I would like to go on the record to say that my definition of voting rights is that every American who is legally entitled to vote would be able to cast their vote without government interference and that every person in America who is not legally entitled to vote would be prevented from voting. Every illegal vote cast cancels out a legal vote. Most Americans want their votes to count. Unfortunately there are those in power in America who do not share my definition.<\/p>\n
On Friday, The Hill<\/a> posted an article about the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act<\/a> which is currently proposed in Congress (it seems that HR1 is not receiving the support needed to pass it).<\/p>\n The article reports:<\/p>\n Beware the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act<\/a> \u2014 a backdoor way of implementing some of the worst provisions of H.R. 1 and stopping commonsense election reforms like voter ID.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n This legislation summons the ghost of Eric Holder<\/a><\/span>, the former attorney general who abused federal power under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act<\/a> of 1965 to badger states such as Texas, South Carolina, Florida and North Carolina over election integrity laws.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act<\/strong><\/a> is a permanent, nationwide provision that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. Section 5 was a temporary measure that required the worst states \u2014 places like Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi \u2014 to get pre-approval (or preclearance) of any changes in their voting laws from the U.S. Justice Department. The conditions prevailing there in 1965 justified this impingement on state sovereignty, but those conditions no longer exist.\u00a0 Eight years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out Section 5, ruling in\u00a0Shelby County v. Holder<\/a> that 40-year old data did not justify continued federal oversight.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The newly introduced act would resurrect the Section 5 preclearance process and give control over state elections to leftwing lawyers in the Biden Justice Department. Lawyers in the voting section of the civil rights division \u2014 where both of us once worked \u2014 would have the power to approve or reject the smallest change in state election procedures, from polling locations to redistricting to voter ID laws.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n We witnessed this power being abused while we were at Justice. But, the Holder Justice Department took abuse of preclearance power to a whole new level,\u00a0blocking states<\/a> from implementing citizenship verification and voter ID requirements.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Please follow the link to the article to see exactly how this power would be used.<\/p>\n The article concludes:<\/p>\n In the entire history of the Justice Department, it has never interfered with, nor investigated, a single election audit. That\u2019s because it has no legal authority to do so. Karlan (Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Pam Karlan<\/a>) even made the claim<\/a> that auditors can somehow retroactively \u201cintimidate\u201d voters whose ballots were already cast.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The DOJ\u2019s actions in the Arizona case exemplify the dangers to come under any Voting Rights Advancement Act scenario that would give partisan political appointees in the civil rights division the power to veto any state election law or rule they don\u2019t like \u2014 without having to go to court to prove that it is actually discriminatory.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Leftist voting groups may be willing to trade H.R. 1 in the short run for the Voting Rights Advancement Act today. Doing so would return the center of gravity back to D.C. on voting process issues and remove power further from the people, which is exactly what they want.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Unfortunately under the Biden administration, our elections and our freedoms are at risk.<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I would like to go on the record to say that my definition of voting rights is that every American who is legally entitled to vote would be able to cast their vote without government interference and that every person … Continue reading