Tag Archives: Board of Elections

Election Interference?

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On Tuesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about who is allowed on the election ballot in North Carolina The North Carolina State Board of Elections has rejected ballot access to third-party candidates, RFK Jr. and Cornel West.

The article reports:

The North Carolina State Board of Elections ruled 3-2 on Wednesday to temporarily keep Kennedy and West off the ballot until it further reviews the decision sometime ahead of the November election. The board chairman justified the decision, saying that the committee needed time to “look at petition-gathers who have been problematic,” according to NBC News. The Fair Election Fund, founded in May to target abuses of the election system, is planning to allocate a portion of its $5 million whistleblower protection program to investigate the board’s decision, a watchdog dog official told the Caller.

The investigation will begin by asking whistleblowers with knowledge of “illegal or unethical activity” by the state board the Democratic National Committee, or any groups aligned with President Joe Biden to share their story with Fair Election Fund through its hotline, an official told the Caller. The official did not give the Caller an estimate on how long the investigation will last, but said updates would be provided.

RFK Jr. and Cornel West are most likely to take votes away from President Biden. Any thinking conservative who has read RFK Jr.’s positions on anything other than vaccines is not likely to vote for him. Even his positions on vaccines would probably not attract many conservative voters. Cornel West is also not likely to attract conservative voters. Keeping RFK Jr. and Cornel West off the ballot is simply another effort by the Democrats to turn North Carolina purple.

The article concludes:

While ballot access remains in limbo in North Carolina, Kennedy is set to appear on the ballot in several states, including Michigan, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, California and Hawaii, according to Politico. West will also appear on some states’ ballots including Colorado, Oregon, South Carolina and Utah.

“The Board’s partisan decision, despite the submission of the requisite number of petition signatures on time, undermines the foundational principles of our electoral system,” West spokesperson Edwin DeJesus told the Caller, adding anti-democratic tactics.

The Problem With Mail-In Voting

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Yesterday Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article about the recent primary in New York State. The primary was held on June 23. All voters had until May 29 to register online, in person at a local board of elections, or by mailing in a voter registration form.

The article reports:

How badly has the state of New York handled its vote-by-mail primary? Only today did the Associated Press make the call on the race in NY-16, concluding three weeks after the election that Rep. Eliot Engel lost to his primary challenger, progressive insurgent Jamaal Bowman — by sixteen points. It took that long to get through enough of the mail-in ballots and navigate the opaque reporting on the count for the AP to reach a firm conclusion in a landslide for Bowman.

That race is no fluke, either. The New York Times reports that some races have only a handful of ballots counted, and that outcomes of many of the primary contests have yet to be determined, more than three weeks after the election day. This portends disaster in November, the Times warns:

More than three weeks after the New York primaries, election officials have not yet counted an untold number of mail-in absentee ballots, leaving numerous closely watched races unresolved, including three key Democratic congressional contests.

The absentee ballot count — greatly inflated this year because the state expanded the vote-by-mail option because of the coronavirus pandemic — has been painstakingly slow, and hard to track, with no running account of the vote totals available.

In some cases, the tiny number of ballots counted has bordered on the absurd: In the 12th Congressional District, where Representative Carolyn B. Maloney is fighting for her political life against her challenger, Suraj Patel, only 800 of some 65,000 absentee ballots had been tabulated as of Wednesday, according to Mr. Patel, though thousands had been disqualified. …

The delays in New York’s primaries raise huge concerns about how the state will handle the general election in November, and may offer a cautionary note for other states as they weigh whether to embrace, and how to implement, a vote-by-mail system because of the pandemic.

Most voter fraud occurs in absentee ballots or mail-in ballots. This is the place where ballot harvesting occurs–a person can go into a nursing home, get people with limited cognitive ability to sign a ballot, and fill out the ballot themselves and turn it in. Ballots can be stolen from mailboxes, filled out, and turned in. It is a nightmare to anyone who wants an honest election.

The article at Hot Air concludes:

The vote-by-mail system, however, truly is a disaster, and not just over security concerns. The timelines in our Constitution are too tight for the kinds of delays seen in this year’s primaries. We are at risk of being without a legitimate Congress as well as a legitimate president by the time the deadlines for both are reached. The only way to ensure that we can meet those deadlines is to vote in person by paper ballots utilizing optical-scan technology for fast and accurate counts. The delay from a relative small number of contests in that system where absentee ballots could make the difference will be easy to absorb, but we can’t wait several weeks to confirm outcomes in races with double-digit in-person vote gaps.

Stop pretending this is a Trump problem. This is an electoral legitimacy problem in more than one aspect, and it’s time we treated it as such. If we can go to Walmart in this pandemic, we certainly can figure out how to vote in person to choose this country’s leadership.

How Many Times Do Voters Have To Pass This To Make It Law?

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A 2016 article at CNN reported:

A federal appeals court Friday overturned parts of North Carolina’s 2013 voting law, including provisions that required voters to show a photo identification card, saying they were enacted “with racially discriminatory intent” in violation of the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.

“We cannot ignore the record evidence that, because of race, the legislature enacted one of the largest restrictions of the franchise in modern North Carolina history,” 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Diana Motz wrote.

This was the third federal court ruling against voter identification laws this month. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled July 20 that Texas’ voter ID law violated the Voting Rights Act, and federal judges softened a Wisconsin law on July 19.

The voters responded by passing an amendment to the North Carolina Constitution in November 2018 that required voter id.

The Carolina Journal continues the story today:

 A federal court gave North Carolinians who adopted a constitutional amendment requiring voter ID a late lump of coal.

U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Biggs and Magistrate Judge Patrick Auld issued a notice Thursday, Dec. 26, saying the court will put the law implementing the constitutional amendment on hold. They’re presiding over a lawsuit challenging the law requiring voters to present a state-approved form of identification at the polls. The court said it will issue an order next week.

…What happens next is anyone’s guess. The defendants in the lawsuit who have standing to file an appeal may choose not to, jeopardizing the voter ID requirement for the March 2020 primary.

The N.C. chapter of the NAACP filed the lawsuit a year ago, saying the 2018 implementing law was too much like earlier voter ID attempts that were ruled unconstitutional. Senate Bill 824 became law Dec. 19, 2018, over Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto.

But in its lawsuit, the NAACP didn’t include the General Assembly among the defendants, even though legislators passed the law being challenged. The only defendants are Cooper (who vetoed S.B. 824) and the members of the State Board of Elections.

Legislative leaders asked the court in January to join the lawsuit. Biggs rejected the request, saying the elections board could defend the law.

County elections boards were told Thursday the voter ID informational mailing was scrapped.

It is significant that the only defendants are Governor Cooper and the State Board of Elections. My guess is that the Governor will choose not to oppose the ruling and we will have to vote for voter id again. The legislature passed voter id laws a few years ago, and the voters amended the Constitution to require voter id last year. The court is taking away the rights of the voters and of the legislature. That should not be allowed to stand.

How To Allow Non-Citizens To Vote Without Being Noticed

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On Thursday The New York Post posted an article about a mistake in a bill about voter registration.

The article reports:

A typo in the state’s automatic voter registration bill would have forced non-citizens to register despite their ineligibility — but lawmakers vowed it would be fixed.

The bill directs designated state agencies such as the Department of Motor Vehicles, State Board of Elections and Department of Social Services to automatically enroll residents who fill out any paperwork with their agencies.

An “opt-out” box would let people choose not to enroll. But sloppily written instructions specifically directed ineligible non-citizens to not check the box.

The instructions were actually supposed to tell them to check the box so they wouldn’t inadvertently be registered.

“There is a drafting error which [the Democratic] majority has recognized will be fixed in a chapter amendment,” Assembly Democrats wrote in a memo obtained by The Post.

A “chapter amendment” means lawmakers will pass the bill as-is and then edit the language after the fact.

The Assembly is supposed to vote on the bill Thursday. The Senate already passed the measure — typo included — Wednesday by a 43-to-19-vote margin.

But Assembly Republicans seethed because the intended vote comes three days after Gov. Cuomo signed the controversial “Green Light” bill granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

It will be interesting to see if they actually fix their mistake.

The article explains that the sole requirement for registering to vote in New York State is a driver’s license. If non-citizens have driver’s licenses, they will be able to register to vote–even if they are here illegally. One way to combat this is to check the voter registration rolls against the list of people who have declined jury duty because they are not citizens. However, I find it very unlikely that New York State will do this.

The conventional wisdom is that illegal aliens will vote Democrat. In New York State that really won’t impact presidential elections. Generally New York City votes Democrat, and its population is large enough to overpower the rest of the State and give the Democrats the Electoral College votes for President. However, allowing illegal aliens to vote could make a significant difference on local elections. Any remaining Republican pockets in New York State would quickly disappear.

Keeping Election Integrity

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In the last state legislative session, North Carolina changed its voting laws to ensure the integrity of its elections. Photo ID will be required in 2016, there will be no more same day registration, and voters will be required to vote in their own precincts.

The reasoning behind these changes was simple. Voter ID prevents a voter from being disenfranchised by someone who casts an illegal vote. Same day registration does not provide a way to check to make sure someone actually lives at the address they state. As I recently reported, a friend of mine who lives in North Carolina checked the voter registration rolls a few weeks ago and found out that there were six people who claimed her house as a residence, but did not live there. That is potentially six illegal votes cancelling out the votes of legal voters. Requiring people to vote in their own precinct ensures that they receive the appropriate ballot. Precinct ballots vary according to local offices being filled, obviously, voters need to vote for their local officials–not someone else’s. The idea behind the new law was to secure the right of voters to an honest election.

Unfortunately, some of that law was recently struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. According to the U. S. Supreme Court blog, the Fourth Circuit judges felt that the new laws would limit the black vote. I guess I’m a little dense, but it seems to me that if it actually limited anyone’s ability to vote (which it doesn’t), it would limit everyone’s ability to vote. Registering to vote is easy–it can be done five days a week at the Board of Elections or when you get your license. Advance registration gives the Board of Elections time to confirm your address. Voting in your precinct should not be a problem as your precinct is determined by where you live–therefore the voting place should be relatively close to your home.

Well, now the U. S. Supreme Court is involved.

The article reports:

The Supreme Court, with two Justices noting dissents, on Wednesday afternoon allowed North Carolina to bar voters from registering and casting their ballots on the same day, and to refuse to count votes that were cast in the wrong polling places.  Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.  The majority did not explain its action.

The order gives the state time to file an appeal from lower-court rulings striking down those two provisions, which were part of a larger, sweeping change in voting rights in the state.  If the Court grants review of the state’s appeal, the postponement will remain in effect until there is a decision.

Justice Ginsburg, writing for herself and Justice Sotomayor, argued that the two restrictions at issue as well as others in the broader reach of the new law probably would have been found illegal, if the Voting Rights Act of 1965 remained in full effect and North Carolina had had to ask permission from the federal government to make those changes.  The Court last year limited the 1965 Act in a way that the dissenters said “effectively nullified” the law’s pre-clearance requirement.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit found that the two provisions permitted by Wednesday’s Supreme Court order would risk a significant reduction in voting opportunities for black voters in North Carolina, in violation of a part of the Voting Rights Act still intact.

Ensuring the integrity of the vote does not disenfranchise anyone–in fact, it ensures that legal voters will not be disenfranchised by illegal voters.

 

Voter Fraud In The Very Early Stages Of The 2008 Election

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On Thursday, Fox News posted a story about voter fraud during the primary election season in Indiana. Four Democrats have been charged with forging the presidential primary petitions needed to get candidates on the ballot.

The article reports:

Among those charged is the former long-time chairman of the St. Joseph County Democratic Party, Butch Morgan, who allegedly ordered the forgeries. He was forced to resign when the allegations were first made public last October, even though his lawyer, Shaw Friedman, told Fox News at the time that Morgan did not do anything wrong.

The St. Joseph County Board of Voter Registration‘s Democratic board member, Pam Brunette, Board of Voter Registration worker Beverly Shelton and Democratic volunteer and former board worker Dustin Blythe also face charges.

According to affidavits, St. Joseph County Voter Registration Office worker Lucas Burkett told investigators that he was part of the plan that started in January 2008 “to forge signatures on presidential candidate petitions instead of collecting actual signatures from citizens.”

I have no doubt that campaign workers for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards could have collected enough signatures to put their candidates on the ballot. Why then did they find it necessary to forge the signatures? I have worked on election campaigns. Gathering signatures is time-intensive, but it is a necessary part of the process. I might also add that when campaign workers are gathering signatures, they have a chance to hand out information on their candidates and encourage voters to support their candidates. This fraud actually represents a missed opportunity.

What inspired these Democrats to think they could avoid the process? I am more concerned with the thinking behind the actions than the actual actions. To me, this illustrates that these people have no respect for the electoral process in their state and in America. It is my hope that the people who forged these petitions will not only go to jail, but that they will be denied voting privileges for the rest of their lives. They obviously do not respect the voting process.

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What Voter Fraud ?

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I will repeat this for the sake of anyone who has not been reading this blog for a while–I don’t think President Obama was reelected because of voter fraud. However, I do think that voter fraud is a problem in this country and we need to do a better job of keeping our elections honest.

The Corner at National Review posted a story today about voter fraud in Ohio. It seems that one of the poll workers Hamilton County, Ohio, may have voted six times. That seems a little excessive to me.

The article reports:

Three other absentee ballots in the names of different people were submitted to the Board of Elections from Richardson’s address on Nov. 1. Officials say the handwriting on those ballots is similar and that they were all received together, on the same day that Richardson’s absentee ballot arrived at the office. Richardson maintains that some of the other voters live at her house.

Attempts by Fox News to reach Richardson were unsuccessful, but she claimed to the local station that the votes were “absolutely legal votes.”

It gets better. The article concludes:

The local news report below includes an interview with Richardson, who is set to appear before Ohio’s Hamilton County Board of Elections on Friday, as well as footage from the testimony of five other Ohio voters accused of voting, or attempting to vote, twice. One individual revealed she was unaware that it was illegal to vote twice, while several reported confusion caused by absentee ballots. 

The article includes a video:


Please watch the video. It is amazing. It is scary to think these people vote at all–they don’t seem to know how voting works.Enhanced by Zemanta