Ballot integrity v. "disenfranchisement"

Sorry, but this isn't "disenfranchisement."

I just read (via a link at VolunteerVoters) a post by Enclave Mike alleging that a Thompson campaign hire (Tim Griffin) was the subject of "allegations that he was connected with attempts in Florida during the 2004 election to target and to challenge African Americans in mostly white Duval County." This isn't an attempt to shill for Thompson (not that there's anything wrong with that . . .)--I was more interested in the "voter suppression" angle than the Thompson angle.

I encourage you to read the "report" Mike links to (here), and I don't know much about Griffin, but it is not "voter suppression" to target potential voters for challenge if they are having mail forwarded from the purported residential address. You find these names by a direct mail technique termed "caging," and--despite the predatory-sounding name for the technique, it is wholly legitimate to demand proof of a person's right to vote if they are not living at the address indicated on the voter registration.

For some reason, folks on the Left don't view it as "disenfranchisement" for a fraudulent vote to cancel out a legitimate, legal vote.

"2004 Election Fraud" Fraud

This evening I stumbled upon an article (here) alleging that the missing Rove emails probably contain(ed) the smoking gun that prove Dubya stole the 2004 election. The authors of the article are apparently famed Democrat voting vigilantes, Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman. And the stuff they write is like the Nth level of some video game where you perish from a barrage you never saw coming.

Typical of this genre are dark insinuations from facts like Bush and Rove (Bush's chief political advisor) traveling to Ohio (an electorally significant swing state) on election day and meeting with Ohio's head election official (the Secretary of State who happened to be the highest-ranking statewide GOP officeholder and who naturally was the co-chair of Bush-Cheney in the state). Something smells fishy, doesn't it?!?!?

Anyway, you ought to read the whole thing, but here's the core of what they're asserting:

There were four key phases to the GOP's election theft strategy:

1. Prior to the election, the GOP focused on massive voter disenfranchisement, with a selective reduction of voter turnout in urban Democratic strongholds.
. . . .
2. On election day, the GOP focussed on voter intimidation, denial of voting rights to legally eligible ex-felons, denial of voting machines to inner city precincts, malfunctioning of those machines, destruction of provisional ballots and more.
. . . .
3. After the final tabulation of the votes, and the announcement that Bush had won, the GOP strategy focused on subverting a statewide recount.
. . . .
4. Ultimately, however, it is the GOP's computerized control of the vote count that may have been decisive.

I'll say up front that I generally overlook these types of charges because I think they're so outrageous. I've worked as a Head Poll Official (in Davidson County, where we each time we had to "designate" Democrats to act as Republicans to arrive at the prescribed party balance at our polls), and I've worked as a poll watcher, and I have seen how easy it is to demagogue a system that is used only once every couple years, under great pressure and with such high stakes. But I thought I'd look into some of their claims, and after sifting through the hundreds of vague, lightly-sourced, and recycled material, I was able to find some facts. Here is what I found.

Discriminatory Distribution of Election Machines:
Distribution of voting machines was fair. Verified Voting Foundation : Justice Finds No Discrimination in Voting Machines Distribution

Voter Suppression/Systematic Disenfranchisement:Here's more about the ludicrous claims of Wasserman and Fitrakis . . . the article includes facts conveniently lacking in articles written by this pair of demagogues.

Over-voting for Bush:Here's an article about the inflated (and corrected-before-certification) vote count in Gahanna, OH. Gee, do you think that W and F missed this report?

Regarding Exit polling: Exit polls say Bush won fair and square - Politics - MSNBC.com. D'ya think NBC is covering up for Dubya and Rove?

Ken Blackwell's Republican Cabal: Here's a great op/ed from Ken Blackwell ("Bipartisan System Protects Integrity of the Vote"); he highlights the bipartisan makeup of local election boards in Ohio.

And lastly, here's ("ABC News: Conspiracy Theories Abound After Bush Victory") a great overview of the issue from ABC News (aka "known" flak for the GOP and Dubya).

Disenfranchising Democrats

While I am rather pleased to see the Democrats take their nomination fight all the way to Denver, here's a little moral support for keeping out the Florida and Michigan primary results. As a Conservative, I listen half-believingly to Democrat cries of "voter disenfranchisement" as we're hearing from the Clinton camp.

That being said, this situation might fit the category of "disenfranchisement" as the voters of these two states had no other choice in the matter and--because of foolish, knowing decisions of their state legislatures, will be denied a vote in the Democratic primary if the DNC stands by its prior pronouncements.

Which highlights another strength of the Clintons' argument, that this is merely a dispute over the internal rules of a political party. As a result, the situation is a little bit different than in Florida2000 and NJ2002 where Dems expediently ignored state statutes to reach a desired end.

Oh well, I guess this post isn't all that supportive of the Obama position . . . Fight on Democrats!!

Targeting those Dems

The email from so-called "People for the American Way" (pfaw.org ) breathlessly opens this way:

"With so much at stake, and where a few hundred votes can decide even national elections, ensuring strong civic participation in communities that are targeted for disenfranchisement has never been more important."

Yes, I take offense; no, I won't be parting with my hard-earned money; perhaps, I should remove my name from their annoying email list.

I know that my motive in "working" in the area of election law is not to keep anyone from voting. I just respect the rule of law and want to make sure that if/when I lose an election it was done fairly.

There is definitely a fine line between ensuring fair elections and making it too difficult to vote (I included the adverb "too" because some think that actually requiring a vote is overkill when they could just vote for those not smart enough to know what's best for them).

However, some on the Left cannot fathom that there is any tension between fair elections and ease of participation. They won't even allow us to pay for and provide photo identification (and expect a voter to remember to bring it with them to the polls); they balk at minimal "barriers" like residency requirements and voter qualifying deadlines. Why? Beats me . . . but without the bogeyman of Republicans "targeting" folks for disenfranchisement, they would have even more trouble winning elections seeing as voter participation is up, voter registration is up, yet Democrat electoral success is down.

Aunt B's rainy (MLK) day blues

I just came across a post over at Tiny Cat Pants (here) and, though I was tracking more or less with her trouncing of anti-MLKers, I was disappointed when the post turned into a trouncing of strawmen. "Aunt B" asserts

Black men are still regularly victims of unspeakable horrors of police brutality. There are still plenty of places where black folks know they aren't welcome. There are still disenfranchised voters in Mississippi (and the rest of the country) and there are still plenty of folks who believe they have nothing to vote for. And, while these things remain serious problems for black people, they've become systemic for all of us (because, to reiterate, our destinies are tied together).

To assert that ANY of these realities are unique to African-Americans is demagoguery. To assert (or imply that King believed) that government could eradicate brutality or prejudice is foolishness. (By the way, it is ludicrous to assert that "disenfranchisement" belongs in this "common to man" list of societal problems). Ironically, as I'm typing this, ESPN is showing footage of Bears Coach Lovie Smith--one of two African-American head coaches appearing in the NFL conference championships this weekend, is graciously addressing a question about his race in a press conference.

Things are not worse today--as far as government treatment of racial minorities is concerned, than they were in 1963. "Ballot integrity" is not code for "I'm down with Jim Crow." We won't have to put Al Sharpton out of a job before we can claim that "real change" has happened in our country.

Update: I neglected to link to "Aunt B"'s post originally.

Election "fraud" fog in Nashville

Mark at "Dork Nation" (Republicans Allege Vote Fraud in Nashville) is sifting through a report (here) of a report about a recent dust up at a Davidson County early voting site (via A.C. Kleinheider). It should go without saying that the organic, real time, unedited, entertainment-focused medium of talk radio is a messy venue for sorting out the facts in such a situation, but here goes . . .

Actually, the problem (based on my conversations with Election Commission insiders) was that a person (an interpreter) was claiming authority to accompany voters into the polling booth to assist them with voting . . . that's not legal, unless the Officer of Elections concludes the voter is unable to vote without assistance and unless the voter requests that the person accompanying him/her be allowed to assist him/her. And the law only contemplates illiterate or some other physical disability, but I guess illiteracy can reasonably be construed to include persons "illiterate in English." T. C. A. § 2-7-116. That's a debate for another day.

Also, though Mark (and ACK) imply that the statute summarily dispenses with claims that ID is required to cast a ballot, completing an affidavit of identity (in lieu of proper ID) is only one step in the process of determining if the person can vote. The code further requires that the information on the affidavit be compared with the information on file (his/her signature and other info collected when a person registers). If everything is perceived to be on the up and up, they're given a normal ballot; if not, they're allowed to vote with a provisional ballot. T. C. A. § 2-7-112

But something that needs to be pointed out in this whole debate is that one means of undermining ballot integrity is by flooding a polling place with potential voters who require special treatment. Given the histrionics about voter suppression and other forms of "disenfranchisement," poll workers are often motivated to give the demanding party (e.g., the ACORN or La Raza rep. or the friendly ACLU lawyer-on-loan) whatever they demand rather than wait for confirmation from Election Comm. HQ or rather than go through all the steps that are required for determining the person's eligibility to vote. One clever trick I've heard of (I think in PA in 2006) is to swamp a polling place (which invariably has a limited number of provisional ballots) with "ineligible" voters who ultimately are allowed to cast normal, untraceable ballots rather than be turned away because of a shortage of provisional ballots.

Complicated and rife with technicalities, you say? No doubt; but it is difficult to conduct a fair ballot (actually, it is almost impossible, especially if you expect it to be simple and easy) when determined persons have concluded that the end of winning an election justifies even immoral means.

Voter Purging and hand wringing

It's election time, and that means Democrats are cuing up crazed accusations of voter disenfranchisement. Well, today I came across this article, Protecting Voter Rights | The American Prospect, profiling the Lefty bogey man of "voter purging." The article defines the term as "the process by which states remove ineligible voters from the rolls." But the phrase "voter purging" connotes voters, people, being treated poorly. Merriam-Webster online defines "purge" as,

to cause evacuation from (as the bowels) b (1): to make free of something unwanted (2): to free (as a boiler) of sediment or relieve (as a steam pipe) of trapped air by bleeding c (1): to rid (as a nation or party) by a purge (2): to get rid of

It would be more accurate (though less powerful as a political club) to use phrases like database purging or election roll purging or ineligible voter purging. Indeed, you will find little resistance from me about most of the Brennan Center's suggestions for purging best-practices. But I have to cry foul when Lefties claim that the Republican Party "stole" the 2000 election, or persists in trying to steal elections, by means of "voter purging."

So, did "voter purging" affect the results of the 2000 election, and is it likely that it will affect future elections? Let's consider those questions.

Did "voter purging" (particularly efforts to remove felons--who are not eligible to vote in Florida, from the voter rolls) affect the 2000 presidential election?

No. This article, in one nice little journalistic package (and from a neutral source--The Palm Beach Post), demonstrates that thousands of felons voted illegally, and thousands of persons on the suspected felon list were allowed to vote illegally in counties that ignored the procedures instituted prior to the election (hmmm, which Florida counties do you think made that unilateral decision?). I do not want to pooh-pooh assertions that some persons may have been unfairly denied the opportunity to vote, but there is no, I repeat no, evidence that the felon purge in Florida2000 determined the election. (Indeed, the subject of the article was a man unfairly denied the opportunity to vote for Bush).

Is "voter purging" something to worry about in the 2008 presidential election?

No. Following the 2000 election fiasco, Congress instituted election polices that include what is termed "provisional voting." In sum, provisional voting or voting with a provisional ballot allows for recording a vote when there is a question about the person's eligibility to vote. After the election, appropriate election officials determine--through review of voting records, state databases and information provided by the voter, whether the ballot should be counted. So, short of recruiting God to work the polls on election day, there is no more efficient and effective means of preventing illegal ballots from being cast while ensuring that qualified voters will have the opportunity to vote.

Lastly, accusations of "voter purging"--like most Democrat accusations of electoral shenanigans, have little credibility in light of Democratic Party electoral policy. As long as Democrats push their agenda of laissez-faire election policy, there will be plenty of honest, legal (and Republican) voters being "disenfranchised," because every illegal ballot cast negates a legal ballot cast for the opposing candidate. So, I might lose some sleep of "voter purging" and its cousin "voter caging" when the Left starts taking ballot integrity seriously.

Dem delegate debate, how do I love thee?

Looking in on the DNC's fight over seating delegates, it is amusing to watch as Democrats beat each other over the head with classic fallacious arguments. Today, Hillary Clinton's supporters were appealing to "inclusion" and faux disenfranchisement ("count all the votes!!") in arguing that the results of the FL and MI primaries should be included even though the DNC plainly threatened any states that held primaries prior to a certain date would forfeit the right to vote on the Democratic nominee.

Now, I have been wishing Hillary success (or at least wishing for a looooong Democratic primary), and I would like for her to challenge Obama all the way up to the convention, but it's not wise (much less fair) to blow off rules or to change the rules in the middle of the game. Frankly, too many people parent the way that Democrats govern.

The deal was reached after committee members met privately for more than three hours, trying to hammer out a deal, and announced in a raucous hearing that reflected deep divisions within the party.

"How can you call yourselves Democrats if you don't count the vote?" one man in the audience shouted before being escorted out by security. "This is not the Democratic Party!"

. . . .

Proponents of full seating continuously interrupted the committee members as they explained their support of the compromise, then supporters of the deal shouted back.

"Shut up!" one woman shouted at another.

"You shut up!" the second woman shouted back.

Jim Roosevelt, co-chair of the committee, tried repeatedly to gavel it to order. "You are dishonoring your candidate when you disrupt the speakers," he scolded.

. . . .

Tina Flournoy, who led Clinton's efforts to seat both states' delegations with full voting power, said she was disappointed by the outcome but knew the Clinton position had "no chance" of passing the committee.

"I understand the rules. ... I can tell you one thing that has driven these rules was being a party of inclusion," Flournoy said. "I wish my colleagues will vote differently."

(emphasis mine). If the Dems' delegate debate can sensitize some (half?--the Obama faction) of the Democratic Party to respect for order/law, it will have benefits beyond drawing down the bank accounts of Big Democratic campaign donors. ;)

Betsy hearts Al Sharpton

Aunt B over at Tiny Cat Pants (here), who I have learned is "Betsy" in real life, has responded to my post (here) about her post (here) about MLK (here).

She spends a lot of time heralding Al Sharpton, which was really just a small part of my post (hyperbole, in fact); however, her reverance for the reverend betrays a lot about her view on race relations.

Even though I find Sharpton always candid, sometimes funny, always humorous, sometimes sincere, I view him less as a "reverend" or "minister" and more as a "demagogue" or "charlatan." And, frankly, I think Black "civil rights leaders" who came from the ranks of clergy too often forget to drop their title when they move on to non-spiritual vocations. In sum, I think folks like him make it hard to move on from the racial divide that is in our country's (and world's) history. Every disparity between a person who happens to be black and a person who happens to be white (or even group of persons belonging to either group) does not constitute a moral failure or a tragedy and certainly not a need for government's intervention.

Betsy is unimpressed with my reference to Bears Head Coach Lovie Smith and sees no irony in her claims that we haven't made any progress on the things that mattered to MLK. Whatever. But playing a sport and coaching a sport are two different skills; therefore Lovie Smith and other African-Americans who know football are competing with 85% of the population who also know football for those few positions.
MLK certainly believed that changing laws and gov't was key to ending segregation, but that has been achieved and she is insinuating that MLK would be marching in favor of DA Nifong and raising minimum wage laws and re-defining marriage. I don't buy it.

Betsy says she never said that things were worse for blacks today than in MLK's day, but she did say that beatings, disenfranchisement, overt prejudice are all "serious problems for black people" today and we haven't made much progess on such problems.

Early, often and for the children

I had mixed feelings at the Drudge Headline (here)--"12 Smartcards go missing in Tennessee; control electronic voting machines," a little bit tickled that our state was in the limelight, but not sure what to expect once I read further.

But this seems to be a good time to opine on how moral relativism, demagoguery and sloppy electoral practices are a bad recipe.

As Hugh Hewitt has said, "If it ain't close, they can't cheat," and in the aftermath of "Florida 2000," the issue of ballot integrity (or election fraud) burst into the national consciousness.

Prior to 1994, the Left (and its representative party) was comfortable with its electoral standing: they won their share of presidential elections, held a majority of governorships and controlled a majority of state legislatures. Many dismissed the Republican Revolution as an electoral anomaly.

By 2000, things were getting serious. And you can imagine how "grave" they are now . . . the Democrats need a win if they are to continue believing that this trend toward being a permanent minority party can change.

Which brings me to my thesis. "Liberalism" (not the classic type--the modern type--the type that is almost an expletive in American politics) has largely embraced moral relativism. Sure, some Democrat constituencies aren't moral relativists, but those subgroups have signed on to a bigger agenda . . . an agenda which embraces moral relativism. I suppose that strong influences of "progressivism" (simplistically stated, "change is good" and "new is improved") and "populism" (simplistically stated, "everybody's doing it") among Democrat-leaning folks also helps them to accept the moral relativism.

Next, demagoguery, that is, "use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power," is a tempting tactic when you have media dominance and "feel-good" stances. Hillary Clinton doesn't (and certainly shouldn't) care more about my children than I do, but an ambiguous sentiment favoring the corpus of "children" propels many of her policy proposals to passage at the expense of individual liberties and the gain to government's reach. To be candid, I don't believe that Ophelia Ford conspired with Memphis poll workers to commit election fraud in Ford's special-13-vote-margin election victory, but I'm not sure such collaboration was necessary given the 6-year, incessant message from the Left: Bush-stole-the-Florida, blacks are routinely and blatantly and callously targeted for disenfranchisement, Bush-stole-Ohio, and DIEBOLD-DIEBOLD-DIEBOLD. The message sinks in, and if everyone is cheating, it's only fair . . .

Lastly, sloppy electoral practices. Bureaucracy is cumbersome and slow to respond, and, like most "government" it is particularly prone to the path of least resistance without major outside influences to direct it. And the task is enormous--very difficult, so most people involved (from the gov't side) are looking for shortcuts to accomplish their work (it ain't easy to manage a largely-volunteer system that gears up for 17 hours of intense work every two years without reliable predictors of "demand" and which is steeped in political/racial/class/economic controversy--and every county in the country is largely autonomous in its operation).

Couple this inertia-away-from-reform with the Left's over-the-top concern for ANY encumbrance upon "the franchise" (POLL TAX!, also see "demagoguery," above) and there is little likelihood for change in the direction of more ballot integrity. I won't be surprised when the Left demands "house calls" from election officials so as not to disenfranchise the poor, the helpless, etc.

All this is to say, this report from Memphis this morning doesn't surprise me . . . though it does trouble me. But how can we correct problems in our election system given the Democrat Party's electoral "family recipe"?

"Voter caging"--the Democrat bogey man

I guess there are some stock ingredients for a Left-wing Conspiracy Pseudo-documentary: Impute guilt to any target person (especially a Republican) unwilling to talk with a Liberal reporter or to roll over for a Democrat "oversight" hearing; assert that some media cabal is silencing the story; impute nefarious motives to any activity--no matter how legal or fair or "neutral," which can be interpreted to harm a Liberal interest group (reminds me of the old joke/MSM headline: "Report: World to End-- Women and Poor hardest hit"); lastly, mention the name of (and/or show some link no matter how tenuous to) dunh, dunh, dunh, dunhhhh . . . Karl Rove.

With this in mind, it was interesting to watch this recent episode of NOW on PBS, "Voter Caging and Housing Works" causing a buzz in the blogosphere.

David Broncaccio introduces the story this way:

"Welcome to NOW. You're about to hear an important story that's been given far more attention overseas than by any news outlet here. It the story that involves both your right to vote and to have your vote counted.

Evidence has emerged in the last American presidential election the Republican Party organized efforts to suppress the votes of active duty military, low income and minority voters by challenging their registrations. One technique used to do that is something called "voter caging." The BBC first broke an exclusive piece of this story, and now the U.S. Congress is investigating whether 'voter caging' was part of a broader effort to suppress the vote of groups likely to support Democrats."

Let's take this line by line.

Prior to the 2004 election, Republican political strategists and attorneys perceived that long-simmering frustration on the part of Democrats, plus lax election laws, plus time-tested techniques for voter fraud, plus unprecedented efforts by the Left to "register voters" might be used to create--by any means necessary, just the margin necessary to carry John Kerry to victory. Legal brigades for both sides would be in place on election day, at least in the so-called "swing states" (ironically making the 2004 election the MOST scrutinized election in the history of the world--and Bush won).

One tool for Republican poll watchers would be lists of names of persons who ostensibly registered to vote but who were not receiving mail either by the name listed on their registration or at the address listed on their registration. One vote cast by a fraudulent voter disenfranchises a legal voter. So Republicans aimed to prevent that from happening.

"You're about to hear an important story that's been given far more attention overseas than by any news outlet here." There's a good reason that this story isn't being "reported" in the U.S.--it's not a "story." It can certainly be spun to sound like a story (and to bolster Democrat efforts to get something--anything!--on Gonzales and Dubya and Rove), but it's nothing to get in a lather about--unless you're wantin' to get in a lather.

"Evidence has emerged . . .". It's not easy to pull off the "super-secret" angle of this story when your own documentary contains footage of a Republican press conferences days before the 2004 election announcing this plan. D'oh! But apparently Liberal viewers (or bloggers inclined to believe vague assertions from Liberals who purport to have watched the documentary) are fairly gullible when it comes to accusations about Evil Republicans.

". . . in the last American presidential election the Republican Party organized efforts to suppress the votes of active duty military, low income and minority voters . . ." Of course the Republicans had specific victim-classes in mind. The pseudocumentary's lead character is one Greg Palast, who serves to connects the dots and has revealed the racist, anti-democratic (and of course Anti-Democratic!) Republican scheme. Palast posits that Republican efforts to identify potential fraudulent voters are really efforts to identify--and disenfranchise, Black Americans. Incidentally, Broncaccio and Palast make much of the fact that the letters sent to the newly registered persons were marked "Do Not Forward" . . . duh, of course they were. This process is designed to flag people who may not be entitled to vote, and whether a person is a resident at the address they're listing in their registration is one qualification for voting.

Looking at the lists in one county--Duvall County which is Jacksonville, FL, Greg Palast discerns a pattern. He tells Broncaccio, "Patterns began to emerge (1) that they were obviously voters and (2) they were obviously voters of a certain persuasion; they were, uh, black people which is, uh, really pretty stinky stuff because you cannot mass challenge people--voters in American voters, under the Voting Rights Act if race is a factor, you just can't do it, it's illegal." Okay.

For Republicans, the "pattern" is that the person in question was a new registrant--one of the millions "registered" in the largest-ever Democrat voter registration drive (disturbing details of said "drive" here), and failed to respond to a first-class mail and was merely placed on a list to be challenged to verify their identity when they showed up to vote. For Palast, the fact that many of the people thrown onto voter rolls by Democrat workers in Jacksonville, FL (which Broncaccio informs us has one of the largest black populations in the state) were black is evidence of racism.

Lastly, "the story that involves both your right to vote and to have your vote counted." Not quite. Palast says, "you don't lose your civil rights because you weren't around to collect a piece of junk mail." And he's right. I'm not sure there's any evidence that anyone did lose their civil rights or right to vote on such a basis. Being alert to make sure that all the laws are followed in allowing a person to vote--especially when there's a good chance such a person is not authorized to vote, is not "denying them the right to vote." When the person presents evidence that they are who they're claiming to be (any photo ID suffices) they can go ahead and get their ballot.

But Palast's cheap shot is even cheaper in light of the other legal protections for "the right to vote." As the result of changes in Federal election law (which mandated changes in the way states handled Federal elections) following the 2000 election, people must be allowed to cast a vote even if they're not on the voter rolls; it's called provisional voting. Those ballots are reviewed later by bi-partisan panels and then "cast" and counted if the person was improperly not on the voter registration rolls. "Move along, folks; there's no disenfranchisement to see here."

". . . and now the U.S. Congress is investigating whether 'voter caging' was part of a broader effort to suppress the vote of groups likely to support Democrats." From the NOW pseudocumentary:

"While Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refused to answer many questions about the controversy as he testified before the Senate this week, Iglesias told NOW he believes the White House is keeping documents from Congress to protect the Bush Administration. “That’s why there has been such a circling of the wagons around Karl Rove and Harriet Miers and Sarah Taylor. I believe there to be incriminating, possibly criminally incriminating evidence contained in those e-mails and other memoranda,” he said.

And this is a BIG part of this story . . . because there are suspicions that Karl Rove might have known about . . . perhaps initiated . . . no doubt celebrated!! . . . this program. (Yawn.)

Gee, sorry if Republicans are finally getting serious about prosecuting voter fraud. Sorry if enforcement of election laws is cramping Democrat activists' style. But maybe it should be no surprise that Democrats--who have long benefited from sloppy, chaotic, corruptible election processes (think Chicago), aren't interested in making sure that only valid votes be cast.