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U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder today leveled the Obama administration's strongest criticism yet at new voting laws that, for example, require photo ID's at the polls, limit early voting, and restrict periods for registration.
In a speech prepared for delivery at the LBJ Library at the University of Texas in Austin, Holder quoted Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), a longtime civil rights leader, who said recently that voting rights are under attack by "a deliberate and systematic attempt to prevent millions of elderly voters, young voters, students, and minority and low-income voters from exercising their constitutional right to engage in the democratic process."
What Lewis was talking about, Holder said, was concerns about "some of the state-level voting law changes we’ve seen this legislative season."
The Justice Department is now reviewing some of those new laws. "We will examine the facts, and we will apply the law," Holder said.
"If a state passes a new voting law and meets its burden of showing that the law is not discriminatory, we will follow the law and approve the change. And where a state can’t meet this burden, we will object as part of our obligation" under the Voting Rights Act, he said.
That law, Holder said, is being challenged in at least five lawsuits. And the U.S. Supreme Court recently expressed the view that the time may be ending when close review by the Justice Department is required for changes in voting procedures in states with a history of racial discriminating at the polls. Perhaps, some members of the court said, that requirement of the Voting Rights Act is no longer necessary.
"I wish this were the case. The reality is that in jurisdictions across the country, both overt and subtle forms of discrimination remain all too common," Holder said.
He called the recent effort at congressional and legislative redistricting in Texas "precisely the kind of discrimination" that the Voting Rights Act was intended to block. The Supreme Court has agreed to review the state's newly drawn districts and a lower federal court's substitution of a different plan.
New census data showed Texas gaining more than four million new residents, most of them Latinos, allowing the state four new seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. But Texas, Holder said, "proposed adding zero additional seats in which Hispanics would have the electoral opportunity envisioned by the Voting Rights Act.
"As concerns about the protection of this right and the integrity of our election systems become an increasingly prominent part of our national dialogue, we must consider some important questions. It is time to ask: What kind of nation and what kind of people do we want to be? Are we willing to allow this era, our era, to be remembered as the age when our nation’s proud tradition of expanding the franchise ended? Are we willing to allow this time, our time, to be recorded in history as the age when the long-held belief that, in this country, every citizen has the chance and the right to help shape their government, became a relic of our past, instead of a guidepost for our future?
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As an American one of the many freedoms I enjoy is that I do not have to present an ID to any one that asks.
I don't have to stop at a state border and show any papers, so why do I have to in order to vote?
It's just another way to suppress the vote.
Well Busteroo, why should we take your word for the fact that you are an American Citizen and not someone from another country trying to corrupt our political system? Just because you have a pretty mouth? Your logic makes no sense. The outcome of elections are far too important to just allow people to vote based on the fact that they have a pulse and can stand up and fog a mirror.
Sarcasm??
No, fact. To allow people to cast a ballot simply because they tell you they are legal and have the right without furnishing proof of their claim is absolute lunacy. Why not just turn our country over to whomever says that it belongs to them? We have people entering our country illegally by the millions every year and you would allow them to vote in our elections by simply telling a lie about who they are? Please tell me your not that damn dumb?
Well every time I have voted several lists are checked to find my name. So you are saying that illegals are registering to vote?
Just how are they doing that? Most states register you when you get your license. In order to get a license I have to prove who I am.
So you see I have already provided my ID, why do I have to do it again?
You just don't get that this is one more step towards to having to show your papers at check points.
So you are for Bigger government, big brother watching us? I guess it's a good thing when my relatives arrived here in late 1800's you weren't deciding who could stay and who needs to go.
Congratulations on being the only real American that didn't come from another country.
Besides the problem of illegals possibly voting is low on the list of more important things to do in this country. I hope you and your hate have a nice holiday
Peace
Busteroo,
After 9/11, it was discovered that eight of the 19 hijackers were registered to vote. How did they do it? The motor voter law signed by William J. Clinton.
"After 9/11, it was discovered that eight of the 19 hijackers were registered to vote"
If that's true -- and I doubt it is -- they probably became US citizens. You can do that you know.
This claim that eight of the hijackers were registered to vote has been making the rounds. Professor Spencer Overton of the George Washington University Law School, an expert in voter fraud, attempted to verify this fact. He discovered that 1) all the reports traced back to John Fund's assertion (Fund is the author of this op-ed), and 2) there's no evidence to support the claim. Here's what he said in his testimony to Congress:
When my research assistant Daniel Taylor contacted John Fund and asked about the source of the fact that eight of the hijackers were registered in either Florida or Virginia, John Fund indicated that he obtained the fact from an interview with then-Assistant Attorney General Michael Cherthoff. Taylor then contacted the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, the Counterterrorism Section, and Voting Section, and no one knew about the claim. At the suggestion of these offices, Taylor filed a FOIA request. He also repeatedly called the Department of Homeland Security (Cherthoff is now Secretary of Homeland Security), but so far no has responded to Taylor. Taylor also contacted the former Virginia Secretary of the Board of Elections, Cameron Quinn. Quinn indicated that she was unable to confirm or deny that the September 11 hijackers were registered to vote in VA. She was familiar with the claim, and indicated that they looked into it while she was Secretary of the Board of Elections. However, they had a difficult time getting from federal officials the actual names of the hijackers, their Social Security numbers (which is how they usually look up registrations), or their actual voter registration numbers. As a result, she believes that her agency was never able to prove or disprove that any of the 9/11 hijackers registered to vote in Virginia. Taylor’s calls to the Florida Secretary of State have not yet been returned.
It is not restrictive to expect all of us to show ID at the voting booth. If the government can fund all the wasteful spending, they can certainly fund every person with an ID (rich and poor alike). I am tired of all this voter fraud. Stop whining about how the poor are disenfranchised. Once they get an ID they should be held accountable for using it. No more excuses! You want to vote, you show your ID. It's a shame that the self-proclaimed, compassionate liberals are also the most corrupt.
VOTER FRAUD is real problem there has been case after case of voter fraud AND this is not reserved for only one party , HOWEVER it is the Democrats who object to voter IDs , we are accustomed to having ID cards ,You show your ID for almost every thing from cashing a Check to using a credit card , Identifying your self is a fact life , and should apply to voters , States who have voter Id laws have seen an increase in voters , The number one reason Given by people who don't vote is that they believe their vote don't count , that the Elections are rigged , The socialist communists from both parties will STEAL THE ELECTIONS if they can ,and historical evidence shows they have , VOTER fraud is a grave threat to our system of Government and our FREEDOM,
The Question one must ask is why would any one oppose voter ID requirement's , There is only one answer that I can think of , they are beneficiaries of VOTER FRAUD
The Question one must ask is why would any one oppose voter ID requirement's ,
I don't have a problem with showing an ID. Buy why is it in states like Texas and Ohio, and ID that will get you on an airplane, allow you to buy liquor, allow you to buy a gun, allow you do do just about anything, is NOT acceptable as a voter ID? Why is it that you have to have a special, state approved ID that you have to jump through all kinds of hoops and deal with all kinds of red tape to get? Why do some states make it so hard for people to get the proper voting ID? Why is it that some Republican governors are closing voter registration places? Why is it that some states are cutting down on the hours pooling places are open and making early voting harder to do?
Holder and the Democrats must be very desperate to win the 2012 elections if Holder all of a suuden wants to ease restrictions on voter id to vote in elections. C'mon, like Darrel's post above, why would anyone oppose showing id? We are required to show ID's all the time to prevent fraud. Why is voting different? I will tell you why. Dems need those minority votes deperately, they feel it will influence the outcome of the next election if most of them vote, so who needs ID? Just get them to the polls! Who cares if they are illegals? We need their vote!! Give it up Holder, you should not even be allowed to be in office, do everyone a favor and step down as Atty. General.
Holder just wants to make sure the DEAD, FAMILY PETS, BABIES IN THE WOMB and ACORN'S REPLACEMENT COMPANY RECRUITS will be able to vote. One LEGAL US CITIZEN...................ONE VOTE.
If you have to show I.D's to vote then how will democrats get all those votes from Bugs Bunny,Adolph Hitler,all the deceased people, muppets and every comic book character known to men? Or the democrats that believe in the vote more then once , pushed by that lovely fed funded status ACORN!!
Hey guys, read the final conclusion on ACORN...it wasn't the evil illegal democratic tool you continue to portray it to be.
Guess what? Hundreds of thousands of REGISTERED voters in Texas do not have proper IDs (the state's own estimate) and Hispanics are disproportionately represented in that group.
People on this thread obviously do not have the imagination to understand why the poor and elderly do not have IDs. Think about it.
Almost 1/3 of TX counties do not have DMV offices.
Many poor and elderly do not have cars.
Working poor typically do not have jobs that you can easily take off for a day to go get an ID...for me, I only took off days when my kids were sick in order to keep the job.
Working poor are TIRED because many do physically demanding work or they're working moms with two jobs.
Why would we make it more difficult for them to vote? You prove residence when you register (and citizenship) and showing up with a legitimate registration card should be sufficient...they can even check your signature at the poll against your registration signature.
These laws don't address the real problems of voter fraud and clearly place additional burden on the most vulnerable in our society. Because they vote disproportionately Democratic, I can only believe the worst of the Republicans in control of those states who have recently enacted the most stringent of requirements.
Oh one more thing. In TX student IDs are not accepted forms of ID at the polls because some students may not be citizens (state's reason) but somehow military IDs will be accepted even though some soldiers may not be citizens either...but how do soldiers tend to vote? Republican.
"These laws don't address the real problems of voter fraud"
Exactly. The real threat to honest elections isn't a few illegal immigrants voting or people voting a couple of times. The REAL problem is electronic fraud and Republicans have done NOTHING to insure against that.
You know what is so pathetic about the extremist teabag/gop(greedy one percent)argument is that in many red states you can just show your NRA ID and they say step right up and and vote. But then for others a standard voter ID is invalid unless you also have a very specific picture ID which the law forces many disadvantaged Americans to have to jump through hoops for. The gop clown show continues with rove/norquist in the drivers seat pulling all the strings to their puppets.
G-boy,,,I would rather be a teabagger then a teabaggie as you!
My my, I don't think I've ever seen so many ridiculous people wasting their time making comments on stupid subjects especially when it started out concerning Eric Holder. We all know he is a racist, has no business holding the position he has . SIMPLE SOLUTION FOLKS; Take back government. Whatever happened to we the people, for the people by the people. We listen to some yahoo Lie to us then we vote him in and he does absolutely nothing except what is on his agenda. At this time we have no say so and are forced to do exactly what some politician dreams up.
WAKE UP AMERICANS........................................................................!
I was awake to OBOMBO before the election but some of these liberal retards are still retarded!
People have to be able to prove who they are with a driver's liscense before they are allowed to drive. Why shouln't people have to be able to prove they are a citizen of the US before they are allowed to vote? Is driving more important than voting? Holder makes no sense. He is wrong on so many issues!
Why shouln't people have to be able to prove they are a citizen of the US before they are allowed to vote?
Nobody is saying people don't have to prove they are citizens before they vote. That's not the issue. The issue is making some governors making it harder for citizens to vote. Again --- why is it in states like Texas and Ohio, and ID that will get you on an airplane, allow you to buy liquor, allow you to buy a gun, allow you do do just about anything, is NOT acceptable as a voter ID? Why is it that you have to have a special, state approved ID that you have to jump through all kinds of hoops and deal with all kinds of red tape to get? Why do some states make it so hard for people to get the proper voting ID? Why is it that some Republican governors are closing voter registration places? Why is it that some states are cutting down on the hours pooling places are open and making early voting harder to do?
When states like California started issuing photo I.D. like a drivers licenses to illegals and such. I have to produce birth certificates, DD214 form all the time when I was younger and never saw it as a problem. I have to show my D.L. all the time when I use my debit or credit cards ( all my cards are signed " ask for I.D. " ) and I see it as no problem. I live in Florida and show mt D.L. every time I vote, no problem.
It appears only the liberal left and democrats have a problem with it, HMMM ?????
it's the only way they can save OBOMBO and Pelosi and the other liberal demos now!
I notice that all of the new restrictive voting laws are passed by GOP majority administrations. There is also no substantiated evidence that there is any serious voter fraud going on in any of these states. The targets of these laws seem to point toward likely Democratic voters. There's a rat in the wood pile here and it's a republican rat. As far as Texas goes, gerrymandering is how they control the pesky Latino vote. The king of crooked politics Tom Delay is a conservatave Texas Icon.
After two days of testimony and an hour of deliberation, a Tunica County jury returned a guilty verdict in the case against community activist Lessadolla Sowers.
Sowers was convicted of 10 counts of voter fraud and was sentenced to five years for each count. Circuit Court Judge Charles Webster ordered Sowers to serve her terms concurrently with no possibility of parole. She was also ordered to pay restitution and court costs.
The verdict came after the state presented evidence that Sowers committed voter fraud in the weeks leading up to the democratic primary in 2007.
In his opening remarks, prosecutor Bill Gresham said 31 absentee ballots were seized by the Mississipi Bureau of Investigation in 2007 after allegations of misconduct. Those 31 ballots led to 31 counts of voter fraud in the initial indictment against Sowers. During court proceedings, 21 counts were dropped for various reasons and 10 remained.
BTW. Lessadolla Sowers has been identified as a member of the executive committee of the county’s NAACP chapter.
http://www.tunicatimes.com/index.php?view=article&id=1176
Notice the date April 21,2011.
Then there is--
The criminal enterprise that Obama's Justice Department refuses to investigate despite extensive evidence of fraud and corruption is guilty of a felony in yet another state.It marks the latest of many legal defeats for the Chicago-based community group known as ACORN, famous for illegal voter registration drives, embezzling federal funds and a tight knit relationship with the president. In fact, Obama once worked at ACORN and the group's massive campaign drives helped him get elected in 2008.Facing more than a dozen felony charges in Nevada, ACORN pleaded guilty to one count this week for illegally paying canvassers to register voters during the 2008 presidential campaign.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2011/04/acorn-guilty-again-obama-doj-still-won-t-investigate/
Then there is this--
LAKE COUNTY, Ill. - An illegal alien from the Philippines was arrested Thursday morning on a felony complaint charging her with 17 counts related to voter fraud in Lake County. The state charges resulted from a joint investigation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Lake County State's Attorneys Office. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) also provided assistance.
Maria Azada, 53, of Grayslake, Ill., was arrested March 17 by ICE HSI agents and a Lake County State's Attorneys special investigator. Azada faces 17 felony counts in Lake County Circuit Court of perjury, mutilation of election materials, and tampering with voting machines in connection with illegal voting by a non-U.S. citizen.
The investigation began in February 2009 when Azada admitted to a USCIS officer during an interview for an immigration benefit that she had voted in an election. It is illegal for foreign nationals to vote in national or state elections in the United States.
A subsequent investigation revealed that Azada allegedly voted nine times in primary, general and consolidated elections between 2003 and 2009. According to the arrest warrant, Azada allegedly falsely claimed to be a U.S. citizen on two Illinois Voter Registration applications.
Notice if you will that this is from ICE.gov
http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1103/110317lakecounty.htm
Salute.
#1
Definitely guilty. But, consider that this occurred in a Democratic primary race in Tunica County - 10 votes out of a total population of 10,788.
#2
This is a registration quota issue, not a voter fraud issue. It isn't illegal in Nevada to pay canvassers.
Nevada law makes it illegal "for a person to provide compensation for registering voters that is based upon the total number of voters a person registers."
An investigation of the compensation scheme was launched after several false registrations were turned in to the county registrar of voters. One such group of registration forms contained names from the Dallas Cowboys football team, but those fraudulent forms were shown not to have come from ACORN workers, Rasmussen said.
Prosecutors never charged anyone with turning in a fraudulent form.
http://www.lvrj.com/news/judge-fines-acorn-5-000-for-voter-registration-scheme-127467598.html
#3
She hasn't stood trial yet on any of these charges. So this is not a conviction. While it does sound like she will be found guilty of at least some charges, the article does not address her knowledge of the law and/or intent.
So you have produced proof of 1 conviction of voter fraud by a Democrat in a Democratic primary, 1 guilty plea on a technicality for voter registration irregularities and 1 untried case of alleged voter fraud between 2003 - 2011. All minor, all caught and being handled properly in the legal system.
The right-wing hysteria about voter fraud and registration fraud is totally out of proportion to the reality.
Is Eric the "red" still in office? I thought he was in jail for selling illegal guns to mexican drug lords to finance the Hope Dope's re-election campaign??
How hard would it be to vote as my deceased father?? I have plenty of copies of his signature to practice with.
This photo I.D. would insure the sactity of the right to vote. If these are required nationwide, the voters have an entire year to get the I.D.s. Not a problem for something so important.
U.S. Supreme court upheld Indiana's voter I.D. requirements. That is called a legal precedent. Gonna be tough for Eric Holder to circumvent the SCOTUS.
If I were you Holder.. i would keep my mouth shut concerning almost all subjects. You an your GOONS tried threathing my Uncle Hoppy concerning your involvement in Oklahoma-City.... I truly wish you and your punk-goons would try that now..... Your Op of Fast and Furious makes me wanna throw-up!! You are a Traitor and scum in my book!!
Eric Holder should be in jail with Blarney Gasbag Frank, Chirstopher the dud Dodd, Nancy Skaglosi, Harriet the reed Reid and Barack Oblumbles for various crimes of abuse of power to complete incompetence.
Hey Eric....what were those black panthers doing outside of Philly voting places with baseball bats during the midterm elections in 2010??? Waiting for a Phillies game???? You commie moron!!
You mean the one guy wearing a pin that indicated his party affiliation, along with a black hat, sunglasses and leather coat - and no baseball bat?
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/new-black-panthers-again-stationed-at-philly-polling-location/
If your a citizen there should be no problem with being able to show proof of idenity.How many of you lawful citizen have no proof of who you are? Why are the Democrats so afraid of someone being ask for proof of who they are to be able to vote. You can not cash a check,rent a car,buy and airplane ticket,get tags for a car,apply for a credit card,job , buy a fishing or hunting license without proof of who you are.
It's about time they go after Holder. This guy is as corrupt as they come. He should be impeached. He has no business being the head of the DOJ. Top cops are supposed to be men of integrity. Shame on Obama for appointing and supporting this jerk. Just another corrupt Chicago politician like the rest of the Obama administration. Obama must GET OUT!