Even a Liberal Democrat "Expert" Agrees - Virginia's Latest Effort at Vote Fraud Goes Too Far

What won’t Virginia Democrats do to promote vote fraud in Virginia?  Unconstitutional orders to enfranchise felons, including those in half way houses or prisons in other states; encouraging election officials to not ask for citizenship or felon status; refusing to clean up the voting rolls; and now allowing “selfies” (a self-portrait photograph, typically taken with a digital camera or camera phone held in the hand) of ballots, via a last-minute Advisory Opinion from the Attorney General.

  

Why is this another tool for vote fraud?  It could lead to vote buying and coercion.  Let’s quote an “election law expert” regarding an election selfie case in New Hampshire:

Similarly, the effectiveness of the selfie ban and the continued occasional prosecutions for vote buying, especially for absentee ballots, show that where there can be verification of how someone voted, this is a real — not theoretical — problem.  [A] picture of a valid voted ballot, unlike a simple expression of how someone voted, is unique in being able to prove how someone voted.  

Indeed, it is hard to imagine a more narrowly tailored law to prevent vote buying. Tell the world you voted for Trump! Use skywriting. Scream it to the heavens. We just won’t give you the tools to sell your vote or get forced to vote one way or another.  

The social-media age gives people plenty of tools for political self-expression. New Hampshire’s law is a modest way to make sure that this patriotic expression does not give anyone the tools to corrupt the voting process.

The expert quoted - Hans von Spakovsky of Heritage?  Ex-DOJ Official Christian Adams?  Another conservative?  Nope, it is noted Democrat party supporter/advocate and Election Law Professor Rick Hasen of Election Law blog.  Of course, since the article was written in 2015 and the current issue is in a target state during an election, Hasen has merely posted links on his blog and remained relatively silent.  Hopefully, Hasen will stand up strongly and decry the Virginia Attorney General's Advisory Opinion and the potential for fraud it creates:

The change certainly opens the door to “vote-buying fraud” and it impacts the privacy of other voters and election workers just who happen to be around the camera.  More importantly, election officials have long warned that allowing voters to take a selfie of their ballot during the voting process will cause long lines of voters waiting to vote, all waiting until the “utter foolishness” plays itself out.

It would be nice if Democrats interested in election administration would just once practice what they preach.  

Motion for Contempt Against McAuliffe for Defying Felon Voting Rights Restoration Order

Yesterday, Republican members of the Virginia General Assembly filed a motion for contempt against Gov. Terry McAuliffe for defying the Virginia Supreme Court's mandamus order that invalidated McAuliffe's executive orders that purported to restore voting rights to convicted felons on a blanket basis (internal citations omitted):

Petitioners respectfully request that the Court order Respondents to show cause why they should not be held in contempt for defying the writ of mandamus that this Court issued on July 22, 2016. 

The Court struck down three executive orders restoring political rights to all felons who had completed their terms of incarceration and supervised release, holding that the Governor had unconstitutionally suspended the felon-disenfranchisement provision of Article II, Section 1 for “an indiscriminately configured class of approximately 206,000 convicted felons, without any regard for their individual circumstances and without any specific request by individuals seeking such relief.” Governor McAuliffe immediately denounced this Court’s decision, vowing to accomplish precisely the same result simply by issuing individual restoration orders for precisely the same class of approximately 206,000 felons, again without any regard for their individual circumstances and without any specific request by individuals seeking such relief. . . . 

On Monday, August 22, 2016, Governor McAuliffe announced that he had issued individual restoration orders to the approximately 13,000 felons who had registered to vote pursuant to his earlier unconstitutional executive orders, notwithstanding this Court’s order cancelling their registrations. The Governor also announced that he will issue new restoration orders to the remaining approximately 200,000 felons who meet the same criteria set forth in his invalidated April 22 executive order—that is, those who have completed their terms of incarceration and supervised release. . . .  

There is no substantive difference between the Governor’s current actions and his three executive orders suspending Article II, Section 1, that this Court invalidated in its mandamus decision. . . .

The motion points out that more than the issue of felon voting rights restoration is at stake in Gov. McAuliffe's actions; he threatens the rule of law by purporting to set himself above the law:

The Governor has openly declared his resolve to evade the Court’s order. The same day that the Court issued the writ, Governor McAuliffe proclaimed that “the Virginia Supreme Court has placed Virginia as an outlier in the struggle for civil and human rights” and announced that he simply “cannot accept” the Court’s ruling. . . . And he announced that he and the other Respondents will evade the Court’s decision prohibiting him from restoring the rights of this “indiscriminately configured class” of over 200,000 felons, stating: “At the end of the day, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. . . . [B]y two weeks [from now], all 206,000 [felons] will have their rights back.”  

In announcing last week his new plan to unilaterally re-enfranchise 206,000 felons, Governor McAuliffe again expressed his disdain for this Court’s decision. He claimed that “the Court dismissed the clear text of the Constitution,” and instead based its holding solely on “the way things have always been done in the Old Dominion.” . . . And most importantly, while claiming to be acting in conformity with this Court’s decision, the Governor emphasized that he “remain[s] resolute in [his] commitment,” to override the Constitution’s felon disenfranchisement provision by again restoring voting rights to approximately 206,000 felons who have completed their sentences and periods of supervised release, notwithstanding this Court’s order prohibiting Respondents from doing just that . . . .  

Governor McAuliffe is entitled to disagree with our Constitution and with this Court’s rulings interpreting it, but “[i]t is not for him to set himself above the law and go his own way because he deems the law’s requirements to be unwise or its restraints vexatious. In such manner does a government of laws become a government of men.” 

We applaud the Republican members of the Virginia General Assembly for standing up for the rule of law, for the text of the Virginia Constitution, and for the integrity of Virginia's elections. 

Yes, Democrats Have Tried To Rig Elections

Trump’s recent comments to the media surrounding his concerns of a rigged election have thrown the liberal media into a tizzy. For a variety of reasons, most Americans are not buying the narrative that our elections are safe. With good reason: publicly supported, common-sense electoral reforms are being attacked across the country.  The majority of Americans support voter ID as a means to protect the ballot box from fraud. 

Trump hit a nerve for a lot of Americans. Americans want fair and consistent elections. RNLA Executive Director, Michael Thielen, wrote an op-ed to address just one of several glaring issues that SHOULD prompt these concerns in every single American voter when it comes to election rigging.

The undisputed background is important. All agree that Governor McAuliffe is a close friend and staunch ally of Democrat Presidential Candidate Secretary Hillary Clinton. He was a DNC Chair under Bill Clinton. He is term limited as Virginia Governor to just one term. While Democrats would undoubtedly put this differently, there is merit to the statement of Virginia General Assembly Leader Bill Howell that “[t]he singular purpose of Terry McAuliffe’s governorship is to elect Hillary Clinton president of the United States. This office has always been a steppingstone to a job in Hillary Clinton’s Cabinet.”

No one disputes that felons overwhelmingly vote Democrat and that Virginia is a purple state where elections will likely be decided by a thin margin in 2016. The beneficiary of McAuliffe’s order is Hillary Clinton.

Further, even the staunch advocates of felon voting should have been, and were, given pause by the scope of Governor McAuliffe’s order. These advocates state that “once a person has paid their debt to society, their rights should be restored.”McAuliffe’s order included murderers, gang members still in prison,and others, such as sex offenders, still under involuntary supervision. McAuliffe’s order had the goal of getting the maximum number of voters available for Hillary, not the goal of felon rights advocates to “restore the rights of those who have paid their debt to society.”

When looking to address a problem, business owners know that one must look at the totality of the circumstances, learn from the past, and foresee future issues before they occur if they have any hope of being successful. This is a skill set that our current Commander-in-Chief has struggled to grasp. Trump is ahead of the curve and quite frankly he should be, given his extensive business experience. He sees the glaring truth that the liberal left refuses to acknowledge. 

Fraud is a reality in our elections and it needs to be fixed while Americans still have faith in the process. The Sanders email scandal illustrated this point perfectly and lends credence to Trump’s concerns. Hillary and the DNC dealt a vicious blow to public perception of election integrity. What would lead any reasonable person to believe that the general election would be any different? Hillary immediately turned around and hired the DNC Chair that was forced to resign. Add to that shady tarmac meetings, FBI investigations, email leaks, and one of the worst public trust ratings ever attributed to a candidate, and future issues are glaringly likely. As a good friend in the business world once told me, past performance predicts future behavior. 

VA Supreme Court Strikes Down McAuliffe's Blanket Restoration of Felon Voting Rights

Today, the Virginia Supreme Court struck down Gov. Terry McAuliffe's order that restored voting rights to over 200,000 convicted felons.  The court found it was unconstitutional because it re-wrote the Virginia Constitution:

In a 4-3 decision, the Court said it “respectfully disagrees” with Mr. McAuliffe’s position that he has the executive power to make such a sweeping move. . . . The court ordered the cancellation of registration of all voters convicted of a felony who registered under the governor’s executive orders by Aug. 25. 

Chief Justice Donald Lemons issued the majority opinion, which said that Mr. McAuliffe’s executive orders had revised a section of the state constitution. 

The ruling said Mr. McAuliffe lacked the power to issue a clemency order “to a class of unnamed felons without regard for the nature of the crimes or any other individual circumstances relevant to the request.” 

Justice Lemons cited Virginia’s tradition of “cautious and incremental approach to any expansions of the executive power,” writing that the framers in 1776 were skeptical of “the unfettered exercise of executive power.”

We applaud the Virginia Supreme Court for upholding the rule of law in Virginia. 

Update from Del. Rob Bell on Virginia Felon Voting Litigation

Yesterday, Delegate Rob Bell shared insights into the litigation challenging Governor Terry McAuliffe's blanket restoration of felon voting rights with RNLA lawyer volunteers.  We have covered Gov. McAuliffe's order and its aftermath here, here, here, and here.

Del. Bell discussed the order, the preparation for litigation, and likely outcomes:

• Since 1870, the Virginia Constitution has allowed the governor to restore voting rights to felons and governors have, but it has always been done on an individual, case-by-case basis.  Previous governors' legal teams, both Republican and Democrat, concluded that it had to be done that way.
• McAuliffe's order restored rights to any felon who has completed his or her sentence and finished supervised release, regardless of the crime committed.
• A particular concern is the effect on jury trials, because in criminal trials, the verdict must be unanimous.
• In preparation for trial, the legislature hired Cooper & Kirk.  Finding plaintiffs was the hardest part, but they found named plaintiffs at the Clifton Republican women’s club.  
• In terms of timing, mid-August is drop-dead date because of absentee ballots being printed.  Because of this, they took the case straight to the Supreme Court.  The Court agreed to special session for first time since 1993, and the case will be heard on July 19.
• 6,000 felons have already registered to vote.  If the restoration order is invalidated, then the governor could still restore voting rights one by one.
• The strongest argument is one of statutory interpretation: the blanket restoration allows one constitutional provision to survive while another becomes a nullity.  
• A bipartisan group of 43 Commonwealth Attorneys (representing 60% of citizens) filed an amicus brief on behalf of plaintiffs.  If there had been more time, many more would have joined.
• There is now a second lawsuit challenging the order filed in circuit court and asking for an injunction.  
• There are two concerns – the Court rules against the plaintiffs or finds a way to dodge the case (standing, needing evidentiary rulings at circuit court, etc.).  Since there’s another case in circuit court, the Supreme Court will likely take up the case now.
• In terms of standing, the cause of action is based on a vote dilution claim.  
• The list of felons to whom rights have been restored has turned out to be a mess.  There are numerous people on the list who shouldn’t be on the list, and at this point the governor can’t fix it; only a court can fix it.

This year's Ed Meese Award winner, Chuck Cooper, will be discussing this litigation on the opening panel at the National Election Law Seminar on August 12-13.

“Crooked Hillary” Crony McAuliffe Earns a Trip to the Virginia Supreme Court

Breaking news today: Virginia Delegate Rob Bell shared an update on the now pending litigation with regard to Governor Terry McAuliffe’s unconstitutional blanket reinstatement of all felon’s voting rights just prior to the presidential election. The Virginia Supreme Court announced that it will hold a special session to hear the suit. The petition can be found here: Howell v. McAuliffe. We discussed the pending suit last week as well as the fact that McAuliffe has recently come under investigation by the FBI for questionable donations to his gubernatorial campaign. 

The email detailed a few keypoints about the Governor’s actions and their likely impact.

[T]he Governor's order is continuing to cause (what are hopefully) unintended consequences. Because the order restores the right to sit on juries, a Dinwiddie defendant accused of murdering a state trooper is arguing that such felons must be included in his jury pool.  Prosecutors in Loudoun and Fauquier have asked Governor McAuliffe for a list of the restored felons so they could strike them from juries hearing cases of similar crimes.  McAuliffe refused to release the list and even rejected a follow-up FOIA request.

By treating all felons exactly the same, McAuliffe’s order didn't consider the violence of each offense or whether the offender finished paying his victim’s medical bills. Legal advisors to Governor Kaine and Governor McDonnell explicitly rejected the Constitutionality of such a blanket restoration. 

Bell points out the glaring concerns for the judicial system. Allowing murders and rapists to be on a jury for a murder or rape case is quite frankly obscene and defies all levels of reasonableness and logic. The case is scheduled to be heard on July 19, 2016, at 9:00 AM.

More Problems for Hillary Clinton's Friend, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe

Yesterday, we discussed some of the recent problems for Governor Terry McAuliffe in Virginia. The staunch “Crooked Hillary” minion McAuliffe has recently come under investigation by the FBI for donations to his gubernatorial campaign. CNN published an article detailing what is known about the investigation up to this point.

McAuliffe is the subject of an ongoing investigation by the FBI and prosecutors from the Justice Department's public integrity unit, U.S. officials briefed on the probe say.

Among the McAuliffe donations that drew the interest of the investigators was $120,000 from a Chinese businessman, Wang Wenliang, through his U.S. businesses. Wang was previously delegate to China's National People's Congress, the country's ceremonial legislature.

Wang also has been a donor to the Clinton foundation, pledging $2 million. He also has been a prolific donor to other causes, including to New York University, Harvard and environmental issues in Florida.

Since the story broke on CNN several other media outlets have picked it up as well including NBC, CBS, and Fox News. The Washington Post released an article today walking through the speculation swirling around the investigation:

In 2013, Wang's Chinese company pledged $2 million to the nonprofit foundation. The donation caught the attention of a CBS News investigation in March 2015 -- not because of any campaign finance laws (this is a foundation after all), but because of Wang's political connections. . . . 

Tying this back to McAuliffe: He also served on the board of the Clinton Foundation around the time of the donation. McAuliffe is a longtime Clinton ally and a prolific fundraiser for them. In 2015, Post reporter Laura Vozzella detailed McAuliffe's connection to Wang to show how Clinton Foundation donors also pumped millions into the governor's campaign accounts. 

Details continue to surface. Keep your eye on the ball. It’s likely given McAuliffe's close ties to the Clinton family that there is a whole lot more to the story. That is until "Crooked Hillary" cleans up the evidence . . . with a cloth.

Executive Overreach Creeps into Virginia

A “Crooked Hillary” lackey, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, is having a rough week and it’s mostly self-inflicted. The Governor has recently come under investigation by the FBI for donations to his gubernatorial campaign (more on that in a later post).

As if that was not enough for a bad day, McAuliffe is also facing a lawsuit that was filed in the Virginia Supreme Court today challenging the constitutionality of using an executive action to restore voting rights to felons en masse:

  

Republicans in the Virginia General Assembly will file suit today in the Supreme Court of Virginia challenging Gov. Terry McAuliffe's authority to order a mass restoration of rights April 22, covering more than 200,000 felons who have served their time.

"The Constitution of Virginia forbids this unprecedented assertion of executive authority," the filing states. "Governor McAuliffe’s executive order defies the plain text of the Constitution, flouts the separation of powers, and has no precedent in the annals of Virginia history. The governor simply may not, with a stroke of the pen, unilaterally suspend and amend the Constitution."

McAuliffe's order came just days after the General Assembly wrapped up the 2016 legislative session, has the potential to expand the state's voter rolls by up to 3.8 percent.

Chuck Cooper, the attorney for Republicans filing the suit, said the plaintiffs are making a direct appeal to the state's highest court because "time is of the essence...the governor issued the order in time for thousands and thousands of felons to register and ultimately vote in November elections, but that isn't enough time to litigate a case in the normal course of the trial courts of the commonwealth."

In a statement, [Speaker of the House William J.] Howell, who has clashed frequently with McAuliffe during his term over Medicaid expansion, gun control and most recently judicial selection for the Supreme Court of Virginia, said legislators "simply cannot ignore this unprecedented executive overreach.”

Given the current FBI investigation, the lawsuit, and even further allegations of wrong doing, one need not infer the Governor’s motive, as his actions speak directly to it. The unconstitutional executive action was taken for one reason alone: adding Virginia’s felon voters to the rolls in time for the presidential election. Voters that statistically will likely support “Crooked Hillary” for President. 

The Immoral and Unconstitional Act of Governor McAuliffe

A Friday afternoon a few weeks back, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe made an unprecedented and likely unconstitutional “executive order” allowing felons to vote.  As National Review wrote:

In what is likely an unconstitutional state action seemingly calculated to ensure that the purple state of Virginia goes blue in the November election, Governor Terry McAuliffe (D.) signed an order on Friday restoring the voting rights of 206,000 ex-felons in Virginia, including those convicted of murder, armed robbery, rape, sexual assault, and other violent crimes. The order also restores their right to sit on a jury, become a notary, and even serve in elected office.

Today, Christian Adams laid out the moral case against felon voting:

Giving violent felons the automatic right to vote is not morally defensible. Violent criminals who have shown contempt for other members of society and our laws should not have a voice in the process of writing laws. When a violent felon helps to choose lawmakers, laws will invariably skew more toward the criminal to the detriment of the law-abiding citizen.

Adams adds more details but the moral is simple: Governor Terry McAuliffe will do anything to elect his his friend Hillary President, constitutions and morals be dammed. 

Will McAuliffe’s Fourth Try at Vote Fraud for Virginia Succeed? (Part 1)

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe is a former DNC Chair under President Bill Clinton.  As a former DNC Chair, he knows a thing or two about vote fraud and stealing elections for Democrats.  Last Friday, he took the unprecedented step of signing a possibly unconstitutional order (more on that in part II) allowing felons to vote in Virginia, including those convicted of murder, rape, and other violent crimes. 

This is just the latest effort by McAuliffe to win elections by means other than the voters.  To review:

1.  Before he was even elected, McAuliffe’s legal team fought to keep ineligible voters on the rolls in heavily Democrat Fairfax County, Virginia:

Virginia officials counted 7,934 duplicate names on the Fairfax County voter rolls, and the Democratic lawsuit asks that every one of those be allowed to cast a ballot on Nov. 5. We suggest that Mr. McAuliffe court eligible Virginians, and leave be the Virginians who have moved on. Any dead ones, too. They don’t really have much interest now in what goes on in Richmond.

Not only did the courts reject this effort but also, just a few months later, President Obama’s Commission on Election Administration advocated for just this kind of list clean up. 

2.  McAuliffe nominated a Democrat to the Republican slot for the Virginia Board of Elections:

Matthew Gray was nominated by the Governor despite having no experience that we know of in Election Administration.  He is currently working for the Humane Society.

. . .  Gary seemly “earned” his nomination by being a Democrat who once supported John McCain in 2008.  The later allowed the former DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe with a straight face to nominate the Democrat primary voter Gray to the REPUBLICAN position on the Virginia Board of Elections.  (Virginia does not have party ID to vote and both parties generally identify their members by primary voting.)

This is just the latest example of the efforts of Democrats and the left to further politicize elections by appointing unqualified hacks to administer elections.

According to a story we will not link in the Washington Post, Gary withdrew his name under pressure from Republicans.   

3.  Of course, this is not even the first time that Governor McAuliffe tried to “restore” felon rights.  In July of 2015 he tried to make felons eligible by omission of answering questions regarding eligibility to vote:

The board is considering allowing people registering to vote to skip several questions on the application, including those asking whether those registering are U.S. citizens or felons whose voting rights have not been restored. . . . Currently, registrars can reject would-be voters if they do not check boxes to indicate their citizenship and felon status.

The proposal was met Tuesday with nearly universal skepticism — from registrars and elections officials with practical concerns, and from politicians and ordinary Virginians with big-picture worries that play into the nation’s fiercest political debates.

Illegal immigration, voter fraud and the restoration of felons’ right to vote — even the usurpation of legislative power by an overbearing executive branch — all loomed large over an hour-long hearing to discuss a seemingly arcane administrative matter.

In other words, this order he signed is just the latest effort by Governor McAuliffe to steal the election for his close friend Hillary Clinton.  We can only hope for the integrity of the election that this effort fails as well.  

Gov. McAuliffe's Appointees Try an End Run to Let Illegals and Felons Vote

The battle for voter integrity continues in Virginia. Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe's appointees are trying bypassing the state legislature to make changes to allow convicted felons and illegal aliens to  fraudulent vote without any consequences. Under the proposed changes to the Virginia Code, voters would no longer need to affirmatively check a box stating that they are a citizen, and they are neither a felon, nor mentally incompetent. Currently, if a voter leaves this box incomplete, the action is a material omission. Thus, if a person does not at least affirmatively state they are a citizen, the vote does not count.

However, due to efforts by McAuliffe’s appointees the State Board of Elections was poised to take up a motion on July 28^th to change these procedures so that election directors across Virginia would be instructed to ignore blank boxes. On June 22, 2015, the State Board of Elections issued an extension to the comment period on the proposed Voter Registration Application Regulation and Form, and extended the public comment period again to August 3^rd, 2015.

Delegate James M. LeMunyon responded:

Every first-grader in Virginia gets a work sheet from a teacher with boxes to check. If we’ve had this sort of rampant people-haven’t-been-able-to-check-boxes problem, I haven’t heard of that one.

Hans A. von Spakovsky and Rachel landsman of the Heritage Foundation highlight in  National Review that the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 added the citizenship question to the federal voter-registration form because of the evidence that non-citizens are registering to vote. Proposed changes would allow non-citizens and felons to continue to illegally register, but eliminate the risk of getting caught.

Each illegal vote negates the vote of a citizen voting legally. Senator Thomas A. Garrett Jr. pleads with Virignia voters stating

If we let Terry McAuliffe have his way, illegal aliens will be able to vote just like you and me — unless you make time to help.

As Del. Rob Bell, a leader in the voter ID fight states (emphasis mine):

This would of course make it easier to commit voter fraud, and would substantially undermine the bills that I worked on with Senator Obenshain in 2013 to address voting by felons, residents of other states, and photo ID. 

In 2008, Senator Tom Garrett prosecuted voter fraud prompted by a progressive group that sent out forms to felons encouraging them to register.  As Garrett noted to the Board, their new proposal would make it “virtually impossible” to prosecute such offenders. 

Through midnight, Virginians can use the Virginia Regulatory Town Hall website here to urge the Virginia State Board of Elections to continue to require affirmation of citizenship and non-felon status as material portions of the voter registration form.

Larry Lessig: Campaign Finance’s Leona Helmsley

Before Citizens United, before the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, even before Terry McAuliffe was shepherding Democrat donors into the Lincoln Bedroom for sleepovers, there was Leona Helmsley. The brusque New York City hotel maven thrust herself into the spotlight reigning over the 1980s go-go Manhattan real-estate scene. Tagged the ‘Queen of Mean,’ she finally met her downfall on a tax evasion rap. At her trial, one of her servants famously quoted her saying “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.”

Over two decades later, law professor and campaign finance reformer Larry Lessig has added political advertising disclaimers to the list of legal obligations elites reserve for commoners.

According to a complaint filed by the Center for Competitive Politics, Lessig’s Mayday PAC repeatedly flaunted federal disclosure laws on its broadcast and mailing advertisements.

Mayday PAC’s noncompliance doesn’t appear to be accidental. Reformer elites litter its board including progressive darling Zephyr Teachout, who recently ran for New York governor on a good-government platform. Moreover, the complaint states Mayday PAC switched back and forth between compliant and noncompliant disclaimers suggesting expediency rather than ignorance.

CCP estimates Mayday PAC corralled as much as 10% more air time for substantive content by using noncompliant disclaimers on radio advertisements, saving the group at least $26,500. The rogue disclaimers may have also confused the public about the source of Mayday PACs ads or its possible authorization by the candidates the PAC supported.

<This devil-may-care attitude toward federal disclosure law is even more dispiriting given both Lessig’s and Teachout’s prominent positions with the transparency organization, The Sunlight Foundation. Lessig serves on its Advisory Board and Teachout is a former National Director. The group states, “Our overarching goal is to achieve changes in the law to require real-time, online transparency for all government information, with a special focus on the political money flow and who tries to influence government and how government responds.” One obvious way to cloud transparency in political advertising is to flout FEC regulations by obfuscating disclaimer requirements.

Of course, another possibility also exists. Lessig may now be a reluctant apostate to the transparency cause—channeling less Leona Helmsley than Barak Obama. On numerous issues—e.g. Guantanamo, recess appointments, debt ceiling—candidate Obama found fault with his predecessor. But once in office and faced with the realities of governing, President Obama continued policies he had once pilloried. Lessig, in his role this cycle as political operative, was privy to a different world than his previous forays as academic theorist and Senate Committee pontificator.

One lesson Lessig admitted learning when he finally returned to public view after his midterm shellacking was ‘transparency has its costs.’ He complained one incumbent Mayday PAC tried to unseat pressured some of its donors.

Untoward political pressure on donors is apparently a new experience for Lessig’s patrons. But anyone following Harry Reid’s six-month tirade against wealthy conservative donors, or the pre-FEC exploits of disclosure doyenne Ann Ravel knows how operatives exploit disclosure laws. Last spring, for example, technology executive Brendan Eich was bullied out of his job after activists garishly bandied a six-year old donation he had made to an unpopular cause.

If Lessig has learned a hard lesson in political reality and is no longer a doctrinaire reformer, he should be welcomed to the side of freedom. But with freedom comes responsibility. This includes acknowledging the rules apply equally to everyone, not just the little people. 

By Paul Jossey

Obomination: Obama’s Presidency is now Defined

The quote of Obama’s presidency has now been made.  “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.”  And unlike other famous or infamous quotes by other Presidents, President Obama said versions of this quote over and over again.  Check this out for one quick example:

Obama lied in a substantive and important way.  There is no other way around it.  This lie is going to have an important effect on elections going forward, as shown in the recent Virginia Governor’s race in an analysis by famed prognosticator Larry Sabato:

President Obama’s poor ratings in the post-Obamacare launch fiasco probably hurt McAuliffe to some degree (so much for that big Obama rally on Sunday).

On local radio station WTOP, former Democrat Virginia Governor Doug Wilder put it much stronger terms say that it almost cost the man he endorsed, Terry McAuliffe, the Governor’s office.  Ken Cuccenlli, who some are trying to label as too extreme for Virginia, actually won independents by nine points on Tuesday.  As Politico put it:

The president’s approval rating has slipped in the wake of the Obamacare fiasco and other scandals of his fifth year in office, and his trip to Virginia Sunday probably motivated some independents and Republicans to back Cuccinelli

Even if the website gets fixed, this does not change that President Obama lied many times about the program that bears his name.  Obama finally realized the problem is serious and did a much too late apology yesterday.  This was likely based on his fellow Democrats telling him he had to do this to stop the political damage. 

As things stand now, one thing is for sure.  Democrats up for reelection in 2014 are worried and I doubt that many will be asking the President to campaign with them the weekend before the election.  

Judge Exposes Democrat Lies on "Purges"

 

Every year Democrats complain about “purges” of lists.  Judge Claude Hilton of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia set not only the Democrat Party of Virginia straight but wrote an opinion that should set every Democrat Party straight when they make wild and spurious charges against state and local officials merely trying to do their jobs. 

First Judge Hilton lays about the bottom line:

There exists a valid state interest in preventing voter fraud, and “[i]t is well established that purge statues are a legitimate means by which the State can attempt to prevent voter fraud.”

As in almost all the cases against stopping voter fraud, the extreme remedy of allowing vote fraud to go forward to protect a small few who were mistakenly removed from the list is ridiculous.  As Judge Hilton puts it:

Plaintiff has not provided evidence of any qualified voters who have been deprived of their right to vote.  If a voter is removed from the voter rolls in error, there are several mechanisms in place to protect that voter’s rights, including provisional ballots and registration reinstatement.  Indeed, the few incidents wherein an individual was removed from the voting rolls erroneously have been corrected. 

Lastly Judge Hilton touches on what many Democrats and liberals are really fighting for in these cases and cases involving voter ID.  It is not the minuscule few who are wrongly excluded, the law has adequate remedies there, it is for those who want to fraudulent vote, especially those who do not reside in the state. 

Those individuals who are registered in another state and have thus been correctly removed from the Virginia voter rolls have suffered no harm.  An individual does not have the right to vote in state where he or she does not reside. . . The Commonwealth has a valid interest in ensuring that individuals who are registered to vote in Virginia are not also registered to vote in another state.

 

 

 

Why Does the Media Ignore Democrat Efforts to Disenfranchise voters?

On Friday the voters of Virginia won a major victory over the efforts of Democrats to disenfranchise legal voters.  While the media gave positive coverage to the efforts to disenfranchise, they did not say as much about the judge throwing out the Democrats obscene efforts to allow fraudulent “votes.” 

Judge Claude Hilton in the case stated: 

A federal judge on Friday rejected an effort by the Virginia Democratic Party to restore more than 38,000 names to the state’s voter rolls that it claimed were possibly purged in error, saying the evidence did not convince him that anyone had been disenfranchised.

“I just don’t find that there’s a strong showing here of any inequitable treatment or the deprivation of anyone’s rights,” U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton said as he denied the Democrats’ request.

As a local official stated about the actual process:

Albemarle County Registrar Jake Washburn said the list was checked several times at the state and local level. "We don't want to cancel anybody without good reason, but if we have good solid evidence that someone has moved to another state and has registered in that state, then we feel like under the code we have cause to cancel."

Reality is list maintenance is part of the law, for good reason with no downside.  For there is a solution for someone “wrongly removed” or “purged” from the voter rolls: a provisional ballot.  No one is ever prevented from voting.  If the person is wrongly removed, the provisional ballot will count.  So there is no danger of disenfranchisement of a voter. 

As Judge Claude Hilton in the case stated (emphasis mine):

At a hearing Friday, Judge Claude Hilton said he believes the state conducted he purge uniformly. He also said anyone wrongly purged could cast a provisional ballot.

On the other hand, if someone dead, felon, living in another state, etc. “votes” there is no remedy to “uncount” the vote.  “Uncount” is not even a word.  As a result for every illegal vote, a legal voter on the other side is disenfranchised because their vote is canceled out. 

The Democrat Party of Virginia must know this which is why they were first fighting to keep 57,000 ineligible voters on the rolls.  Both the current Republican candidate for Governor (Ken Cuccinelli) and the current Republican Governor (Bob McDonnell) have won elections in the their careers by less than 570 votes, less than just one percent of those 57,000 ineligible voters the Democrats wanted to have kept on the voting rolls. 

As RNLA Virginia Chair Chris Marston stated:

Judge Hilton on Friday denied the Democratic Party of Virginia's bizarre petition to stop Virginia's election officials from removing from the voter rolls individuals who have left the state and registered to vote elsewhere. The professional staff at the Office of the Attorney General and the State Board of Elections ably defended Virginia's process for maintaining clean voter rolls. The public can have confidence that only those eligible to vote can cast ballots and no votes by ineligible voters will dilute the weight of their votes.

This was not a partisan victory but one for all legal voters in Virginia.