If You Ain't Cheatin' You Ain't Tryin'

Attorney General Eric Holder’s recent comments about the supposed nonexistence of voter fraud in the United States and his opposition to voter ID laws in Texas and South Carolina are the latest proof that he is just another liberal hack and an embarrassment to his office, with apologies to Janet Reno. After refusing to prosecute the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation in Philadelphia during the 2008 election, after calling America "a nation of cowards" for supposed reluctance to discuss racial issues, after instituting a policy at Department of Justice that there would be no investigations against minorities for civil rights violations in the Obama Administration, after announcing that Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and other Gitmo terrorists would be tried in New York City in civilian courts (and then renegeing after a groundswell of protest), and after overseeing Operation Fast and Furious, in which Mexican drug lords were allowed to purchase guns in the United States and take them to perpetrate murder, including the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, and lying to Congress about his knowledge thereof, Mr. Holder now stubbornly refuses to approve voter identification laws passed by the Texas and South Carolina legislatures because they would unfairly impact minorities, the poor and the elderly, at least in his distorted view. Since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires that states in the Old South submit their election laws to the AG for review and approval in order to prevent Jim Crow-style voter suppression, Holder sees himself as a champion of the disadvantaged in this case, ensuring that every voter has the chance to cast their ballot.

…instead of ensuring that every legitimate voter has the chance to cast their ballot as these voter ID laws attempt to do. Free and fair elections lie at the heart of our democracy. The people have a right to expect that elections are conducted lawfully, that cheating, rigging and fraud are vigorously prosecuted, and that the results of every election are genuine. Since the presentation of photo ID is required throughout our society (I can’t check into a hotel without identifying myself) and since photo ID’s are free of charge to registered voters in the states in question, Mr. Holder has no reason for his obstinacy other than a desire to facilitate fraud such that the greatest number of liberal-leaning, pro-big government, entitlement program-consuming people reach the polls on Election Day, legal or not. And as for Holder’s comment that voter fraud in the U.S. is "nonexistent," a view echoed by The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, CNN and the George Soros-funded Brennan Center for Justice, that view is based on the deliberately misleading reference to the relatively low number of voter fraud convictions reported nationwide. It’s a vicious circle: Minus photo ID’s, voter fraud is easier to commit and harder to prove; the harder voter fraud is to prove, the fewer voter fraud convictions are obtained; the fewer voter fraud convictions are obtained, the greater the perception among liberals that voter fraud is "nonexistent." The fraud can continue, Democrats get elected and Republicans’ efforts to stop it are frustrated.

But voter fraud convictions are not the only indicator that voter fraud is actually occurring. Take for example last week’s incident during the Washington, DC city election in which an associate of James O’Keefe, the filmmaker who exposed ACORN’s voter fraud operations in 2008, approached a poll worker at Eric Holder’s own polling place and could’ve cast a ballot for the Attorney General without any identification (he didn’t). This incident has caused some embarrassment and anger on the Left, liberal commentators have simultaneously dismissed it as a harmless prank that proves nothing and attacked Mr. O’Keefe as a right-wing muckraker (“It’s no coincidence that these so-called examples of rampant voter fraud consistently turn out to be manufactured ones"), but the point is that committing voter fraud in the nation’s capital in the Attorney General’s name was ridiculously easy and nobody was arrested or charged, let alone convicted.

And what about ACORN? In 2009, the left-wing activist group was investigated for various forms of voter and election fraud in fifteen states during the 2008 general election that included the following:

- Nevada officials charged ACORN, its regional director and its Las Vegas field director with submitting thousands of fraudulent voter registration forms. Larry Lomax, the registrar of voters in Las Vegas, said he believes 48% of ACORN's forms "are clearly fraudulent."

- Prosecutors in Pittsburgh, Pa., also charged seven ACORN employees with filing hundreds of fraudulent voter registrations before the 2008 general election.

- Fred Voight, deputy election commissioner in Philadelphia, protested after ACORN (according to the registrar of voters and his own investigation) submitted at least 1,500 fraudulent registrations in 2008. "This has been going on for a number of years," he told CNN.

- Washington state prosecutors fined ACORN $25,000 after several employees were convicted of voter registration fraud in 2007. The group signed a consent decree with King County (Seattle), requiring it to beef up its oversight or face criminal prosecution.

In September 2009, Mr. O’Keefe and a female associate, posing as a pimp and a prostitute, videotaped employees at ACORN’s Brooklyn, New York, office helping them obtain public funding for a brothel to be staffed by underage girls who were also illegal immigrants. ACORN subsequently lost its Congressional funding – a fact that is by itself embarrassing – and was shut down, but apparently Mr. Holder doesn’t consider widespread and systematic voter fraud committed by one of Priest-King’s favorite groups (community organizer Obama started working with ACORN as early in 1992 and has sat on its Board of Directors) as actual fraud, a strange position for the nation’s top law enforcement officer to hold.

What if we go back further, to say, 2004? In 2008, the Milwaukee Police Department released a report of its 18-month investigation into voter fraud in the city in the 2004 general election and concluded that there had been an "illegal organized attempt to influence the outcome of an election in the state of Wisconsin." This organized attempt included the following examples:

- Twenty-nine voters were registered at a county office building that featured no residential living.

- Between 4600-5300 more ballots were cast than voters that could be accounted for.

- The ballots of 540 people who registered on-site and then voted (allowed under Wisconsin law) were not counted.

- Eighteen convicted felons were hired as elections inspectors, eight of whom had been hired by ACORN.

- Out-of-state people were allowed to vote (and their votes allowed to stand).

- One hundred twenty-eight voters used a homeless shelter as their address of record.

- Over 2600 students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who were registered to vote in Milwaukee, living at one residence hall, were also eligible to vote in another jurisdiction.

- Dead people voted, people voted multiple times and addresses used to register to vote did not exist.

Given that John Kerry won Wisconsin by a grand total of 11,000 votes out of 2.9 million cast, I think it would be reasonable to conclude that the full-court press put on in the City of Milwaukee put him over the top, hardly a "nonexistent" example of voter fraud.

Same-day registration on Election Day facilitates voter fraud and the lack of photo ID makes it worse. That Eric Holder embraces the former and opposes the latter is a stark indicator that he’ll do anything to help his boss win: After all, if you’re not willing to cheat, you must not want it bad enough.

Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/295431/why-we-need-voter-id-laws-now-john-fund
Source: http://blog.heritage.org/2008/09/15/voter-fraud-puts-ohio-election-at-risk/?query=Voter+Fraud+Puts+Ohio+Election+at+Risk
Source: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/doj-official-calls-okeefe-voter-id-stunt-manufactured

Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/285771/if-fraudulent-vote-falls-woods-christian-schneider
Source: http://media2.620wtmj.com/breakingnews/ElectionResults_2004_VoterFraudInvestigation_MPD-SIU-A2474926.pdf
Source: http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2010/04/voter-intimidation-black-panther-style?query=Voter+Intimidation+New+Black+Panther+Style