voter intimidation

Bureaucrats Disenfranchise Overseas Troops

by Hans Bader on October 22, 2010

in International, Legal, Personal Liberty

Illinois officials missed the deadline to mail ballots to U.S. troops overseas, but they hand-delivered ballots to inmates, without even waiting for inmates to apply.

Perhaps this discrimination can be explained by the fact that inmates vote mostly for liberal candidates, while soldiers vote predominantly for conservative candidates.

There are federal laws requiring states to send ballots in a timely fashion to troops overseas, but the Obama administration is not enforcing them, as part of its ongoing politicization of the Justice Department (such as rubberstamping unconstitutional legislative proposals, and downplaying of voter intimidation by liberal activists, while investigating Tea Party pollwatchers who uncovered rampant voter registration fraud in Houston).

Meanwhile, Virginia Congressman Jim Moran (D) has dismissed his opponent, a retired colonel who served in the military for 24 years, saying that he has not “served or performed in any kind of public service,” and had simply “taken a government check.”  (Moran himself has collected a government paycheck for many decades, first as a state official, and then, for the last 28 years, as a congressman.)

Obama Justice Department Sued Over Stonewalling and Cover-Up in Black Panther Case

by Hans Bader on May 26, 2010 · 2 comments

in Legal, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony, Zeitgeist

Judicial Watch is suing the Obama administration over its stonewalling in the Black-Panther voter intimidation case, where the administration has flouted the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in order to hide how it protected members of the racist, anti-Semitic New Black Panther Party. Although FOIA requires that documents be released within 20 days, the administration has withheld for over a year the records Judicial Watch requested about how the administration dismissed a lawsuit that career Justice Department lawyers had won against Black Panthers who used a nightstick and racial epithets to drive white voters away from a polling place.

Earlier, a career Justice Department lawyer resigned after the Obama administration illegally defied a subpoena from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The Civil Rights Commission is investigating the administration’s politicization of the Justice Department and its selective refusal to enforce the Voting Rights Act against the Black Panthers and black political bosses.

A former Justice Department lawyer describes the Obama administration’s stonewalling, cover-up, and deceit at this link. The Black Panthers that the Obama administration sought to protect by dropping the lawsuit included a local Democratic official and Obama poll-watcher.

One of the Panthers, who has been videotaped saying “that he wanted to kill white people,” is shown in a recent documentary talking about “how much he hates and wants to kill white people, including white babies.” He called a terrified black poll watcher a “race traitor,” and told him there would be “hell to pay” if he interfered with the Panthers’ campaign of voter intimidation.

In their campaign of voter intimidation, the Panthers told a white former civil-rights lawyer and former publisher of the liberal Village Voice, “Now you are going to find out what it is to be ruled by the black man, cracker.” They called a white poll watcher who lives nine blocks from the polling place a “white devil” and a “cracker,” telling him he would be ruled by the black man the next day, and he would have to get used to “living under his boot.”

The New Black Panther Party, which has a venomous hatred for what it refers to as “bloodsucking Jews,” is designated as a hate-group even by the liberal SPLC, because of its anti-Semitism.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that discrimination against whites is prohibited under federal law (including voting discrimination). The Obama administration seemingly disagrees with those rulings (which include a 9-to-0 Supreme Court decision).

Justice Department Lawyer Resigns Due to Politicization of Justice Department; Obama Administration Defies Civil Rights Commission

by Hans Bader on May 20, 2010 · 1 comment

in Culture, Legal, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony, Zeitgeist

A career Justice Department lawyer has resigned after the Obama administration defied a subpoena from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.  The Commission is investigating the Administration’s politically-motivated dismissal of a voter intimidation lawsuit against members of the racist, anti-semitic New Black Panther Party.  Career justice department lawyers brought and won the lawsuit, which was then dismissed by political appointees in the Justice Department, so that they could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Members of the New Black Panther Party, one of whom was an Obama campaign poll watcher and local Democratic official, used nightsticks and racial epithets to drive white voters away from the polls in a Philadelphia precinct. But the Obama administration killed a successful lawsuit against them, dismissing it after career Justice Department lawyers had already obtained a default judgment against the defendants  (As a result of the dismissal, the only consequence for the defendants was a temporary injunction telling just one of the three defendants not to repeat his crimes in Philadelphia for a short period of time.)  The New Black Panther Party, which attacks what it refers to as “bloodsucking Jews,” is recognized as a racist, anti-semitic hate group even by liberal civil-rights groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center.

After the case was dismissed, the Civil Rights Commission began investigating the Obama administration’s actions.  The administration ordered the career attorneys who had worked on the lawsuit to remain silent and not comply with the Commission’s investigation (contrary to federal law, which mandates that “all Federal agencies shall cooperate fully with the Commission“), and refused either to comply with the Commission’s subpoenas, or to bring a motion to quash the subpoena (which is the appropriate step to take if a subpoena is somehow invalid).  This left the subpoena and one of the career lawyers “in limbo” and in apparent violation of the law, forcing him to run up thousands of dollars in legal bills.  (The other lawyer was transferred to the civil-service equivalent of Siberia to take him “out of reach of the subpoena power of the Civil Rights Commission.”)

Justice Department attorney J. Christian Adams, who helped bring the lawsuit, “resigned in obvious disgust” at its dismissal and the administration’s stonewalling.  The other career lawyer most responsible for bringing the voter intimidation case, former Voting Rights Section Chief Christopher Coates, has a liberal pedigree: he was formerly with the “Voting Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.”  Yet both Coates and Adams have been depicted as “right-wing activists“ by “liberal media outlets“ and unnamed Obama administration officials–apparently because those officials “don’t believe the voting rights laws should ever be enforced against blacks and other minorities.”

(The idea that the civil rights laws do not protect whites or apply to minorities was rejected by a unanimous Supreme Court ruling in 1976, in an opinion authored by the black justice and civil-rights icon Thurgood Marshall.  See McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co. There are limited to exceptions to bans on race discrimination for affirmative action, but they do not apply to voting, as the Supreme Court made clear in its 7-to-2 ruling in Rice v. Cayetano (2000).  In his 2008 campaign, Obama promised “change,” and apparently that change includes a departure from basic legal norms that even liberal judges like Thurgood Marshall, and liberal lawyers like Christian Adams and Christopher Coates took for granted.  If you want to work in the Obama Justice Department, you had better disagree with the Supreme Court.)

“Career lawyers pursued the case for months, including obtaining an affidavit from a prominent 1960s civil rights activist who witnessed the confrontation and described it as ‘the most blatant form of voter intimidation’ that he had seen, even during the voting rights crisis in Mississippi a half-century ago.” But Obama’s political appointees at the Justice Department overruled them, dropping the case after victory was already assured because “the court had already entered a default judgment against the” Black Panthers. Thanks to that outrageous decision, the only result of the case was a meaningless injunction telling one of the three defendants not to commit such crimes again (and telling him not to commit such crimes only until 2012, and not barring him from committing such crimes in his home city, but rather barring such crimes only in Philadelphia).

As the Washington Times notes,

The Voting Rights Act is very clear. It prohibits any ‘attempt to intimidate, threaten or coerce’ any voter or those aiding voters. The explanation for moving to dismiss the case is shocking. According to the Department of Justice: ‘These same Defendants have made no appearance and have filed no pleadings with the Court. Nor have they otherwise raised any other defenses to this action. Therefore, the United States has the right … to dismiss voluntarily this action against the Defendants.’ In other words, because the defendants haven’t tried to defend themselves, the Justice Department won’t punish them. By that logic, if a murderer doesn’t respond to the charges, he should be let free. That’s crazy. The Obama Justice Department did take one action against one of the four defendants: It forbade him from again ‘displaying a weapon within 100 feet of any open polling location’ in Philadelphia. Given that it already was illegal to display a weapon at a polling place and that he was not even enjoined from carrying a weapon at polling places outside of Philadelphia, it is hard to see what this order accomplished. We asked the Justice Department if it was unable to provide any explanation for dropping the case. Justice press aide Alejandro Miyar merely said: ‘That is correct.’ Multiple times we asked both the department and the White House to comment on charges that the dismissals represented political bias. We received no substantive response. Hans Von Spakovsky, a legal scholar at the Heritage Foundation and a former commissioner at the Federal Election Commission, tells us, ‘In my experience, I have never heard of the department refusing to take a default judgment… . If a Republican administration had done this, it would be front-page news and every civil rights group in the country would be screaming about it.’ Consider that the behavior of the defendants was so bad that witness Bartle Bull, a former Robert F. Kennedy organizer who did extensive legal work on behalf of black voters in Mississippi, testified it was “the most blatant form of voter discrimination I have encountered in my life.’ Eric Eversole, a former litigation attorney with the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, told us: ‘It is truly unprecedented for the Voting Section to voluntarily dismiss a case of such blatant intimidation. The video speaks for itself.’ We couldn’t agree more. After the 2000 Presidential election, Democrats complained about voter intimidation in Florida by pointing to a police car that had been two miles away from a polling place. The police didn’t do anything to anyone, but their presence was deemed sufficient to vaguely intimidate people en route to the polls. In this case, the New Black Panther Party actually blocked access to a poll. Unlike the Florida incident, this case involving the New Black Panthers screams out for tough justice. Instead, the Obama administration looks the other way. This all but invites racial violence at future elections.

In 2008, Obama disingenuously complained about the supposed “politicization” of the Justice Department under Bush. But Obama has politicized the Justice Department far more than Bush was accused of doing. Obama’s Justice Department has given a green light to unconstitutional bills pushed by liberal congressmen that even liberal Justice Department attorneys have conceded are unconstitutional. It has been deafeningly silent about blatant voter fraud and voter intimidation committed by black officials, chronicled in a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. And it did little to prevent violations of the voting rights of overseas soldiers and sailors that may have tipped election results in the Minnesota Senate race (which provided the deciding vote in the Senate for passage of the costly new health care law) and the New York special Congressional election.

Senator seeks to cover up report showing Honduras acted legally in removing authoritarian ex-president

by Hans Bader on October 29, 2009

in Features, International, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony, Zeitgeist

The Obama administration and congressional allies like Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) are seeking to silence government lawyers who point out their mistakes and misinterpretations of the law:

“A month ago, the Law Library of Congress reviewed the removal of Manuel Zelaya from his post as President of Honduras, an act that the Obama administration called a ‘coup’ and demanded reversed for its illegality.  To the embarrassment of the White House and State Department, the Congressional body determined that Honduras acted lawfully in removing Zelaya for his crimes against their constitution, although they determined that his exile broke Honduran law.  Now John Kerry wants the Law Library to retract its findings, apparently trying to rewrite history to hide the facts of the case.”

Earlier, the Obama administration overruled career justice department lawyers in voting rights and voter intimidation cases, to give a green light to unconstitutional legislation, and protect an Obama poll-watcher and Democratic Party official from being held accountable for wrongdoing.  Obama also fired an inspector general for uncovering wrongdoing by a prominent Obama supporter.

Contrary to what Senator Kerry claims, there are many legal commentators who say that Honduras’s removal of ex-president Manuel Zelaya was legal — and thus, not a coup.

The ex-president’s removal was perfectly constitutional, say many lawyers and foreign policy experts, including attorneys Octavio Sanchez, Miguel Estrada, and Dan Miller, former Assistant Secretary of State Kim Holmes, Stanford’s William Ratliff, and The Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady.

Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, a lawyer, says that Honduras’s removal of Zelaya from office was legal, although its exiling of him was not.

Honduras removed ex-president Zelaya after he systematically abused his powers: he sought to circumvent constitutional term limits, used mobs to intimidate his critics, threatened public employees with termination if they refused to help him violate the Constitution, engaged in massive corruption, illegally cut off public funds to local governments whose leaders refused to back his quest for more power, denied basic government services to his critics, refused to enforce dozens of laws passed by Congress, and spent the country into virtual bankruptcy, refusing to submit a budget so that he could illegally spend public funds on his cronies.

Journalists nonsensically refer to Honduras’s removal of its ex-president as a “coup” even while admitting that it was approved by the country’s supreme court. But if it was legal, by definition, it cannot be a coup, since a coup is defined as “the unconstitutional overthrow of a legitimate government by a small group.”

Moreover, the ex-president’s removal was not a “coup” because it was not committed by a “small group,” as the definition of “coup” requires. The removal of Honduras’s president was supported by the entire Honduran Supreme Court, an almost unanimous Honduran Congress, and much of Honduran society. Honduras did not lose its government, but merely replaced one illegitimate part of it: its overbearing president. And his removal from office (as opposed to his subsequent exile) was clearly legally justified.

Law professors like James Lindgren, Jonathan Adler, Glenn Reynolds, and William Jacobson have also criticized the administration’s position on Honduras.

By levying sanctions on Honduras, and refusing to recognize its current government, the Obama administration has destabilized the country, one of the poorest in Latin America, resulting in mass layoffs leading to 65% unemployment among workers at small and medium-size enterprises in Honduras.  Vulnerable social groups in Honduras, like orphans, have suffered especially acutely, and malnutrition has risen.

While attacking Honduras’ democratically-elected Congress and Supreme Court for their role in removing and replacing the country’s ex-president and would-be dictator, the Obama administration has paid little attention to human-rights abuses in countries ruled by dictatorships.  Those countries include Guinea, where troops recently committed mass rapes against women in broad daylight; Niger, where the president recently turned himself into a dictator; Iran, where vast numbers of pro-democracy demonstrators have been tortured or killed; and Nicaragua, right next door to Honduras, where the unpopular president, who routinely engages in vote fraud, is busy trampling on constitutional term limits in order to turn himself into a president-for-life.

The Obama’s Administration’s Strange Double Standards on Hate Crimes, Terrorism, and Health Care: Soft on the Guilty, Cruel to the Innocent, Unfair to Taxpayers

by Hans Bader on July 30, 2009 · 3 comments

in Healthcare, International, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony

When black panthers were caught on videotape menacing white voters in Philadelphia, using nightsticks and racial epithets to drive them away from the polls, Obama political appointees, including Assistant Attorney General Tom Perelli, intervened to dismiss the lawsuit that had been won against them by career Justice Department lawyers — dismissing the case after it had already been won! The Obama political appointees insisted that the Justice Department should throw out its victory by not permitting a default judgment against two of the defendants even after the court clerk had already entered a default, claiming lack of evidence — even though the evidence of voter intimidation was captured on videotape! (The Obama appointees did allow the court to enter a toothless injunction against the third of the three defendants, which did nothing more than instruct him not to engage in such criminal acts again. But the defendants have paid no penalty for their crimes).

While bending over backwards to protect black hate-criminals who menaced voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act, the Administration has insisted that others found innocent of hate crimes in state court should be prosecuted all over again in federal court, relying on a loophole in Constitutional protections against double jeopardy. The recently passed federal hate-crimes bill, which Obama has pledged to sign, broadens the federal hate crimes law to the point where it punishes the same conduct already prohibited by state criminal laws and hate-crimes laws, allowing federal prosecutors to bring charges all over again after a jury has found that the defendant is not guilty of hate crimes.

As law professor Gail Heriot, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, notes in the Philadelphia Inquirer, advocates of the federal hate crimes law have insisted that even in state cases where the evidence of a hate crime was very weak, leading to acquittals, federal reprosecution is warranted. For example, “Some have even called for federal prosecution of the Duke University lacrosse team members–despite strong evidence of their innocence.” Amazingly, even though DNA evidence proved the Duke Lacrosse players did not commit any rape (much less the racially-motivated rape they were accused of), and the North Carolina attorney general has admitted that they were innocent, there are still those who wish they had been prosecuted in federal court.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights voted 6-to-2 to oppose the federal hate-crimes bill. The Commission called the bill a “menace to civil liberties” because “its most important effect will be to allow federal authorities to re-prosecute a broad category of defendants who have already been acquitted by state juries.” Thus, it will erode protections against double jeopardy.

But Congress chose to heed instead the 2 dissenting Commissioners, such as Michael Yaki, who has argued that the bill was necessary to allow people found not guilty of a hate crime in state court to be reprosecuted all over again in federal court. In his July 6 San Francisco Chronicle website commentary “Why We Need the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Bill,” Yaki points to the example of Joseph Silva and George Silva, who were found guilty of a crime in California state court, but not guilty of committing it for racial reasons, as an example of people who need to be reprosecuted for hate crimes in federal court. In fact, the Silvas are already being reprosecuted by the Obama Justice Department in federal court under the existing, narrow federal hate-crimes law, which only reaches the minority of hate crimes that affect federally-protected activities. The new hate-crimes law eliminates the longstanding requirement that hate crimes affect federally protected activities before federal prosecutors have jurisdiction to reprosecute them, making most state hate-crimes federal hate-crimes as well. (The Obama Justice Department “strenuously resisted efforts to tighten the bill’s language” to eliminate unjustified prosecutions).

A desire to get around constitutional double-jeopardy protections was also voiced by many backers of the bill, like the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and MALDEF, which pointed to a state jury’s acquittal of Pennsylvania teenagers accused of a hate crime against an illegal alien as a reason for passing the federal hate-crimes bill.

While seeking to erode the constitutional rights of American citizens, the Obama Administration has given foreign terrorists rights that they are not entitled to under the Constitution, such as giving enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan Miranda warnings even though that is not legally required. Terrorists captured overseas by U.S. troops are not entitled by the U.S. Constitution to Miranda warnings. Nor are Miranda warnings required by Afghan law, international law, or treaties like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Even the liberal Washington Post, which has not endorsed a Republican for President since 1952, has criticized Obama’s foreign policy, admitting that Obama has shown “willful disregard of political oppression” by left-wing dictators. Meanwhile, he has attacked friendly governments in places like Honduras, the Wall Street Journal notes. All too often, Obama has behaved like a friend to our enemies, and an enemy to our friends.

Many supporters of the federal hate-crimes bill want to allow those found innocent to be reprosecuted in federal court. As one supporter put it, “the federal hate crimes bill serves as a vital safety valve in case a state hate-crimes prosecution fails.” The claim that the justice system has “failed” when a jury returns a not-guilty verdict is truly scary and contrary to the constitutional presumption of innocence and the right to trial by jury.

But it is a view widely shared among supporters of the hate-crimes bill. Syndicated columnist Jacob Sullum pointed out in 1998 that Janet Reno, Clinton’s Attorney General, backed the bill as a way of providing a federal “forum” for prosecution if prosecutors fail to obtain a conviction “in the state court.”

Supporters of the hate crimes bill also see it as a way to prosecute people even in cases where the evidence is so weak that state prosecutors have decided not to prosecute. Attorney General Eric Holder has pushed for the hate crimes bill as a way to prosecute people whom state prosecutors refuse to prosecute because of a lack of evidence. To justify broadening federal hate-crimes law, he cited three examples where state prosecutors refused to prosecute, citing a lack of evidence. In each, a federal jury acquitted the accused, finding them not guilty.

Advocates of a broader federal hate-crimes law have pointed to the Duke lacrosse case as an example of where federal prosecutors should have stepped in and prosecuted the accused players — even though the state prosecution in that case was dropped because the defendants were actually innocent, as North Carolina’s attorney general conceded, and were falsely accused of rape by a woman with a history of violence (including trying to run over someone with her car) and making false accusations.

Given the politically-charged nature of many hate-crimes trials, Kimberly Potter of New York University was probably right when she told Congress back in 1998 that if the federal hate crimes bill is enacted, “the acquittal of defendants in state court will frequently trigger demands for federal prosecution.”

Obama is also guilty of double standards in health-care. He’s trying to push through an ill-conceived health-care overhaul at home which will give preferential treatment to illegal aliens by qualifying them for federal health-care coverage, while exempting them from proposed taxes that would apply only to citizens.

One of Obama’s own advisers says his health-care plan will harm people with insurance while raising their taxes. CNN says Obamacare will take away 5 freedoms. It will also destroy many affordable health-care plans while breaking Obama’s campaign promises.

Supreme Court Limits Voting Rights Act, But Declines to Strike Down Key Section of the Act

by Hans Bader on June 22, 2009 · 2 comments

in Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony

The Supreme Court expanded the ability of local governments to “bail out” of a draconian provision of the Voting Rights Act, which requires them to get “preclearance” from the Justice Department, or a special court in Washington, D.C., for even trivial decisions like whether to move voting booths across the street. A three-judge district court said even local governments with an undisputed history of non-discrimination could “bail out” of Section 5 of the Act only if they themselves register voters, which most local governments don’t. The Supreme Court just overturned that ruling, which had effectively rendered the bail-out provision meaningless.

(The Justice Department has recently used preclearance requirements to block Georgia’s attempt to keep illegal aliens from voting, saying that voter ID requirements exclude more Hispanics than whites (perhaps true, but only because Hispanics in Georgia are more likely to be non-citizens not entitled to vote than are the state’s white residents). The Supreme Court earlier rejected a constitutional challenge to voter ID in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board (2008)).

By an 8-to-1 vote, the Justices refused to strike down the pre-clearance requirements of the Act as unconstitutional, in the case decided today, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, saying that Section 5 of the Act violated federalism provisions of the Constitution, since the extraordinary remedy of requiring pre-clearance could only be imposed if state and local governments were engaging in discrimination that was too pervasive to be checked on a case-by-case basis in lawsuits.

In 1966, the Supreme Court, in an 8-to-1 vote, upheld an earlier, less burdensome preclearance requirement, based on rampant, systematic discrimination against black voters, reasoning that its “strong medicine” was a temporary abrogation of constitutional federalism principles necessary for black people to be able to vote. Justice Black partially dissented in that case, South Carolina v. Katzenbach, arguing that Section 5′s “requirement that States come to Washington to have their laws judged is reminiscent of the deeply resented practices used by the English crown in dealing with the American colonies,” which Americans protested in the Declaration of Independence.

But Congress dramatically broadened the Voting Rights Act in 2006, making it more burdensome, even as the discrimination that once justified the Act has become rare.

In cases like Reno v. Bossier Parish School Board (2000), the Justice Department had attempted to use its pre-clearance veto power to force local governments to engage in unnecessary race-based districting. When the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Bossier Parish School Board, with Justice Thomas noting that black people had fared quite well there without any racial gerrymandering (winning 3 of 12 seats on the Board), liberal newspapers and self-proclaimed civil-rights groups attacked the decision, and got Congress to overrule portions of that decision by dramatically expanding the pre-clearance requirements of the Voting Rights Act.

Ironically, even as the Justice Department uses Section 5 to force race-based restricting and thwart efforts to combat voter fraud and illegal alien voting, it has turned a blind eye to voter intimidation aimed at white voters, and done little to remedy violations of the voting rights of American soldiers.

I haven’t linked to press coverage of today’s ruling, since most of it is tendentious and ideologically biased. John Rosenberg, an expert on discrimination (and former expert witness in a landmark discrimination case), shows just how biased press coverage was of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in an age-discrimination case was (the case was Gross v. FBL Financial Services (2008)).

Earlier, I discussed how Obama misstated the facts of a landmark Supreme Court ruling, and distorted what the court’s ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear meant for people bringing pay discrimination lawsuits, and how the press (with a few exceptions) let him get away with it.

Obama Justice Department Winks at Racist Voter Intimidation

by Hans Bader on May 29, 2009

in Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony

Black Panthers in Philadelphia used nightsticks and racial epithets to drive white voters away from a polling place. “Career lawyers pursued the case for months, including obtaining an affidavit from a prominent 1960s civil rights activist who witnessed the confrontation and described it as ‘the most blatant form of voter intimidation’ that he had seen, even during the voting rights crisis in Mississippi a half-century ago.” But Obama’s political appointees at the Justice Department overruled them, dropping the case after victory was already assured because “the court had already entered a default judgment against the” Black Panthers. Because of that bizarre decision, the only result of the case was a toothless injunction telling one of the three defendants not to commit such crimes again.

In the 2008 campaign, Obama complained about the “politicization” of the Justice Department. But he is guilty of it far more than Bush ever was. Obama’s Justice Department has rubberstamped unconstitutional legislation sought by Democratic lawmakers that even liberal Justice Department attorneys admit is unconstitutional. It has downplayed even egregious voter fraud and denials of the right to vote committed by black officials, chronicled in a ruling by a federal appeals court. And it has deliberately done little or nothing to remedy clear-cut violations of the voting rights of American soldiers overseas.

Voter Fraud: An Epidemic of Repeat Voters

by Hans Bader on October 30, 2008 · 6 comments

in Legal, Personal Liberty

Thousands of out-of-state college students have illegally registered to vote in swing states like Virginia, even while registering, and applying for absentee ballots, in their home state as well.  Forty such names have already been forwarded to Virginia State Police. 

This process has been abetted by Virginia’s liberal governor, Tim Kaine, and his chief of staff, who did so in response to complaints by the Obama campaign, over protests by local voting officials across the political spectrum.

Kaine appointees attempted to illegally block the counting of military absentee ballots, based on a technicality preempted by federal law, even as they ordered local voting officials to disregard state law by allowing out-of-state college students to vote in Virginia elections. 

Virginia’s attorney general, Bob McDonnell, has now issued an opinion concluding that those military votes must in fact be counted.

Virginia Officials Illegally Discard Military Votes, Allow Out-of-State Votes

by Hans Bader on October 23, 2008 · 7 comments

in Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual

In Virginia’s liberal Fairfax County, officials are illegally discarding absentee ballots cast by members of the military based on a technical requirement that is preempted by federal law.  Meanwhile, people who live out-of-state are being allowed to vote (some people have boasted of being registered to vote, and voting, both in Virginia and another state) in Virginia elections, contrary to state law, based on instructions from liberal state voting officials and false claims by liberal advocacy groups.

The Washington Examiner reports on October 24 that “Fairfax County elections officials are rejecting about 200 overseas ballots, many of them from members of the military, saying the voters failed to observe a minor technicality in filling out their absentee forms.”  As retiring Congressman Tom Davis notes, that technicality “violates federal law” through its “disparate treatment of overseas voters.” 

“The State Board of Elections last week instructed county officials to adhere to the letter of the [state] law,” even though it is preempted by contrary federal law.  Officials at the State Board of elections are appointed by liberal Governor Tim Kaine.

Meanwhile, that same Board of Elections ordered Norfolk registrar Elisa J. Long to ignore state law by allowing college students not domiciled in Virginia to register and vote in Virginia elections.

The military votes in Fairfax County are being discarded by long-time Democratic operative Rokey Suleman, who became the Fairfax County registrar (a supposedly non-partisan position) after long being “active in Ohio Democratic politics.”   Suleman earlier sent staffers into the Fairfax County jail to register criminals to vote.

Voter Fraud in Virginia Abetted by ACLU

by Hans Bader on October 9, 2008 · 30 comments

in Global Warming, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual

People openly boast about fraudulently registering to vote in Virginia, a swing state, even though they actually live, and are registered to vote, in other states.  The Norfolk, Virginia election board tried to do something about that, by making sure that people registering to vote in Virginia actually do live in the state.  One way it did that was to send questionnaires to students who came from out-of-state to attend Virginia colleges, and then registered in Virginia, to see if those students really qualify as Virginia residents.   It had every right to do that under federal court rulings, which hold that it is perfectly OK to require such proof of domicile (permanent residence) from everyone, students included.

However, the Obama campaign protested this, even though the Norfolk, Virginia election board is comprised primarily of Democrats, and represent a liberal stronghold.   In response, state officials appointed by Virginia’s liberal governor, Tim Kaine, ordered the Norfolk election board not to send any more questionnaires to confirm students’ domicile, even though state election law requires domicile as a condition for voting and registration.  The Norfolk board has followed this order under protest, even though it believes it violates state election law.

Now, the ACLU is bombarding local election officials (such as voting registrars) with letters falsely claiming that the Supreme Court has ruled that students can register to vote, no questions asked, based on their temporary student residence — even if they are from out-of-state, have out-of-state license plates, pay taxes out-of-state, and recently registered to vote in another state.

Similarly, the Obama campaign is telling students that if they attend school in one state, but have a permanent residence in another, they can register in either state of their choosing — a virtual invitation to commit vote fraud.

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