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Posts tagged ‘voting rights’

Ranked-Choice Voting Keeps Rigging Elections


BY: VICTORIA MARSHALL | JANUARY 11, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/01/11/ranked-choice-voting-keeps-rigging-elections/

hand holding a bunch of "vote" buttons

As different states and municipalities across the country adopt ranked-choice voting, it’s become obvious this mind-boggling election system deserves a new name: rigged-choice voting.

After nearly two months of tabulation, Alameda County, California, — one such ranked-choice voting (RCV) adoptee — announced it got the count wrong for its Nov. 8 election. As The Wall Street Journal reported, the California county admitted it made systemic errors while tabulating ballots. As a result of the snafu, an Oakland School Board race flipped: The top vote-getter (and certified winner) must now hand his board seat over to the third-place finisher.

While gross negligence on the part of some Alameda County election officials is not only probable but likely, RCV’s Byzantine election system must also take the blame. In it, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority of votes in the first round, the last-place finisher is eliminated, and his voters are reallocated to the voter’s second-choice candidate. The process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes. For the Oakland mayor’s race, it took nine baffling rounds of RCV for one candidate to receive the narrow majority. The local NAACP chapter demanded a manual recount but scrapped it due to the expense.

In the case of the Oakland School Board election, officials blame a software configuration problem for the error (even the machines were confused about how to count the RCV-way). But is it right for a candidate who receives a plurality of votes on the first go-through to eventually lose to someone who finishes last? Often, the victors that emerge from ranked-choice voting are not the candidates a majority of voters favor. Case-in-point: Democrat Mary Peltola won Alaska’s lone congressional seat despite nearly 60 percent of voters casting their ballots for a Republican.

What’s behind the RCV takeover? As The Federalist has previously reported, partisan Democratic activists and moderate Republicans are pushing RCV as a legal mechanism to push out more revolutionary (read: populist) candidates in favor of establishment-backed contenders. As Project Veritas has documented, the moderate, nominal Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski was behind the campaign to change Alaska’s primary to an RCV system, ensuring the defeat of her Trump-backed challenger Kelly Tshibaka. Had Alaska not implemented RCV, Tshibaka likely would have defeated Murkowski in the primary.

There is a myriad of problems with RCV, as the Alameda County debacle shows. The Foundation for Government Accountability notes that ranked-choice voting causes ballot exhaustion (when a ballot is cast but does not count toward the end election result), diminishes voter confidence, and lags election results. It can take weeks or even months for a ranked-choice race to be counted, threatening the security of the process.

If Americans desire democracy and election integrity, rigged-choice voting is clearly not the way to go.

Victoria Marshall is a staff writer at The Federalist. Her writing has been featured in the New York Post, National Review, and Townhall. She graduated from Hillsdale College in May 2021 with a major in politics and a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @vemrshll.

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Harvesting Low-Effort Votes Is Working Great for Democrats, So They’re Going for More


BY: VICTORIA MARSHALL | DECEMBER 28, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/12/28/harvesting-low-effort-votes-is-working-great-for-democrats-so-theyre-going-for-more/

Election 2020
While some congressional Republicans might think the post-2020 election integrity fight is over, that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

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The dust of the 2022 midterm contests has barely settled and Democrats — invigorated by the Red Wave that evaporated under extended lax voting policies — are out to make sweeping changes to our nation’s election laws once again.

Think back to 2020, when Democratic governors and unsuspecting Republican lawmakers made unprecedented changes to state election policies in the name of Covid that included mandating universal mail-in balloting and a month of early voting. Some states have kept these changes permanently. But Democrats are not satisfied, and why should they be? With their gubernatorial power retained (they kept all but one of the governor’s offices) and newfound control of state legislatures in both Michigan and Minnesota, Democrats are keen to ram through a whole gamut of unprecedented and unconstitutional changes. It’s working, so they’re going to keep doing it.

As The New York Times reported, Democrats’ list of policy proposals for 2023 includes expanding automatic voter registration systems, preregistering teenagers to vote, granting the franchise to felons, and criminalizing what the left thinks is election “misinformation.” Of course, all these policy prescriptions have little to do with “voting rights,” but Democrats package them as such, and slander their opponents as — you guessed it — racists. 

Make no mistake about what these proposals are meant to accomplish. Take automatic voter registration. The New York Times notes that such a system — already adopted by 20 states — “adds anyone whose information is on file with a government agency — such as a department of motor vehicles or a social services bureau — to [a state’s] voter rolls unless they opt out.”

During the 2020 election, Michigan’s Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson sent out automatic voter registration forms to all eligible Michigan residents. As a result of the mailer, 114,000 people were automatically added to Michigan’s voter rolls. Many were duplicate and otherwise inaccurate registrations. By padding state voter rolls with new unlikely voters, Democrats can target unsuspecting blocs of voters, harvest their ballots, and put their candidates over the top. Various leftist 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations are solely dedicated to this.

As I’ve previously reported regarding Democratic attempts to court high school-age kids, multiple left-wing organizations are targeting young people to effectively propagandize them into future Democratic Party voters. As two-thirds of Gen Z voters backed Democrats this past midterm election cycle, Democrats are hoping to capitalize on this emerging voting bloc while also setting their sights on even younger kids. While leftist organizations have tried to couch their outreach efforts as bipartisan, Democrat politicians admit they’re going after younger voters to benefit the left.

“[Targeting young people] is something the left’s been pushing for quite a while — along with enfranchising noncitizens and automatic restoration of felon voting rights,” executive director of the Honest Elections Project Jason Snead told me earlier this month. “They’re always looking for new people to bring into the election system and calculating the targeted groups who will be more likely to vote Democratic.”

Along with making the state a key player in their efforts to pad voter rolls in their favor, Democrats are also intent on criminalizing any information that could hurt their electoral prospects. Known Democratic Party hack and Michigan Secretary of State Joycelyn Benson told the New York Times that she wants new rules and penalties for individuals peddling “misinformation” in election mailers or language on proposed ballot amendments. 

“The greatest threats to our democracy right now continue to be the intentional spread of misinformation and the threats and harassment of election officials that emerge from those efforts,” Benson said.

With Democrats’ history of using Big Tech to label the New York Post’s verified story on Hunter Biden as misinformation and its subsequent censorship during the 2020 election, as well as myriad true scientific claims that countered the bureaucracy’s Covid narrative, it’s clear Benson and fellow Democrats’ desire to censor “misinformation” is code for cracking down on any information Democrats don’t like.

What’s To Be Done

Republicans must be wary of Democratic efforts to fortify elections in 2023 and beyond. While some congressional Republicans might think the post-2020 election integrity fight is over, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Democrats have a massive ground game advantage over Republicans already, and if they pass these policy proposals — under the insufferable label of “voting rights” — in key swing states, that advantage will only grow to an insurmountable one. Republicans must realize election integrity is not a seasonal push nor a battle isolated to 2020. Rather, they must be on offense for years to come. 

Victoria Marshall is a staff writer at The Federalist. Her writing has been featured in the New York Post, National Review, and Townhall. She graduated from Hillsdale College in May 2021 with a major in politics and a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @vemrshll.

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DOJ Election Official Voted In Tight North Carolina Race While Claiming DC Residency, Bar Complaint Alleges 


BY: VICTORIA MARSHALL | OCTOBER 05, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/10/05/doj-election-official-voted-in-tight-north-carolina-race-while-claiming-dc-residency-bar-complaint-alleges/

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An attorney with the voting rights division of the Department of Justice — which enforces federal laws related to voting — allegedly violated election law when she voted in the 2020 presidential election in North Carolina, a new memo by the American Accountability Foundation outlines.

Longtime DOJ attorney Janie Sitton cast a ballot in North Carolina’s 2020 general election, despite being a resident of Washington, D.C., at the time. While Donald Trump ended up carrying North Carolina by just 1.3 points, the race was a dead heat until the very end. This was not the case in the District of Columbia, however, where Trump earned only 5 percent of the vote. Perhaps this is why Sitton chose to vote in the Tar Heel State rather than D.C. — and it’s a prime example of how skirting election laws can contribute to rigged elections.

On Monday, the American Accountability Foundation (AAF) filed bar complaints in both North Carolina and D.C. over Sitton’s presumed misconduct. In the memo compiled by AAF, voter data shows Sitton as a resident and active voter in D.C. since Aug. 13, 2010, voting in five elections leading up to 2018. Since 2018, Sitton has claimed a D.C. homestead deduction on her tax filings. To claim that tax deduction, residents must declare that the property is their principal residence, according to the memo.

“Submitting a false statement on these property tax records can subject the applicant to criminal penalties, according to the fraud and false statement laws under 47-4106 of the Code of the District of Columbia,” according to AAF.

Sitton also owns a condominium in North Carolina, which she bought in 2002. Tax documents indicate Sitton’s mailing address for the condominium is her Washington, D.C., address. 

In August 2020, however, Sitton registered to vote in North Carolina using the address of her condo, per the state’s Board of Elections Voter Database. Shortly after Sitton registered to vote in North Carolina, she cast a ballot in the 2020 general election as well as a municipal election in November 2021. In May 2022, Sitton abruptly restored her voter registration in Washington, per D.C. Board of Elections data. 

Sitton was essentially voting in North Carolina as if that were her primary residence while claiming a homestead deduction on her apparently real primary residence in D.C. A year prior to casting her ballot in the 2020 election, Sitton even signed a mortgage agreement to keep her North Carolina condo as a second non-residence property, per AAF. 

Such behavior ostensibly violates North Carolina state statute, which, according to AAF, defines “what is and is not considered residency for the purposes of registering to vote within the state.” The statute defines residency as: 

(1) That place shall be considered the residence of a person in which that person’s habitation is fixed, and to which, whenever that person is absent, that person has the intention of returning….4) If a person removes to another state or county, municipality, precinct, ward, or other election district within this State, with the intention of making that state, county, municipality, precinct, ward, or other election district a permanent residence, that person shall be considered to have lost residence in the state, county, municipality, precinct, ward, or other election district from which that person has removed [emphasis added].

Presumably, Sitton never had the intention of making her North Carolina condo her primary residence when she cast her ballot in the 2020 election.

“Janie Sitton, a senior attorney in the DOJ Voting Section, lied about her residency to register to vote in North Carolina so she could vote in a competitive Presidential election,” AAF Founder Tom Jones told The Federalist. “If DOJ election attorneys are unwilling to abide by the most straightforward of election laws, how can we trust them to enforce voting laws in the upcoming election?” 

Sitton’s alleged partisanship is nothing new to the DOJ, which has a history of politically motivated abuse of federal law. For example, the agency is actively involved in delaying election integrity efforts in Florida, has sued both Georgia and Texas over additional election integrity legislation, and is helping facilitate Biden’s federal takeover of elections. The DOJ’s current associate attorney general, Vanita Gupta, headed a DOJ lawsuit attempting to block voter ID laws in North Carolina in 2015.

Not to mention that the current head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division (which Sitton’s voting rights division falls under), Kristen Clarke, led a lawsuit against then-Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s election integrity policies as a private lawyer, peddled the Jussie Smollett hate crime hoax, and in college argued that blacks are the superior race. In other words, it’s not just Sitton that appears to be a politically motivated actor, it’s pretty much the entire DOJ.

“Instances like this show how sophisticated election lawyers can game the system,” former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell told Breitbart. And ” how easily voting laws can be leveraged by those who know how those laws are written.”

The DOJ did not respond to The Federalist’s request for comment. 

Victoria Marshall is a staff writer at The Federalist. Her writing has been featured in the New York Post, National Review, and Townhall. She graduated from Hillsdale College in May 2021 with a major in politics and a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @vemrshll.

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    No, Requiring Voter ID Is Not ‘Jim Crow 2.0’ And It’s Offensive to Say That


    REPORTED BY: CURTIS HILL | JANUARY 24, 2022

    Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/24/no-requiring-voter-id-is-not-jim-crow-2-0-and-its-offensive-to-say-that/

    Joe Biden talking about voting rights

    Whether Mitch McConnell’s boneheaded distinction between African Americans and “Americans” was a misstatement or something more sinister, the fact remains: America will not benefit from federalizing its elections.

    The narrative that continues to be stoked by the radical left is that states all over the country are actively denying blacks the right to vote and only the federal government can stop it. At the center of this controversy is the “oppressive” requirement that all voters be required to produce a valid ID, which will disparately affect black voters because everyone knows blacks are more likely than whites to not have an ID.

    Joe Biden’s risible claims about voting rights are true to what Malcolm X described as the “trickery” of the white liberal: “The history of the white liberal has been nothing, but a series of trickery designed to make Negroes think that the white liberal was going to solve our problems.” The trickery for today’s white liberal is to manufacture racism by creating the narrative that voter ID is racist and will disproportionately harm blacks. Or that limiting the amount of early voting and other measures that increase ballot vulnerability is inherently racist because blacks won’t vote unless the federal government prods them to the polls because blacks are so dependent on the federal government.

    Not only is this narrative unsupported by facts, this lie covers the truth that Democrats don’t want any election laws passed that might catch or stop from voting illegally people Democrats believe will vote Democrat—including voters who don’t want to prove they haven’t voted twice in the same election.

    Every black person I know has an ID. Can any supporters of the Freedom To Vote Act or the John Lewis Voting Rights Act produce black people who tried to vote but were turned away because they did not have a valid photo ID? That’s the rap on Georgia and other states’ laws requiring all prospective voters to prove who they claim to be as a protection against claims of voter fraud.

    The big deal with these state legislatures tightening security measures is allegedly not that the measures are unnecessary, but that they are discriminatory, racist, and targeted to keep blacks from voting. Democrats must believe that blacks aren’t smart or interested enough to get a photo ID, the central security measure being added to state voting protocols.

    For the past year, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi have been “Jim Crowing” that the Georgia law and others like it are racist since black people are more likely than their white counterparts to not have an ID and therefore be denied their vote (for Democrats—because, according to Joe Biden, you ain’t black if you don’t vote Democrat). Really?

    What is it about being black that makes one less likely to have identification? Seems like a racist sentiment. Assuming that there is a black adult without identification, we are supposed to presume that black voters without IDs would be so intimidated by a requirement to present an ID that they would rather not vote than stop by the local license branch and get an ID for the cost of a Big Mac and a Coke? Most states like Indiana will waive the minimal fee if necessary.

    But if Democrats are right, and requiring identification is indeed racist, why are they only making noise about required ID voting? Shouldn’t they complain about driving, which would be racist because an ID is required to drive? What about opening a bank account, credit application, or ordering a cell phone, cable and ordinary utilities?

    All these would have racist implications daily rather than just on Election Day. Yet there’s not a peep about blacks not being able to get a cell phone or cable TV, because that doesn’t get the Democrat his votes.

    This all leads to the Democrat solution: kill the Senate filibuster. Of course, we are reminded that the filibuster was the procedural tool used by Democrats and Republicans to oppose civil rights legislation. But the use of the tactic that may have been used against what is now viewed as popular legislation does not make the tactic itself racist in its application.

    The filibuster has evolved from its initial incarnation to a procedure that provides the minority party or position the opportunity to be heard. Since both parties have often been in the minority, both parties have benefited and suffered from its deployment.

    I know it might be painful for them, but perhaps Democrats should open up their playbook and remember what they did to intimidate and suppress black voters in the first half of the 20th century.

    It is unnerving that the Democrat Party draws comparisons to its champions of segregation Bull Connor and George Wallace suggesting that voter ID is a discriminatory tool, the same as the poll tax or the literacy test, that actually prevented blacks from voting in a notoriously humiliating manner. Such comparisons are a disgrace to the honored memory of all who fought and won victories in securing the right to vote.

    In the continued invocation of Jim Crow, the euphemism for the abhorrent laws that legally sanctioned segregation, discrimination, and brutality, Biden and his race-baiting big government aim to racialize the filibuster so that all who support its continued use are brandished racist forevermore. I hope blacks in this nation are wearing thin to the leftist patronization that denigrates the proud history of black and white patriots who fought, bled, and died for freedom, independence, and our opportunity to vote.

    Curtis Hill is the former attorney general of Indiana.

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    10 Lies Biden Told During His First Press Conference in Months


    REPORTED BY: JORDAN BOYD | JANUARY 19, 2022

    Read more at https://www.conservativereview.com/10-lies-biden-told-during-his-first-press-conference-in-months-2656436639.html/

    Joe Biden at formal press conference 1/19/22

    President Joe Biden hosted his second solo press conference ever on Wednesday but his attempts to clearly communicate how he plans to fix a country plagued with COVID-19, crime, rising prices, empty shelves, and more were nothing less of a disaster. Not only did Biden, who was once heralded as the chief unifier of the country, use the presser to repeat rhetoric trashing Republicans, he also did his absolute best to put lipstick on the pig that is the struggling U.S. economy. Unfortunately, no amount of lipstick or whoppers can cover Biden’s terrible and devastating approval rating.

    Biden concluded his initial speech by claiming that “the best days of this country are still ahead of us not behind us,” but his optimism is unfounded. Recent polling suggests that only 26 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction. The majority, however, are left wondering whether Biden will work to fix the myriad of crises he created.

    Here are the 10 lies Biden told during his Wednesday press conference.

    1. The Nation’s Problem Is COVID

    “I know there’s a lot of frustration and fatigue in this country. And we know why: COVID-19, Omicron it has now been challenging us in a way that, it’s the new enemy,” Biden said.

    Not only is COVID-19 a virus that’s been around for years now, therefore not making it a “new enemy,” but it’s also not the only thing plaguing voters’ lives or minds. As a matter of fact, while Biden parades around the Capitol encouraging Democrats to abolish the filibuster and legalize illegal voting practices, he’s failing to address the ongoing Southern border crisis, empty shelves, and rising urban crime.

    2. Wages Are Up

    Early in his speech, Biden claimed that American wages are up. What he failed to address is that real wages have decreased most of the months he’s been in office. Even in months when wages were up, Americans were forced to dig deeper in their pockets to cover their climbing gas, energy, and grocery bills.

    3. Biden Created Jobs

    Biden tried to circumvent the nation’s economic turmoil by claiming that he created more jobs to stimulate the economy. He ignored, however, the role the government played in creating the recession that caused job loss in the first place. And on the role his own administration played in lining the pockets of Americans with federal cash, Biden was mum.

    4. The Supply Chain Crisis Isn’t That Bad

    Biden hardly addressed the ongoing supply chain crisis, leading to the often popular #bareshelvesBiden hashtag, and the nation’s rising inflation which continues to plague voters’ lives as they begin considering who to vote for in the 2022 midterms.

    The president hinted that the “empty shelves being shown on television” were misleading but even he admitted that they are “a few [percentage] points below what it was before the pandemic.”

    5. Inflation Was Already A Thing Before I Took Office

    Biden claimed that inflation was increasing long before he assumed office, but as recent reports indicate, inflation in the U.S. surged to 7 percent in December 2021, the highest level since 1982.

    6. Republicans Want To Steal Minorities’ Right To Vote

    In an effort to promote his campaign to initiate a federal takeover of elections, Biden claimed that Republicans want to take away minorities’ rights to vote.

    “No matter how hard they make it for minorities to vote, I think you’re going to see them willing to stand in line and … keep them from being able to vote,” Biden said. “I think you’re gonna see the people they’re trying to keep from being able to show up, showing up and making the sacrifice that needs to make in order to change the law back to what it should be.”

    7. Schools Aren’t Closed

    “You say we’re not going to go back to closing schools. You said that just moments ago, yet they’re closing in some areas. What do you say to those teachers and principals and parents about school closings?” one reporter asked. “And what can your administration do to help make up for learning loss for students?”

    “First of all, I put in perspective the question you asked, very few schools are closing,” Biden claimed. “Over 95 percent are still open.”

    Yet, since the rise of Omicron in the U.S., reports of schools closing across the country have also risen leaving working parents desperate for in-person learning once more. Thousands of schools that were scheduled to reopen following Christmas break opted for virtual learning until well into January due to panic over COVID-19 spread.

    8. Build Back Better Will Save Americans Money

    During the conference, Biden repeated the lie that his Build Back Better legislative package “would actually lower or reduce inflation.”

    This falsehood has been debunked numerous times but that didn’t stop the president from claiming that his legislation, which actually costs trillions of dollars, won’t cost taxpayers a dime.

    9. White House Reporters Are The Most Informed Americans Of All Time

    Biden told the White House press pool that they are “more informed than any group of people in America.”

    While the statement will probably score him points with openly partisan press pool members, it’s far from the truth.

    For more than a year, corporate media reporters who covered Biden’s rise to the presidency and his subsequent time in the White House have overlooked the administration’s failures to laud the Democrat for being a “moral, decent man.” They’ve wasted their precious Q+As with the president on softball questions framed in a positive light, while also failing to ask key ones. They let Biden ramble and frequently fail to point out the obvious lies lacing his winding answers.

    10. I Didn’t Compare My Democrat Colleagues To Racists

    Biden denied that he compared Democrat filibuster holdouts Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona to confederate leaders.

    “I did not say that they were going to be George Wallace or Bull Connor,” Biden claimed. “I said we’re gonna have a decision in history.”

    Just last week, however, Biden asked “Do you want to be the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?”

    “This is the moment to decide, to defend our elections, to defend our democracy. If you do that you will not be alone,” Biden said.

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    Ann Coulter Op-ed: The John Lewis Act Is the Dems’ Path to Permanent Power


    Commentary by Ann Coulter | Posted: Jun 16, 2021

    Read more at https://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2021/06/16/the-john-lewis-act-is-the-dems-path-to-permanent-power—p–n2591101/

    The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com., and WhatDidYouSay.org..

    The John Lewis Act Is the Dems' Path to Permanent Power

    Source: AP Photo/Chuck Burton, File

    The official position of Fox News is that the Democrats’ John Lewis vote-stealing bill is “narrower” than the Democrats’ “For the People” vote-stealing bill. (This will be an exhibit in my museum titled, “Stupid People Can Never Help Your Cause.”)

    Yes, it’s “narrower” in the sense of being 1 MILLION times worse. The John Lewis bill will do everything the “For the People” bill does — and so much more! They just don’t tell us what, exactly. The language of the bill is full of anodyne, uplifting language about equal voting participation — but the details will be turned over to left-wing zealots at the Department of Justice, suddenly empowered to enforce voting rules so insane that no elected official would dare vote for them.

    Inasmuch as nearly every congressional Democrat is fine with the provisions in the “For the People” bill — which are ludicrous — imagine how much worse the “You Can’t Blame Me” bill is.

    It will be faceless bureaucrats at the Department of Justice who give meaning to the happy words in the John Lewis bill. Federal government employees — i.e., the people actually making the rules — cannot be voted out of office. (Or fired — this is government work.) Indeed, these are people who could never be elected to any office on account of their repellent political views and, often, repellent physical appearance.

    This is how Democrats impose fascistic rules on the citizenry without ever having to cast a dangerous vote: They write laws with vague statements of high principle, then dump the actual rule-making onto a government agency, where refugees from the ACLU issue edicts outlawing private property, due process, free speech and honest elections.

    Recall:

    — It wasn’t elected members of Congress who ordered a nice Idaho couple to halt work on their home because it was allegedly on a protected wetland (in the middle of a subdivision with many other homes). That was environmentalist wackos at the EPA.

    — It wasn’t elected members of Congress who required universities to deny basic due process rights to students accused of rape. That was feminist loons at the Department of Education.

    — It wasn’t elected members of Congress who directed Obama’s IRS to target groups with “tea party” or “patriots” in their names. That was liberal ideologue Lois Lerner and other civil service functionaries.

    The lunatics at these agencies look like Reason Personified compared to the DOJ’s voting rights attorneys.

    In 2013, author Charlotte Allen described one fair-minded DOJ staffer, whose job it was to rewrite state voting laws:

    “On the morning of January 21, [2013] just before President Obama’s second inauguration, Rep. Paul Ryan … was roundly booed by the gathered crowd as he left the Capitol to attend the ceremonies …. Within minutes Daniel J. Freeman, a young career trial lawyer with the Voting Section of the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division … took credit in a Facebook post for instigating the anti-Ryan derision.”

    1. Paul Ryan? Pencil-necked, open borders, Never-Trump Paul Ryan? That’s the guy who got Freeman so riled up?

    2. The obnoxious Freeman is no longer a young career trial lawyer at the DOJ. Now he’s a senior career trial lawyer at the DOJ.

    Among the innovations dreamed up by fanatics like Freeman, Arizona was informed it could not ask for identification from people delivering more than 10 early ballots. Nothing fishy about that!

    Arizona’s voting laws were subject to federal oversight because of its well-known history as a slave state and avid practitioner of Jim Crow. (I may have to check my notes on that.)

    Actually, Arizona was bossed around by liberal activists at the DOJ for 40 years because back in 1972, it didn’t have bilingual ballots. Those weren’t instituted until 1974. They may as well have donned white hoods and burned crosses!

    Oddly, Mississippi’s election laws were also subject to approval by the DOJ — despite the fact that blacks already voted at far higher rates than whites in that state. By contrast, Massachusetts did not require oversight of its voting laws, although in that fancy liberal state, black people voted at far lower rates than whites.

    It’s almost as if only red states have their voting laws nitpicked by left-wing lawyers in Washington. I wonder if that would help Democrats win presidential elections?

    Ironically, meaning totally predictably, the original 1965 Voting Rights Act was necessary because Democrats were trying to prevent black people from voting. Today, Democrats are using these new “voting rights” bills to ensure that 110% of black people vote, even if they are convicted felons, don’t live in the state, didn’t actually fill out a ballot or are dead.

    It wasn’t until 2013 that the Supreme Court mercifully overturned key portions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. (Citing the overwhelming Senate vote for the wonderfully named Voting Rights Act, Justice Antonin Scalia remarked at oral argument: “This is not the kind of a question you can leave to Congress.”)

    While it’s great that ideologues like Dan Freeman had their wings clipped by the Court, the previous 40 years of their harassment tells you what they want to do. The John Lewis voting rights bill will put them back in the saddle!

    States will be ordered to keep dead voters on the rolls, give violent felons the right to vote and jettison any voter I.D. requirements. (Interestingly, even after all the media demagoguery, black people still overwhelmingly support voter I.D. laws.)

    There’s no disincentive to government lawyers pursuing frivolous cases to the end of the Earth. Even if they eventually lose, they don’t have to worry about court costs or legal fees. They don’t pay ’em. You do.

    The “For the People” voting rights bill is the floor of what these petty bureaucrats will require. Those are the bare-minimum “voting rights” that will be imposed on the states by the DOJ. That’s the level of absurdity Democrats are willing to vote for in plain sight. What great ideas does Dan Freeman have that even Democrats couldn’t endorse on the record?

    What is the voting “rights” equivalent of the EPA’s relentless persecution of homeowners, the Duke lacrosse case or the IRS’s abuse of power? Because that’s what the John Lewis voting rights bill will deliver.

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    Voting Rights: It’s ‘Racist’ Not to Let Democrats Cheat

    Ann Coulter | Posted: Jun 09, 2021

    The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

    Read more at https://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2021/06/09/voting-rights-its-racist-not-to-let-democrats-cheat—p–n2590760/

    Voting Rights: It's 'Racist' Not to Let Democrats Cheat

    Source: AP Photo/Evan Vucci

    Why aren’t Republicans screaming from the rooftops about the Democrats’ plans to change voting rules to give themselves an advantage? Their sleazy election bills, HR 1, the “For the People Act,” and HR 4, the “John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act,” are intended to help Democrats win majorities in both houses of Congress, at which point they will ignore Republicans entirely, end the filibuster, and pass everything in AOC’s Dream Journal — amnesty, gun control, a wealth tax, and a rainbows and unicorns energy bill.

    So it’s kind of important for Republicans to kill these bills in the crib. It shouldn’t be hard. All they have to do is tell people what’s in them.

    Are Republicans counting on Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., to save them? The GOP defeated Hillary Care in the 1990s far more decisively … then it came roaring back a few years later as Obamacare.

    Currently, Manchin opposes the For the People bill, but supports the even more execrable John Lewis bill. Both will completely rewrite state election laws to favor Democrats, but at least For the People will be done by Congress. The John Lewis bill will give unelected bureaucrats at the Justice Department vast power to impose voting rules on the states. Based on previous such exercises of unaccountable power, 10-year-olds will soon have the right to vote. (See Title IX.)

    Unless Republicans agree to ludicrous voting rules that give Democrats a partisan advantage, they’re racist. That’s the full argument. Republicans are trying to “suppress the vote” of black and brown people! John Lewis risked his life for the right to vote!

    If that’s why Republicans don’t want to talk about these bills, they better get used to it. They’re going to be called “racist” a lot more if that’s all it takes to stifle the opposition.

    Of course, Democrats’ own voters respond to John Lewis’ touching story by saying, Good for him, but — when is the election again? Tuesday? Yeah, that’s not going to be convenient for me.

    And that’s the nub of the problem. The Democrats have a lot of what we call “unmotivated voters.” Risk their lives to vote? They won’t risk missing a couple hours of TV.

    These are people who don’t pay attention to the news (that’s why they’re Democrats); don’t speak English (that’s why they’re Democrats); or don’t have a fully developed pre-frontal cortex because they’re under the age of 26 (that’s why they’re Democrats). And so on.

    Consequently, Democrats have to mobilize armies of volunteers to carry their voters on gurneys to the polls on Election Day.

    Wouldn’t it be easier if they had a few months to get their voters to the polls? What if their voters didn’t have to show up at all?

    Why, yes! That would be much easier.

    This is why the For the People bill mandates universal mail-in voting. Asking people to show up to vote is a dirty trick to “rig our democracy,” according to the left-wing group Indivisible. Litter the countryside with mail-in ballots months before an election — or you’re a Nazi.

    In fact, apart from a worldwide pandemic, there’s no reason for mail-in voting. Studies show it increases voter turnout only modestly. But mail-in voting sure presents a lot of opportunities for fraud! It’s almost like Democrats consider that a feature, not a bug.

    The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Election Data and Science Lab cited two main avenues for mail-in ballot fraud:

    — “First, the ballot is cast outside the public eye, and thus the opportunities for coercion and voter impersonation are greater.”

    In other words, instead of filling out a secret ballot in the presence of election officials, you will be out and about, at home, at the office, at the ballpark with your ballot, able to prove to others how you voted — to impress them, or perhaps because you’re being paid or threatened. And that’s assuming it’s you holding the ballot.

    — “Second, the transmission path for [mail-in] ballots is not as secure as traditional in-person ballots. These concerns relate both to ballots being intercepted and ballots being requested without the voter’s permission.”

    Not to worry! The Democrats deal with the possibility of imposters requesting mail-in ballots by … prohibiting the states from requesting voter I.D.

    Huh, that’s odd. If you wanted to ensure that only eligible voters are voting, wouldn’t you want to — oh wait, I see.

    Liberals will not rest until convicted felons — a key Democratic constituency — are fully participating members of our democracy. Or at least have ballots that can be filled out for them.

    Unfortunately, some of our more unenlightened states believe that a person who has been convicted of violating society’s laws should be denied the right to choose who writes them. The For the People bill fixes that by forcing states to give felons the right to vote.

    Speaking of felons, the For the People Act requires states to automatically register people to vote whenever they provide information to state agencies, such as the Department of Motor Vehicles, public universities, and, off the top of my head, state welfare bureaucracies, unemployment offices and prison facilities.

    That’s a lot of ballots for Democratic volunteers to mine!

    In 1994, in response to the stalking and murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer by a crazed fan who got her address through the California Department of Motor Vehicles, Congress passed the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, prohibiting state DMVs from releasing personal information to the public. One of the main sponsors was Sen. Barbara Boxer, who recited case after case of women stalked, harassed, raped and killed by men who had tracked their victims with information provided by the DMV.

    With the automatic voter registration in the For the People bill, federal law would require states to release that information. Simply by getting a driver’s license or unemployment benefits, your name, address and phone number would be available to your stalker through the voting rolls. (Also to bill collectors, parole officers, process servers, etc.) Voter registration lists are publicly available for electioneering purposes.

    The Democrats’ “voting rights” bill is a stalkers’ delight. But at least no one will have his vote “suppressed” by having to engage in the monstrously difficult task of registering to vote or showing up on Election Day. Your choice, America: A few pesky stalkers kill their victims, or Democrats call you “racist.”

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