A Step In The Right Direction

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article this morning about California and voting.

The article reports:

California and Los Angeles County have agreed to purge as many as 1.5 million inactive voter registrations across the state as part of a court settlement finalized this week with Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog.

Judicial Watch sued the county and state voter-registration agencies, arguing that the California government was not complying with a federal law requiring the removal of inactive registrations that remain after two general elections, or two to four years.

In August 2017, Judicial Watch reported:

Judicial Watch announced it sent a notice-of-violation letter to the state of California and 11 of its counties threatening to sue in federal court if it does not clean its voter registration lists as mandated by the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). Both the NVRA and the federal Help America Vote Act require states to take reasonable steps to maintain accurate voting rolls. The August 1 letter was sent on behalf of several Judicial Watch California supporters and the Election Integrity Project California, Inc.

In the letter, Judicial Watch noted that public records obtained on the Election Assistance Commission’s 2016 Election Administration Voting Survey and through verbal accounts from various county agencies show 11 California counties have more registered voters than voting-age citizens: Imperial (102%), Lassen (102%), Los Angeles (112%), Monterey (104%), San Diego (138%), San Francisco (114%), San Mateo (111%), Santa Cruz (109%), Solano (111%), Stanislaus (102%), and Yolo (110%).

In the letter, Judicial Watch noted that Los Angeles County officials “informed us that the total number of registered voters now stands at a number that is a whopping 144% of the total number of resident citizens of voting age.”

Under Section 8 of the NVRA, states are required to make a reasonable effort to remove the names of ineligible voters from official lists due to “the death of the registrant” or “a change in the residence of the registrant,” and requires states to ensure noncitizens are not registered to vote.

There is “strong circumstantial evidence that California municipalities are not conducting reasonable voter registration list maintenance as mandated under the NVRA,” Judicial Watch wrote in the notice letter sent to California Secretary of State Alex Padilla.

Because the states refused to supply information to the President’s Commission to study election fraud, private groups like Judicial Watch have to to the work themselves. It is good to see that the work of protecting the votes of American voters who are legal voters is proceeding.

Voter Fraud?

On Friday, The National Review posted an article about voter registration in America. It seems that there are 3.5 million more people on the election rolls than are eligible to vote.

The article reports:

Some 3.5 million more people are registered to vote in the U.S. than are alive among America’s adult citizens. Such staggering inaccuracy is an engraved invitation to voter fraud.

The Election Integrity Project of Judicial Watch — a Washington-based legal-watchdog group — analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011–2015 American Community Survey and last month’s statistics from the federal Election Assistance Commission. The latter included figures provided by 38 states. According to Judicial Watch, eleven states gave the EAC insufficient or questionable information. Pennsylvania’s legitimate numbers place it just below the over-registration threshold.

Cleaning up our voter rolls would not be a major undertaking. All that is needed is to compare Census data, voter rolls, and possibly information from various states’ motor vehicle and license registries.

The article notes that research into Judicial Watch’s information showed 462 counties of the 2,500 studied showed more voters than citizens of voting age.

The article reports:

These 462 counties (18.5 percent of the 2,500 studied) exhibit this ghost-voter problem. These range from 101 percent registration in Delaware’s New Castle County to New Mexico’s Harding County, where there are 62 percent more registered voters than living, breathing adult citizens — or a 162 percent registration rate.

Washington’s Clark County is worrisome, given its 154 percent registration rate. This includes 166,811 ghost voters. Georgia’s Fulton County seems less nettlesome at 108 percent registration, except for the number of Greater Atlantans, 53,172, who compose that figure.

The article concludes:

Under federal law, the 1993 National Voter Registration Act and the 2002 Help America Vote Act require states to maintain accurate voter lists. Nonetheless, some state politicians ignore this law. Others go further: Governor Terry McAuliffe (D., Va.) vetoed a measure last February that would have mandated investigations of elections in which ballots cast outnumbered eligible voters.

Even more suspiciously, when GOP governor Rick Scott tried to obey these laws and update Florida’s records, including deleting 51,308 deceased voters, Obama’s Justice Department filed a federal lawsuit to stop him. Federal prosecutors claimed that Governor Scott’s statewide efforts violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act, although it applies to only five of Florida’s 67 counties. Then–attorney general Eric Holder and his team behaved as if Martin Luther King Jr. and the Freedom Riders fought so valiantly in order to keep cadavers politically active.

Whether Americans consider vote fraud a Republican hoax, a Democratic tactic, or something in between, everyone should agree that it’s past time to exorcise ghost voters from the polls.

Voter identification would clear up some of these problems, but the fact remains that the voter rolls need to be cleared up. Our Representative Republic depends on the honesty of our elections.

Why Math Matters

The Washington Free Beacon posted a story yesterday about a group of people who are getting serious about voter fraud.

The article reports:

A public interest law firm has threatened to bring lawsuits against more than 30 counties across the United States that have either more registered voters than eligible citizens, or a number of registrants that is implausibly high, the second such wave of notice letters sent by the group to various counties.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation, an election integrity group based in Indiana, sent the statutory notice letters on Jan. 19 to election officials spanning 37 counties in six different states. The group says that by failing to purge names from the rolls, the counties are failing to comply with the National Voter Registration Act.

Unfortunately voter fraud is a problem. Every fraudulent vote cancels out the vote of a legal voter. Voter fraud is something that impacts all American,s and we all need to work toward ending it.

The article reveals the contents of the letter and the counties that received it:

“Based on our comparison of publicly available information published by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Federal Election Assistance Commission, your county is failing to comply with Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA),” it continues. “Federal law requires election officials to conduct a reasonable effort to maintain voter registration lists free of dead voters, ineligible voters and voters that have moved away.”

“In short, your county has an implausible number of registered voters compared to the number of eligible living citizens.”

According to the foundation, five counties in Colorado, seven in Florida, two in Nevada, 12 in North Carolina, six in Pennsylvania, and five in Virginia show a substantially high number of registrants and will receive the warning from the group.

The article further reports:

The foundation sent notice letters in August to 141 counties across 21 states, including counties in Michigan (24 counties), Kentucky (18), Illinois (17), Indiana (11), Alabama (10), Colorado (10), Texas (9), Nebraska (7), New Mexico (5), South Dakota (5), Kansas (4), Mississippi (4), Louisiana (3), West Virginia (3), Georgia (2), Iowa (2), Montana (2), and North Carolina (2), as well as Arizona, Missouri, and New York (1 each).

The foundation discovered that some counties showed voter registration rates that exceed 150 percent during its first investigation into voter rolls.

The foundation has since filed litigation against two of the counties that received the letters in August.

I am grateful for the work this foundation is doing, but I am saddened by the fact that the states and countries are not following the law.

Huh????

Yesterday The American Thinker posted an article about a recent decision by the Supreme Court not to hear a case regarding proof of citizenship for voter registration.

The article reports:

In a commonsense decision, the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a case that decided that people registering to vote in federal election don’t have to prove their citizenship.  That means that people registering to vote won’t be bullied into proving citizenship, which now seems to be an irrelevant criterion for voting.

“I am very pleased, obviously,” said Dolores Furtado, president of the Kansas chapter of the League of Women Voters. “It’s a good feeling because we’re truly trying to help” people get registered to vote.

Furtado said the league’s main interest is in increasing participation in the democratic process “rather than trying to make more hoops, more steps, to go through.”

It would have been nice if the Supreme Court had ruled on this; however, there is an interesting consequence of this decision that will give Kansas a more honest election on the state and local level.

On Monday, Roll Call posted an article explaining how the decision of the Supreme Court not to take the case would impact elections in Kansas and Arizona.

The article reports:

The Kansas and Arizona laws stand, meaning that people wishing to register to vote with state forms are required to show proof of citizenship. Kobach said more than 99 percent of Kansans use the state forms. “But because of the Supreme Court decision not to review the case,” he added, “we do have a small limited loophole.” The slim majority that uses the federal form can “refuse to provide proof of citizenship,” he said, “but that will only suffice for federal elections.”

Article I Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution states:

The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

Basically that means that each state can set the standard for who is allowed to vote. Obviously, because there is a federal form people can use in Kansas, there is a way of circumventing that law by using the federal form. However, using the federal form only allows people to vote in federal elections. This is another example of the federal government overriding the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

I really wonder who came up with the bright idea that non-citizens would be able to vote in American elections. That is totally ridiculous and seriously undermines the integrity of our election process.

Moving Toward A More Honest Election Process

On Friday, Judicial Watch posted their weekly update on the issues and cases they are dealing with.

They reported:

This week, Judicial Watch announced that it reached a settlement in an August 30, 2012, lawsuit against the State of Ohio, which resulted in an agreement with Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted to take or continue to take a series of actions to further ensure that the state is in compliance with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).

It may have taken our actions to bring these issues into focus, but in the end, election officials in the State of Ohio made the decision to do the right thing for citizens of the state and for election integrity.

Now before I get to the specifics of this agreement, just let me put this legal victory in context and underscore its importance.

There is no question about it. This is an historic settlement, the first of its kind in the history of the National Voter Registration Act. As JW has stated time and time again, in letters to election officials and in court filings across the country, dirty election rolls can lead to voter and election fraud.

Under the terms of this groundbreaking settlement, the people of Ohio can now rest easier that their elections will be cleaner – beginning with the 2014 elections. Moreover, given that the problem of dirty rolls is a nationwide problem, Ohio’s good faith steps to address it can serve as a model for other states. Rest assured JW will do everything in its power to see that it does.

Some of the actions the State of Ohio agreed to:

  • To participate in the State and Territorial Exchange of Vital Events (STEVE) to obtain out-of-state death information
  • To use Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles data to identify registered voters who move within Ohio, with frequent updates being sent to local officials.
  • To use an online voter registration change of address website to encourage voters to keep their registration information current.
  • To conduct a special, monthly, duplicate registration elimination program, within defined technical thresholds, for all Ohio County boards of election voter lists.
  • To keep online, and available for public access, a current voter registration list.
  • To require the county boards of election to send accurate survey information to the Secretary of State’s Office, to be compiled and forwarded to the Election Assistance commission for its NVRA-related surveys.
  • To use reasonable efforts to promote the expanded use by recent college graduates of Ohio’s online voter registration change of address system, including education to remind college graduates to keep their voter registration addresses and information current and to request necessary updates; and to endeavor to coordinate these activities in conjunction with Ohio’s colleges and universities.
  • To direct boards of election to send confirmation notices annually to voters who may be inactive; and to query boards of election on a regular basis as to whether this direction is being followed.

None of these actions will restrict voter participation; all of these actions will help ensure more honest elections in Ohio. Hopefully the rest of the country will follow the example set by Ohio.

 

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