ACRU Policy Board Member J. Christian Adams, in an Alabama speech, said Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and political appointees are undermining the rule of law. The framers drafted the Constitution to prevent that kind of corruption, he said.
The NorCal Tea Party Patriots filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati, according to Reuters, arguing its constitutional rights were violated when the IRS targeted its application for nonprofit status. The lawsuit seeks class-action status, meaning it could become the major suit between conservative groups and the IRS.
A Houston-based nonprofit dedicated to fighting voter fraud, True the Vote has filed suit in federal court against the IRS, asking the court to grant its tax-exempt status (three years after applying) and seeking damages for unlawful actions taken by the IRS against the organization.
Washington, D.C. has failed to remove from its voting rolls as many as 13,000 former residents who years ago moved to Prince George's County and cast ballots there, making fraud by voting in two jurisdictions as easy as going to the polls in their old neighborhoods, The Washington Times found in a review of records.
J. Christian Adams warns that, "Something is happening in Colorado, and you better pay attention. Colorado Democrats, with the active help of some Republican county election clerks interested in shirking work, have devised a revolutionary plan to remake future Colorado elections.
"The plan is simple - ballots are automatically mailed out to every single person on the voter rolls. Ballots are even mailed to people listed as "inactive" voters at their last known address. Ballots are then voted and returned by mail. No more polling places. No more voters actually demonstrating an interest in participating in an election."
In an article for PJ Media, election expert Hans von Spakovsky reviews the American Civil Rights Union's lawsuits to clean up voter rolls in Mississippi:
"The ACRU is stepping into the breach left by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department.Under Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez (now nominated to head the U.S. Department of Labor), the division has refused to enforce Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act, also known as the Motor Voter law. Section 8 requires states to remove ineligible voters from their registration lists."
WASHINGTON D.C. (April 26, 2013) -- On behalf of the American Civil Rights Union, three former U.S. Justice Department attorneys filed lawsuits today in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi seeking an injunction to compel election officials in Jefferson Davis County and Walthall County to clean up their voter rolls.
Like hundreds around the nation, these two counties have more active registered voters than there are voting age-eligible residents, according to data from the U.S. Census and state voter registration offices.
J. Christian Adams, an ACRU Policy Board member and former
Justice Department attorney, told members of the House Judiciary Committee on
April 16, 2013 that the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice has
overlooked criminal behavior within its ranks while at the same time pursuing "abusive and meritless cases against
Americans who are exercising free speech rights as well as states enacting
voter integrity measures - so meritless that courts have imposed cost sanctions
against the Division."
In a letter to Texas legislators, TruetheVote's Catherine Engelbrecht defends three proposed bills and notes that a group missive assailing the bills has an interesting pedigree: "The principle signer and ostensibly the author of the letter submitted to the Committee, Amy Busefink, was convicted of fraud in Nevada, where she was charged with 14 felony counts for illegal voter registration practices in her capacity as a supervisor with ACORN in 2008."
Nothing is quite so implausible as a Democrat claiming he's against something because it's "too expensive." Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe says he vetoed a prospective law requiring voters to show identification before casting a ballot because it would cost $300,000.
Nearly three dozen other states are still solvent after adopting similar voter-ID laws. On Tuesday, Virginia became the latest, with Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell's signature on a voter-ID bill that takes effect in November 2014.
Hans von Spakovsky examines "universal voter registration" and finds that it "could significantly damage the integrity of America's voter registration system. The 'voter registration modernization' concept of automatically registering individuals through information contained in various existing government databases would throw the current system into chaos."
Only months after it was implemented with great fanfare, Southern New Hampshire residents have adjusted to the state's new Voter ID Law, according to election officials. Mid-March elections saw voters across the state casting their ballots with little difficulty for the second time since the law took effect during the presidential election in November, Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan said.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- Arkansas lawmakers gave final approval on March 19 to legislation that would require voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot, sending the Republican-backed measure to Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe's desk.
JUNEAU -- A voter ID bill that drew sharp criticism from Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Begich on his recent visit to the Alaska Legislature is moving forward, with its sponsor denying the senator's claims about the bill.
The Supreme Court on Monday, March 18, hears another case challenging the right of a state to put in place new voting requirements.
At stake in the case--Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc.-- is whether or not an Arizona law requiring Arizonans to show proof of citizenship at the voting booth will be upheld. The ACRU filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of Arizona.
DES MOINES (AP) -- House Republicans moved forward on Feb. 28 with a proposal that would require Iowa voters to show photo identification at polling places. Lawmakers in the House State Government Committee approved the legislation in a 12-8 vote split along party lines. The measure is backed by Secretary of State Matt Schultz, who has filed identical bills in the House and Senate.
Last Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a question not touched for nearly 50 years - namely, the question of whether parts of the landmark Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 still stand the test of constitutionality, and specifically a section that has long plagued states' rights advocates.
Unfortunately for liberals, who view the VRA as one of their landmark legislative achievements, the answer to that question may well be "no," as many court analysts seem to have viewed the oral arguments in the case as either an unadulterated disaster for the government, or at least as a strong sign that a majority of the court is willing to consider striking down at least part of the act.
Before the 2000 presidential election, most Americans assumed the mechanics of elections functioned smoothly,. The thirty-six day battle for the presidency demonstrated otherwise. Today, most Americans still assume the institutions, firms and foundations that fight about election law disputes are equally matched and similarly funded as between left and right. That is a dangerously incorrect assumption, says J. Christian Adams in this revealing piece, originally published on FrontPageMag.com in August 2011.
An Ohio poll worker who said she voted twice for President Obama is under investigation by election officials in Hamilton County (Cincinnati).
President Obama's State of the Union address contained a justification for more federal control over state elections. In the past, creeping federalization over state elections was properly justified by state racial discrimination, then the sketchier reason of inadequate numbers of welfare recipients registering to vote.
Tennessee's Supreme Court was asked Wednesday to decide whether the state's voter ID law deprives people of the right to vote or if it's a necessary safeguard to prevent election fraud. And in a related issue, the court must determine whether a city-issued library card with a photo can be used as identification to vote.
New ACRU Senior Fellow J. Christian Adams helped file a lawsuit today on behalf of TruetheVote challenging the conduct of election officials in the defeat of Rep. Allen West in the 18th Florida congressional district last November.
Opinion by the Washington Examiner's Sean Higgins: In describing how Minnesota liberals were able to defeat a voter ID ballot proposal last year that initially appeared to be able to pass, Patrick Caldwell highlights the arguments that appeared to win the day -- arguments which voter ID advocates ought to be able to knock down next time if they make the effort.
DES MOINES (AP) -- Senate Republicans said on Jan. 24 that they would introduce legislation requiring that Iowans present photo identification in order to vote.
Raleigh -- A group of left-leaning organizations said Jan. 23 that requiring voters to present photo identification at the polls would "stack the deck" against fair and open elections in North Carolina. Republican legislative leaders say they plan to consider a voter ID bill when the General Assembly reconvenes this week.
Commonwealth Court has blocked a bid by a group that is challenging the state's Voter ID Law to get the driver's license information of every Pennsylvanian. The Washington, D.C.-based Advancement Project has no legal right to that data, which includes birth dates, addresses and Social Security numbers, the court ruled.
Virginia Sen. Dick Black's measure to tighten ID voter requirements cleared a GOP-dominated Senate Privileges and Elections subcommittee on a 4-2 vote on Jan. 17.
South Carolina's Voter ID law had its first test on Tuesday in the small town of Branchville in Orangeburg County, and apparently passed it without incident.
CHARLESTON -- Armed with their largest share of the House of Delegates in decades, West Virginia Republicans plan to resume their push to require voters to show photo identification at the polls, adding the state to a growing group that expect to debate the topic this year
Secretary of State Ken Bennett told a U.S. Senate panel looking into voter suppression that there was no evidence of such efforts in Arizona in this fall's election.In testimony to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Dec. 19. Bennett said that minority-voter registration is at its highest level ever in Arizona, even as voter-identification requirements mandating proof of citizenship have been in force for nearly eight years.
The Jan. 8 special election in Branchville will be the first balloting in South Carolina in which voters must show photo identification, according to Howard Jackson, Orangeburg County's director of voter registration and elections.
Kris Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas, has released some very interesting statistics that disprove -- once again -- the fallacious claims made by critics of voter ID.
Seven Secretaries of State have released a statement criticizing First Lady Michelle Obama for her false claim that Republicans engaged in voter suppression in the November election:
"Unfortunately the First Lady's comments continue the baseless attacks that have been made upon those leaders who are simply taking reasonable steps to protect the security and integrity of elections. This past election speaks for itself."
The Left's all-out assault on electoral integrity and voter ID laws was largely funded by the nation's most radical labor union and the Battle Creek, Michigan-based W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
Robert Knight From Republican Rep. Allen B. West's improbable recount loss in South Florida, to reports of voting-machine irregularities, to the hundreds of precincts in Ohio and Pennsylvania that reported a virtual 100 percent vote for Barack Obama and zero for Mr. Romney, something is clearly wrong.
Vote fraud has been alleged in key states including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, and Florida where in St. Lucie County, the unofficial vote count showed 175,554 registered voters but 247,713 vote cards were cast.
It's one thing for a Democratic presidential candidate to dominate a Democratic city like Philadelphia, but check out this head-spinning figure: In 59 voting divisions in the city, Mitt Romney received not one vote. Zero. Zilch.
Washington Times: Allegations of vote fraud are hanging over the contest between Republican Rep. Allen West and Democratic challenger Patrick Murphy in Florida's 18th Congressional District.
CARSON CITY -- FBI agents arrested a woman on Friday in Las Vegas on charges that she tried to vote twice in the presidential election.
SAN ANTONIO -- The Texas Secretary of State has asked the
state Attorney General to look into a complaint of "vote-harvesting"
centered around a San Antonio cemetery.
Click here for full article.
John Fund in National Review: An unnamed private family foundation paid for 145 billboards in Ohio and Wisconsin. The boards featured a picture of a judge's gavel and a simple message: "Voter Fraud Is a Felony -- up to 3 and a half years and a $10,000 fine." That's it. But liberal activist groups went into frenzy mode, claiming the billboards were part of a voter-suppression scheme, so the billboards' owner, Clear Channel, is removing the signs.
The Tennessee Court of Appeals upheld the state's new voter identification requirement, but it also agreed to let voters in Memphis use new library cards at the polls -- splitting the difference on the divisive issue less than two weeks before the Nov. 6 election.
Patrick Moran, campaign field director for his father Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA), resigned after a tape was released of him discussing ways around Virginia's new voter ID law.
James O'Keefe of Project Veritas catches Patrick Moran, son of U.S. Rep. James Moran (D-VA) on tape discussing ways to commit vote fraud. On Wednesday, Mr. Moran resigned as field director for his father's campaign.
Click here to see video.
Attorneys representing two Memphis residents whose votes were not
counted in the August primary because they lacked a government-issued
photo ID asked a three-judge Appeals Court panel on Thursday to throw
out the state's voter ID law.
Click here for full article.
Three Franklin County residents face felony charges of voter fraud after the Board of Elections reported that they had voted more than once in a past election.
Click here for full article.
The Pew Hispanic Center has found that as many as 71 percent of Latino registered voters support voter ID laws, which this year will be enforced for the first time in 11 states. Among all registered voters, the ID law, which requires voters to show photo identification in order to cast a ballot, is supported by 77 percent.
Click here for full article.
Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch is at it again. The Democrat who presided
over a 2010 vote casting and counting scandal in the tight race for
governor was caught on video guaranteeing Democratic U.S. Senate
candidate Christopher Murphy a big result in the state's largest
city-even if it takes days to count.
Click here for full article.
U.S. District Judge Paul D. Borman has ordered Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson to remove the recently included and highly contested citizenship question from the November ballots. This formal written order followed a preliminary injunction issued from the bench.
Click here for full article.
WASHINGTON -- A panel of three federal judges upheld a South Carolina law requiring voters to show photo identification, but delayed enforcement until next year, in a decision announced Wednesday, less than a month before this year's presidential election.
Click here for full article.
A new Veritas video by conservative sting artist James O'Keefe shows an Obama campaign worker assisting an undercover reporter with possibly voting in two states.
Click here to see video.
The obviously fraudulent applications filed by a vendor hired by the
Republican Party of Florida have gained wide attention in a case that's
now being investigated by law enforcement.
Click here for full article.
A judge ruled Tuesday that a
Pennsylvania law requiring voters in the swing state to produce photo
identification at the polls cannot take effect for the November
election.
Click here for full article.
FARGO, N.D.
- Ten football players at North Dakota State pleaded guilty Tuesday
to misdemeanor election fraud and were sentenced to community service
for faking signatures on ballot measure petitions they were hired to
collect.
Click here for full article.
The 2012 election will be one of the hardest-fought in U.S. history. This brief video gives compelling facts about the possibility of vote fraud and what to do about it, based on the book Who's Counting? by Hans von Spakovsky and John Fund.
Click here for video from Encounter Books.
WASHINGTON -- Florida elections officials said Friday that at least 10
counties have identified suspicious and possibly fraudulent voter
registration forms turned in by a firm working for the Republican Party of Florida, which has filed an election fraud complaint with the state Division of Elections against its one-time consultant.
Click here for full article.
With
fewer than 40 days to go before the 2012 election, access to the voting
booth could determine the outcome on Nov. 6. It ought to be simple: If
you're an American citizen eligible to vote and can prove it with
identification, you should be allowed to cast a ballot. If you can't,
you shouldn't. It's really not that complicated.
Click here for full editorial.
Roll Call: Call them the voter fraud brain trust. A cadre of influential Washington, D.C., election lawyers has mobilized a sophisticated anti-fraud campaign built around lawsuits, white papers, Congressional testimony, speeches and even best-selling books.
Click here for full article.
LANSING - The ACLU has filed a federal lawsuit Monday to stop Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson from asking voters if they are U.S. citizens when they fill out ballot applications in the November election.
Click here for full article.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation filed election misconduct charges Thursday against three Council Bluffs residents, alleging they registered to vote without U.S. citizenship and voted in at least one election.
Click here for full article.
In a 4-2 ruling issued on Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered Commonwealth Court Judge Robert E. Simpson Jr., who upheld the new voter ID law in August, to file a supplemental opinion proving that the new law won't disenfranchise some voters.
Click here for full article.
Americans treasure their constitutional rights and perhaps the most essential one - the right to cast your vote and to have it count - is gradually being eroded. There is a movement underway to convince the public that requiring someone to prove his or her identity in order to vote constitutes "suppression." Yes, that's the argument that Governor Beverly Perdue gave when she vetoed the photo ID law (HB 351) enacted by North Carolina's legislature.
Click here for article.
John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky, authors of Who's Counting?, do a smackdown of CPAN2's "After Words" show host Linda Killian on the topic of voter ID laws and the campaign to stop vote fraud.
Click here for video.
When the polls closed on the November 2008 U.S. Senate election, I was ahead of Al Franken for the Minnesota seat by 215 votes out of nearly 3 million votes that had been cast. Eight months later, Al Franken was declared the winner of the recount with a margin of 312 votes. A few months after that, Obamacare passed the U.S. Senate on a straight party-line, filibuster-proof 60 votes. I have no desire to re-litigate the 2008 election, but elections matter.
Click here for full article.
The ACRU joined Rep. Joe Walsh at a Capitol Hill press conference in which he announced his sponsorship of a bill that would create national ID standards for voters in national elections, including Congress and the Presidency.
Click here for press release
Early voting began last week in North Carolina. Several other key
states--including Florida, Iowa and Wisconsin--will start in coming weeks,
prompting the two parties to race to gain an edge.
Click here for full article.
WASHINGTON -- Six Republican senators are asking Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta personally to intervene to ensure that U.S. troops stationed away from home get the chance to register and vote in the upcoming election.
Click here for full article.
Early voting in the presidential race begins this month, and in the weeks to come millions of people in key states will cast ballots that could prove decisive on Election Day. They did in 2008, when President Barack Obama's margin of victory relied to a great degree on early votes cast in such crucial states as Florida, Colorado, North Carolina and Iowa.
Click here for full article.
WASHINGTON -- A three-judge federal panel on Thursday knocked down the Lone Star State's new photo voter ID law, which the court said illegally suppresses minority voters.
Click here for full article.
COLUMBUS - A federal judge in Ohio granted a request from the Obama campaign to give all voters in the swing state the option of casting their ballot in person during the three days before Election Day.
Click here for full article.
The Minnesota Supreme Court decided Monday that a referendum approved by the state legislature to amend the state constitution to require voter ID will also be on the ballot in November. The League of Women Voters had tried to convince the court that the people of Minnesota should not be allowed to decide this issue.
Click here for full article.
Washington -- South Carolina officials headed to federal court on Monday to defend a controversial new voter identification law, dismissing suggestions the requirement would deny tens of thousands of people, many of them minorities, access to the ballot.
Click here for full article.
Florida
has reached an agreement -- in principle -- with the federal government
so efforts can be restarted to clear noncitizens from the county lists
of registered voters.
Click here for full article.
The day after a judge upheld Pennsylvania's new voter identification
law, the lead plaintiff in the suit seeking to block the law went to a
PennDot office and was issued the photo ID card she needs to vote.
Click here for full article.
Several local Democrat election officials have told the Philadelphia Inquirer that they plan to defy the new voter law requiring a photo ID.
Click here for full article.
HARRISBURG - A Commonwealth Court judge denied a bid by civil rights
groups to block the new voter identification law from taking effect,
delivering a first-round victory to Gov. Corbett and legislative
Republicans who pushed the measure through this spring saying it was
needed to prevent voter fraud.
Click here for full article.
A new survey by the Washington Post finds that nearly three quarters of those polled say they favor requiring photo IDs when voting in person. "Moreover, big majorities of those whom critics see as bearing the brunt of the
laws are supportive of them, including about three-quarters of seniors
and those with household incomes under $50,000 and two-thirds of
non-whites."
Click here for full article.
RICHMOND -- The State Board of Elections has identified 10,000 dead individuals on the Virginia voter rolls. Local registrars will now begin removing the names from the rolls, but the finding is likely the tip of the iceberg. Only 15 million of the 60 million records in the Social Security death master file have been matched against the state's voter list thus far.
Click here for full article.
South Carolina's voter ID law will go on trial before a panel of judges in a federal court in D.C. from Aug. 27 until Aug. 31, according to court documents filed on Aug. 7.
Click here for full article.
In their new book Who's Counting?: How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk, authors John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky present hard evidence that voter fraud (some of it well-organized), combined with incompetence, alleged "reforms," and bureaucratic indifference have undermined the popular trust in America's most precious right: picking our leaders.
"Legitimate Voters Blocked by Photo ID Laws" read the headline of a July 10 Associated Press article. Sounds pretty damning. It turns out, though, that the article lacked key information about two Indiana voters that might have changed the whole tenor of the story.
Click here for full article by Heritage Foundation fellow Hans von Spakovsky
Secretaries of State from Kansas, Colorado and South Carolina joined TruetheVote's Catherine Englebrecht, and former Alabama Rep. Artur Davis in a panel discussion at the Heritage Foundation that addressed the many erroneous notions about photo ID laws. ACRU's Robert Knight, who attended, said, "They hit it out of the park, especially when answering questions posed by two leftwing activists in the audience."
Click here for video.
Letter Calls "Suppress the Minority Vote" Allegations "Utter Nonsense"
JULY 25, 2012 -- The American Civil Rights Union today is sending letters to four of five governors who vetoed legislation requiring photo voter IDs in order to deter vote fraud. A fifth letter, to New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch, was discarded after the legislature voted to overturn his veto and the bill became law, subject to Department of Justice approval.
Signed by ACRU policy board members former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III, former Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell and ACRU Chairman Susan A. Carleson, the letters were mailed to Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton, Missouri Gov. Jeremiah Nixon, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue.
In each state, both houses of the legislature had passed photo ID laws, which were vetoed by the governors, all of whom are Democrats.
The letters, which urge the governors to sign any new photo ID legislation, observe that:
"It is a sad commentary that states acting to protect their electoral process through common-sense actions, like requiring a valid photo ID to vote, have been vilified for allegedly attempting to 'suppress the minority vote,' or even 'bring back Jim Crow laws.' That is utter nonsense!
"Securing the integrity of the ballot box is in every American's interest regardless of race, party, or ethnicity. In two federal cases, including a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding Indiana's photo ID law, not a single plaintiff could be found who could plausibly claim inability to obtain a photo ID."
The letter also calls upon "all states to safeguard the integrity of our uniquely American right of self-governance by taking common-sense measures such as:
For more information on vote fraud news, court activity and legislation, see the ACRU's unique Web page www.DefendElectionIntegrity.org.
HARRISBURG -- Critics of the new voter ID requirement rallied in advance of opening arguments on Wednesday in a legal challenge, while the secretary of the commonwealth defended the law and said officials will comply with a separate federal review.
Click here for full article.
Voter fraud has a shocking new meaning in eastern Kentucky. That is where in some cases, major cocaine and marijuana dealers admitted to buying votes to steal elections.
Click here for full article.
ACRU Senior Fellow Robert Knight relates in a Washington Times column how the ACLU is telling the Minnesota Supreme Court that Gopher State voters would not understand a voter ID ballot measure, and in Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed three bills tightening voter ID while signing several others.
Click here for full column.
St. Paul -- The battle over the language of the Voter ID amendment went in front of the Minnesota Supreme Court on July 17.
Click here for full article.
MADISON, Wis. -- Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen says he will appeal a Madison judge's ruling blocking Wisconsin's new voter identification law.
Click here for full article.
Robert Knight, Senior Fellow for the American Civil Rights Union and a columnist for The Washington Times, discusses with Tim Burgan of Cornerstone TV's "His Place" why Christians need to get involved in the upcoming elections and why states need to tighten their voter ID requirements.
Click here for video.
Florida GOP Gov. Rick Scott on July 14 lauded the Obama administration's new announcement that gives the state access to a federal database to prevent voter fraud, but he also called the standoff-ending decision a "significant victory" for Florida.
Click here for full article.
A group called the Voter Participation Center has distributed 5 million registration forms in recent weeks, targeting Democratic-leaning blocs such as unmarried women, African-Americans, Latinos and young adults. But residents and election administrators around the country also have reported a series of bizarre and questionable mailings addressed to animals, dead people, noncitizens and people already registered to vote.
Click here for full article.
Imagine a young person who takes the time to fly from Texas to Washington, D.C. in order to testify at a trial yet claims she can't find the time to obtain a voter identification card.
Click here for full article.
WASHINGTON -- A University of Texas
professor testifying for the state of Texas told a federal court on
July 11 that new voter identification requirements would not affect
voter turnout.
Click here for full article.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Tuesday declared war on states that have enacted voter photo ID laws, telling an NAACP audience in Houston that such laws constitute "poll taxes."
Click here for full article.
Attorney General Eric Holder addressed the NAACP Nation Convention at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas on July 10. What did media need in order to attend? That's right, government issued photo identification (and a second form of identification too!), something both Holder and the NAACP stand firmly against when it comes to voting.
Click here for full article.
COLUMBIA -- The U.S. Justice Department has turned down South Carolina's voter identification law for a second time as the state's lawsuit against the federal government moves forward.
Click here for full article.
The New Hampshire legislature on Wednesday overrode Gov. John Lynch's veto of a voter ID bill, making it the latest state to require that voters present photo identification at the polls.
Click here for full article.
President Obama's campaign has recruited thousands of lawyers for this year's election amid a slew of new state voter ID laws. The mass of legal support appears to be unrivaled by Republicans or precedent.
Click here for full article.
Former Justice Department official J. Christian Adams testified in April before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution on "Voting Wrongs: Oversight of the Justice Department's Voting Rights Enforcement."
Click here for article and testimony.
TALLAHASSEE - A federal judge has refused to stop Florida from removing potentially non-U.S. citizens from its voter rolls. The U.S. Department of Justice sued to halt the purge.
Click here for full article.
A top Pennsylvania Republican's remark that the state's new voter ID law would help Mitt Romney win the state has reignited a debate over whether the law is intended to curb fraud, as Republicans say, or to depress Democratic turnout, as Democrats charge.
Click here for full article.
CONCORD -- Gov. John Lynch on Thursday vetoed a bill that would require voters to show a photo ID or sign a qualified voter affidavit, setting up a showdown with legislators this week.
Click here for full article.
Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, a DFLer (Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party) who has campaigned against the photo ID requirement for voting passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature, said Thursday he will not defend the language of the proposed constitutional amendment in a court challenge that names him as the defendant.
Click here for full article.
Judicial Watch has sued the Department of
Justice, saying it has not turned over public records related to its
decision to block the state's photo ID law.
Click here for full article.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) has sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to move forward with his plan to purge the voter rolls in his state of ineligible voters despite a Justice Department order to halt.
Click here for full article and video.
A free society will soon not be free if the citizens in it see their freedom as something that should arrive effortlessly, free of personal responsibility. ... Black leaders do damage to our nation, and to our black citizens, to label as racist the call for requirements for a modicum of personal responsibility in order to vote.
Click here for full commentary.
WASHINGTON - House Republicans on June 7 took aim at Attorney General Eric Holder, charging him with politicized decision-making on state voter ID laws and Operation Fast and Furious.
Click here for full article.
Under Attorney General Eric Holder, Florida's efforts to protect against illegal voting are being hamstrung. A Washington Times editorial, "Illegal Voters: The Winning Edge," asks if this is a deliberately partisan act.
The American Civil Liberties Union wants the Minnesota Supreme Court to
keep a proposed constitutional amendment requiring voters to present
photo IDs off the November ballot.
Click here for full article.
PHILADELPHIA - The ACLU announced that its lawsuit over Pennsylvania's new Voter ID law has a trial date of July 25.
Click here for full article.
Jefferson City -- A state constitutional amendment that would clear the way for a photo identification requirement at Missouri polls will not appear on this year's ballot, the secretary of state's office said.
Click here for full article.
ACRU Senior Fellow Robert Knight's Washington Times column looks at Kansas, which has the most comprehensive voting protection law in the nation, and whose secretary of state is leading a multi-state effort to cross-check registration rolls.
Click here for full article.
Gov. Bob McDonnell signed Virginia's new photo ID law and issued an executive order to mail new cards to every registered voter.
Click here for full article.
The latest video by Project Veritas, the investigative journalism team run by James O'Keefe, shows how easy it is to commit vote fraud in North Carolina.
Click here for video.
Gov. Phil Bryant signed a law requiring photo identification at the polls that voters approved in November. The measure next goes to the Justice Department, which halted similar laws in South Carolina and Texas.
Click here for full article.
A voter identification bill that had the support of the Senate, town clerks and the secretary of state's office is in jeopardy because of changes made by a House committee, said Sen. Russell Prescott, a Kingston Republican and the bill's sponsor.
Click here for full article.
The Mississippi chapter of the NAACP has asked for federal intervention under the Voting Rights Act to block a voter ID law that Republican Gov. Phil Bryant says he intends to sign.
Click here for full article.
Accuracy in Media has released a report outlining numerous ways in which the political Left is planning to commit vote fraud in the 2012 election.
Click here for story on Breitbart.com.
Amid harsh words from Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's
office and a panel of federal judges, the chances dimmed of implementing
the new voter identification law in time for November's elections.
Click here for full article.
HARRISBURG -- Pennsylvania's tough new voter-identification law was challenged by 10 registered voters, including some who say they are unable to get
the kind of ID now required.
Click here for full article.
Two Northwest Philadelphia Democrats are introducing a bill to overturn Pennsylvania's photo ID law for voting, which takes full effect this November.
Click here for full article.
Madison - A pair of appeals court rulings make clear the state's new voter ID law will remain suspended through the May and June recall elections.
Click here for full article.
Columnist David Limbaugh, brother of Rush, asks in a recent column, "Can anyone think of an innocuous reason that President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder oppose state voter ID laws?" The correct answer is definitely "No!"
For full article by Peter Ferrara, click here.
The November presidential election is shaping up as a clear choice between a vision of a smaller federal role and President Obama's
view that there's no limit to what the government can do. One thing the
administration won't do is ensure the choices Americans make at the
ballot box are properly counted.
Click here for full editorial.
Former U.S. Department of Justice attorney J. Christian Adams testified before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution on April 18 on "Voting Wrongs: Oversight of the Justice Department's Voting Rights Enforcement."
Click here for full article and testimony.
A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday ruled that Arizona may require voters to show identification at the polls, a ruling likely to add fuel to the fiery debate about voting rights in a presidential election year.
Click here for full article.
A new Rasmussen survey shows that 73 percent of Americans say that requiring a photo ID before voting does not discriminate against anyone, and 64 percent regard voter fraud as at least a somewhat serious problem.
Click here for the full article.
Columnist asks: Can anyone think of an innocuous reason that President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder oppose state voter ID laws?
The Minnesota chapter of Common Cause and the American Civil Liberties Union are preparing a lawsuit against a constitutional amendment ballot measure that would establish a photo ID requirement for voting.
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In North Carolina, where Gov. Bev. Perdue vetoed a photo ID law in 2011, three-quarters of residents in a survey said they supported such a law.
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Dealt a setback in court, a Missouri House committee acted quickly Tuesday to embrace new wording for a 2012 ballot measure that would allow a photo identification mandate to be imposed upon voters in future elections.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP
say they will sue over Pennsylvania's month-old voter ID law, and two
Philadelphia Democrats are sponsoring a bill repealing it.
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A young man is offered Attorney General Eric Holder's ballot at a D.C. polling place in a new video by conservative sting artist James O'Keefe.
The columnist and author of the book Stealing Elections explains why the recent sting in which a conservative activist was offered the ballot of Attorney General Eric Holder shows the need for photo ID laws.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch had editorialized that the GOP was wrong to press for vote fraud prevention legislation. Now that 10 convicted felons have been indicted, the paper did a turnabout.
The House and Senate, with Republicans supplying all the "yes" votes, gave final approval to a proposed constitutional amendment that would require voters to show a photo ID, create a new system of "provisional" balloting and end election day "vouching" for voters without proof of residence.
On June 23, 2011, North Carolina Gov. Beverly Purdue vetoed a law establishing a voter photo ID requirement.
Click here for the PDF of the bill.
Click here for the PDF of the veto letter.
Prosecutors in South Bend, Ind., filed charges Monday against four St. Joseph County Democratic officials and deputies as part of a multiple-felony case involving the alleged forging of Democratic presidential primary petitions in the 2008 election, which put then-candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the Indiana ballot.
Introduction by ACRU Chairman and CEO Susan A. Carleson
Vote fraud steals a precious civil right that safeguards all of our freedoms. In this crucial election year, the American Civil Rights Union is spearheading a campaign to protect the integrity of the ballot box - ProtectYourVote.us. At a Washington, D.C. press conference, former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese, former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell and ACRU Senior Legal Analyst Ken Klukowski explained the gravity of the situation.
Republicans in the Colorado House approved a proposal to ask voters whether people should provide their photo ID before casting ballots. The measure passed the chamber on March 20 on a party-line vote with Democrats opposing.
After 9 hours of debate, the Minnesota House of
Representatives passed the voter ID bill by a 72-62 vote. All Republicans voted
for the bill and all Democrats voted against the bill.
This column by ACRU Senior Fellow Robert Knight was published March 19, 2012 in The Washington Times.
What would you call it if some Americans went overseas to the United Nations Human Rights Council and gave aid and comfort to some of the most repressive regimes on the planet?
What if they falsely accused America of suppressing the vote of racial minorities because some states require voter photo ID and other measures to deter fraud?
I'd call it "treason," but you also could say it's just liberal politics as usual.
The latest data compiled by the Secretary of State of Georgia, Brian Kemp, about the state's experience with voter ID once again shows that the claims by opponents of voter ID are wrong.
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This column by ACRU Senior Fellow Ken Blackwell and ACRU Senior Legal Analyst Ken Klukowski was published March 13, 2012 on The Daily Caller website.
The far left is making an unprecedented two-track move to derail states' efforts to protect the integrity of the ballot box for this November's elections. While the Department of Justice (DOJ) is blocking state efforts, liberal activists are taking this issue to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Attorney General Eric Holder is invoking Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). He claims it gives him the power to block Texas's voter ID law, which simply requires that voters show that they are who they say they are before they cast a vote to influence an election outcome. This is the same argument Holder made to block South Carolina's voter ID law, a move that has landed him in federal court.
Continue reading “Voter ID Insanity at DOJ Going to the United Nations”.
This column by ACRU Senior Fellow Robert Knight was published February 17, 2012 in The Washington Times.
Did you know that according to a new Pew study, more than 1.8 million dead people are registered to vote? And that leading Democrats are fiercely opposing new laws that tighten voting requirements?
This tells us, just as we suspected, that the zombie population is becoming a major Democratic constituency.
This column by ACRU Senior Fellow Robert Knight was published February 3, 2012 on The American Thinker website.
When should names on public rolls be kept secret?
Judging by the ACLU's double standard, secrecy is warranted if exposure might reveal vote fraud. On the other hand, if exposure puts marriage supporters at risk for harassment by radical activists...well, then, that's okay.
Unlike its apparent indifference to abuses of pro-marriage donors exposed in California in 2008, the ACLU pressured a Wisconsin agency not to create an online database to verify two million signatures for recalling Gov. Scott Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, and four Republican state senators. The ACLU cites possible threats to victims of domestic violence. This might wash, except that the ACLU is also suing Wisconsin over its photo ID law that curbs vote fraud.
Continue reading “ACLU Fights Sunshine in Wisconsin Recall”.
This column by ACRU Senior Legal Analyst Ken Klukowski was published January 17, 2012 on The Washington Examiner website.
A federal judge declared that Virginia's rules keeping Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum off Virginia's March 6 presidential primary ballot "will likely be declared unconstitutional, and that the plaintiffs will ultimately prevail."
But then he sided with Virginia, and ordered Virginia's election to proceed with only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul on the ballot.
To make it on the primary ballot, Virginia law requires a candidate to submit 10,000 signatures of Virginia voters who attest they plan on voting in the primary, at least 400 of which must be from each congressional district. Signature petitions can only be circulated by Virginia citizens who are eligible to vote.
This column by ACRU Senior Fellow Robert Knight was published January 16, 2012 on The American Thinker website.
Pretty soon, the right to cast a meaningful vote might be just a memory.
The issue at hand is ensuring that American citizens can exercise the most fundamental civil right of being an American -- casting a vote with the assurance that it will count and not be canceled by an illegitimate vote.
The ACLU has filed three lawsuits seeking to overturn a new Florida law that tightens the integrity of the ballot box, while the Obama Justice Department has scotched South Carolina's new photo ID law. It's part of a nationwide campaign by the left to overturn numerous recently enacted laws designed to defeat vote fraud.
The ACLU claims that the Florida law, enacted by the Republican-controlled legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Rick Scott, will suppress participation by minority, young, and elderly voters.
Actually, the new rules adopted by Florida, South Carolina, and other states are aimed at Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Elmer Fudd, who work out of former ACORN offices and whose names turn up on registration rolls and recall petitions.
"It looks like if the Democrats can't win through voter fraud, they are not above candidate fraud...
From the Detroit Free Press --
'A former Oakland County Democratic party operative was sentenced to one year probation and ordered to pay more than $2,500 in fines and court costs for his role in creating "fake" tea party candidates in the 2010 election, in an effort to siphon off support for legitimate Republican candidates.'"
This column by ACRU Senior Legal Analyst Ken Klukowski was published January 9, 2012 on The Washington Examiner website.
Former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement told U.S. Supreme Court justices Monday that lower federal courts cannot redraw state-approved election district maps unless they can point to concrete "identifying specific statutory or constitutional violations."
Instead, Clement said during oral arguments on Perry v. Perez, two federal district judges have nullified the will of the people in Texas. The evident frustration of at least some of the Supreme Court justices suggests they agree with Gov. Rick Perry that state sovereignty must be restored.
Clement represented Perry and the state of Texas in an appeal of lower court decisions throwing out new congressional and state legislative election districts earlier this year.
Continue reading “Texas Case Suggests Court May Overhaul Voting Rights”.
There is a saying that "people get the government they vote for." The implication of the maxim is that if undesirable or unwise legislation is enacted, if executive branch officials are inept or ineffective, or if the government is beset with widespread corruption, then such unfortunate results are the consequence of the electorate's decision regarding whom to trust with the powers and prestige of public office. The Constitution does not forbid people from enacting wrongheaded policies. If voters elect leaders that fail them, then the citizenry is saddled with the consequences of its choice until the next election. Such is the reality in a democratic republic.
This column by ACRU Senior Fellow Robert Knight was published December 30, 2011 in The Washington Times.
The most consequential election in our lifetime is still 10 months away, but it's clear from the Obama administration's order halting South Carolina's new photo ID law that the Democrats already have brought a gun to a knife fight.
How else to describe this naked assault on the right of a state to create minimal requirements to curb vote fraud?
On Dec. 23, Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez sent a letter ordering South Carolina to stop enforcing its photo ID law. Mr. Perez, who heads the Civil Rights Division that booted charges against the New Black Panther Party for intimidating voters in Philadelphia in 2008, said South Carolina's law would disenfranchise thousands of minority voters.
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson rejected Mr. Perez's math and explained on Fox News why the law is necessary. The state Department of Motor Vehicles audited a state Election Commission report that said 239,333 people were registered to vote but had no photo ID. The DMV found that 37,000 were deceased, more than 90,000 had moved to other states, and others had names not matched to IDs. That left only 27,000 people registered without a photo ID but who could vote by signing an affidavit as to their identity.
This column by ACRU Senior Fellow Robert Knight was published December 16, 2011 in The Washington Times.
Is it racist to require people to show a photo ID when they vote? You need a photo ID for nearly any meaningful transaction, such as cashing checks, including government checks. If this simple requirement "suppresses" the vote, maybe we need to ask why it's such a great idea to push for universal suffrage for every adult who is merely breathing.
Of course, even this latter requirement would suppress the vote in Chicago and New Orleans, where dead people get to vote all the time - and do so cheerfully.
In a speech Tuesday at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin, Texas, Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. warned that recent state reforms, such as requiring photo IDs, might repress the minority vote. He said the Justice Department was reviewing photo ID laws just enacted in Texas and South Carolina and early-voting procedures in Florida.
The overall implication of his otherwise elegant speech commemorating passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is that tightening voter requirements is more of a threat to the integrity of the system than vote fraud.
Continue reading “Playing the Race Card before Election Day”.
This column by ACRU Senior Fellow Robert Knight was published November 11, 2011 on The Washington Times website.
Tuesday's off-year elections revealed a truth well known in sports that also applies to politics: The side that's more energized wins. In Virginia, an energized Republican Party apparently gained a tie in the Senate, giving the GOP control of all three branches - governor, House and Senate - for the first time since Reconstruction. A recount could reverse it, but right now, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling's Senate vote would be the 20-20 tie breaker. This was no small feat, given the gerrymandering by the last Democratic majority.
In Loudoun County, all nine supervisor posts went to the GOP. Even the liberal Democrat School Board chairman who thinks children should read homosexual penguin books lost his seat.
Dick Black, a former House delegate and prominent social conservative, trounced his Democratic opponent for a new state Senate seat despite being vilified by a local newspaper and The Washington Post in articles so biased that the reporters must have typed them only with their left hands. Seriously. They read like hit pieces from Mr. Black's opponent's campaign mailers.
Overall, it was a slam dunk for the GOP in the Old Dominion. Virginia has a vibrant Tea Party movement, a charismatic governor and a motivated base. The election results also reflected public rejection of the Obama administration's disastrous economic and regulatory policies.
Continue reading “Election Message: Get Involved or Get Left Out”.
"While NAACP President Benjamin Jealous lashed out at new state laws requiring photo ID for voting, an NAACP executive sits in prison, sentenced for carrying out a massive voter fraud scheme.
In a story ignored by the national media, in April a Tunica County, Miss., jury convicted NAACP official Lessadolla Sowers on 10 counts of fraudulently casting absentee ballots. Sowers is identified on an NAACP website as a member of the Tunica County NAACP Executive Committee.
Sowers received a five-year prison term for each of the 10 counts, but Circuit Court Judge Charles Webster permitted Sowers to serve those terms concurrently, according to the Tunica Times, the only media outlet to cover the sentencing."
"Here we go again. Desperation plus the by-any-means-necessary credo plus a nationwide force of Alinsky avengers equals another recipe for voter fraud.
In Colorado, it's Common Cause of Colorado, Mi Familia Vota Education Fund and the Service Employees International Union caught in an apparent scheme to foist some 6,000 shady voter registrations on the state."
"Here is a prediction: Across the country, there will be races that some candidates will lose even though poll numbers, right now, indicate otherwise.
As you read this, at present, you should know that there are only seemingly disconnected anecdotal dots that are starting to connect. However, if the dots do fully connect, we may not know until well after the November 2nd election if, in fact, America's democratic election process will have become the victim of the biggest fraud in our nation's history. What's worse, with early voting beginning this week in many states, it may already be too late to do anything about it."