012/ 4 Nissan, 5772 Mustn't disenfranchise those would-be criminals By Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
President Barack Obama's poll numbers are tanking. He could be in big trouble in November.
Democrats have a way to win when voters turn on them. The Justice Department struck down March 12 a Texas law that requires voters to show photo identification.
Formerly segregated states are required by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to "preclear" changes in their election laws with either the Justice Department or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to make sure those changes don't disenfranchise voters based on ethnicity or color. Texas has failed to demonstrate the photo ID law isn't designed to discriminate against Hispanics, said Thomas Perez, chief of the Civil Rights Division.
Mr. Perez based his charge on data which indicate 6.3 percent of registered Hispanics -- vs. 4.3 percent of non-Hispanics -- don't have photo ID. Texas plans to provide photo IDs for free to citizens who don't have them, but Mr. Perez was not moved.
Vote fraud in Texas is potentially very serious, said State Rep. Jose Aliseda. A 2007 study by the state auditor indicated 49,049 registered voters may be ineligible.
One of every eight active voter registrations in the U.S. may no longer be valid, according to a Pew Center study last month. In many counties, there are more registered voters than adults of voting age.
The Commission on Federal Electoral Reform, headed by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker, cited in its 2005 report instances of vote buying, false voter registrations, voting by non-citizens, multiple voting, absentee ballot fraud, and voting by felons.
"The electoral system cannot inspire public confidence if no safeguards exist to deter or detect fraud or to confirm the identity of voters," the report said. Foremost among the commission's 87 recommendations for reform was photo ID.
In a 6-3 decision in 2008, the Supreme Court upheld Indiana's photo ID law, considered the nation's toughest.
"There is no question about the legitimacy or importance of the State's interest in counting only the votes of eligible voters," wrote liberal Justice John Paul Stevens for the majority. The burdens imposed by having to acquire photo ID "are neither so serious nor so frequent as to raise any question about the constitutionality," of the Indiana law.
Researchers have found no evidence that photo ID requirements suppress minority voting. Concerns about such laws affecting turnout are "much ado about nothing," concluded the authors of the most extensive study.
It's unconstitutional for Justice to use Section 5 to block state voter ID laws, said J. Christian Adams, who used to work in the Voting Rights section. When Georgia sued on constitutional grounds after Justice blocked its citizenship verification law, DOJ capitulated before a court could rule, he noted.
"Sources tell me DOJ is petrified of losing Section 5," Mr. Adams said.
The Justice Department's preposterous assault on state photo ID laws eventually will fail. Democrats hope "eventually" is after the election.
"Obama and his party clearly want as many of what they consider undocumented Democrats -- that would be illegal immigrants to the rest of us -- to have unfettered access to the polls," wrote Washington Examiner columnist Gregory Kane, who is black.
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Democrat hopes suffered a blow last week (3/14) when Judge Rosemary Collyer denied DOJ's request to delay the Texas case until after the election. Justice's position is "troubling," she said.
Since it is mostly they who perpetrate it, Democrats don't consider vote fraud a problem. But likely voters support photo ID requirements, 72 percent to 22 percent, according to a Rasmussen poll March 15.
That day, Pennsylvania became the 16th state to require photo IDs. Liberals are panicking. Top officials of the National Association of Colored People flew to Geneva, Switzerland, last week to ask the UN Human Rights Council -- on which sit human rights abusers Cuba, China, Russia and Saudi Arabia -- to intervene.
To board their plane, the NAACP bigwigs had to show photo ID, which also is required to board an Amtrak train, enter a federal building, buy alcohol, cash a check, pick up theater tickets, or apply for food stamps.
"The liberal war on voter integrity has now morphed from partisan hypocrisy to parody," wrote JWR contributor Jonathan Tobin on Commentary magazine's blog.
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JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration.
© 2011, Jack Kelly |
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