I’ve been fighting for Photo ID for several years now. Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman’s op-ed proves the point I’ve repeatedly made: that voter fraud does exist and that it potentially could tip elections. Here’s the part of Freeman’s op-ed I’m pointing to:
In 2008, when more than 665,000 people voted in Hennepin County, 40 were charged with voting while a convicted felon, and three with voting twice.
Those 43 votes could’ve potentially defeated by state representative, King Banaian. King’s certified margin of victory was 13 votes.
Freeman rightly says that “Illegal votes are exceedingly rare.” That’s the wrong benchmark. Statistically insignificant isn’t the right benchmark. Electorally significant is the right way of measuring voter fraud’s impact.
Those perpetrating voter fraud don’t target lopsided races. They target the tightest of the tight races. They did that in Seattle in the 2004 gubernatorial contest. Ditto with the presidential race in Minnesota in 2004:
Election Day is upon us. You are confirmed to volunteer with ACT (America Coming Together – http://www.actforvictory.org/) on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov 2.
We will be creating name badges that include your Ward and Precinct information for each of the thousands of volunteers that day to make it easier to find a volunteer to vouch for a voter at the polls.
I am emailing you to request your street address, city and zipcode. We’ve already got your other contact information, but your record in our database does not include this information.
You can save us time on election day by replying today to this email with this information, or give us a call at [phone number with St. Paul area code].
In order to get your badge correct, please reply by Thursday.
Thank you for your help and cooperation. See you on Election Day!
As far as we know, the fraud didn’t happen but it was planned down to the final detail. ACORN and ACT have put plans together to commit either voter fraud or voter registration fraud. Isn’t the question whether it’s silly not to do things to prevent voter fraud?
Here’s another way of looking at this issue. Not having a way of verifying voters’ identities is essentially the deregulation of elections. If we’re taking people’s word that they’re residents of that ward, that precinct, we’re essentially saying that we don’t care if they lie.
Would any other government agency accept a person’s word that they’re complying with the law? Address that reply to the IRS.
Further, this exposes as myth the notion that voter fraud is rare. If you can’t verify a person’s identity, it’s impossible to authoritatively make that statement. Not relatively difficult. IMPOSSIBLE. How can you make categorical, unequivocal statements without having a way to verify voters’ identies and locations?
Freeman’s arguments are flimsy at best. They’re the usual ‘voter fraud doesn’t exist’ arguments that we’ve heard for years. As I’ve just shown, it’s impossible to verify the accuracy of that statement. That invalidates the entire premise of the argument.
TRANSLATION: The DFL’s argument is worthless.
Technorati: Photo ID, Voter Fraud, ACT, ACORN, Deregulation, Mike Freeman, DFL, King Banaian, MNGOP, Recounts, Elections, Election 2010
This is a dissembling argument from someone who would dismiss the statistically signicant data showing racial disparities in every step of the criminal justice system, from citations to capital punishment, and who hopes for evidence that voter fraud elected Senator Franken and Governor Dayton. The writer’s M.O. is plain: Keep people who do not look like you, or vote like you, off the rolls by any means necessary, and disregard the overwhelming evidence that the system benefits you at their expense.
First, I’d normally delete bigotted statements like this because Mr. Nickitas doesn’t present anything more than opinion.
Let’s deal with Mr. Nickitas’ statements one-by-one, starting here:
Mr. Nickitas, should I ignore court verdicts? The laws are on the books for a reason. Felons can’t vote until they’ve completed all parts of their sentence. Voting judges shouldn’t be required to relitigate guilty verdicts. That’s the courts’ responsibility. Next, the elections are in the past. The system failed us because you can’t uncast illegally cast ballots once they’re part of the piles of accepted ballots. I didn’t even talk about the hundreds of absentee ballots that didn’t have signatures or that had improper signatures but were still accepted.
The law reads the way the law reads because it’s an accountability issue.
Next, let’s examine this bloviation:
The writer’s M.O., aka me, is simple: I only want people who can legally vote to vote. If you don’t like the laws, attempt to change them. Then again, the Franken & Dayton campaigns said that Minnesota’s election laws are the nation’s gold standard. (FYI- I don’t agree since Minnesota allows same day registration & vouching.)
What’s interesting is the fact that Mr. Nickitas hasn’t said a word to refute my central theme: that there’s no way to verify whether everyone voting is who they say they are without Photo ID. Any claims that voter fraud doesn’t exist is an opinion, not verified fact.
As for Mr. Nickitas’ accusation that I’m a bigot who’ll do anything to win elections, I’ll simply say that he’s utterly clueless & leave it at that.
Sir:
I do not accuse you of being a bigot. You gave yourself the label.
You have no data to support the existence of voter fraud other than statistics on actual prosecutions.
Photo IDs are not the panacea you claim. Witness phony passports. Witness the fabrication of phony passports by the U.S. Government. Witness the phony IDs used to get a drink.
Will you support, or will you equivocate over, zero tolerance for wrongful convictions in the criminal justice system?
Will you support, or will you equivocate over, zero tolerance of racial profiling by government authorities, including police?
Minnesota, by the Minnesota Supreme Court’s own admission in 1993, has one of the most egregious examples of a criminal justice system riddled with racial disparity. The racially disparate use of facially neutral felony convictions to disenfranchise African-Americans and non-Caucasians, and achieve by the back door what cannot be achieved by the front door on account of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. When the author of the blog addresses race in this manner, then I will say that freedom is ringing more loudly in this corner of the internet.
When you said that I’d “keep people who do not look like [me] off the rolls by any means necessary,” what point were you making? If you weren’t suggesting that I’m a racist, what was the purpose of your statement?
I agree that there isn’t a single silver bullet solution. Still, without an ID, it’s impossible to guarantee that the person voting is who they say they are, much less eligible to vote in that precinct.
Wrongful convictions must be eliminated to the extent that it’s humanly possible. PERIOD.
No. There are times when race is a component of looking for criminals. If, however, you mean, am I opposed to police officers giving a black man an extra look in a certain part of town simply because he’s black, then, yes, I’m against that.
So we should throw that entire part of the statute out? The law is what the law is. If you have a superior solution, by all means, speak up & let us in on your solution.
Sir:
Solution 1.
Admit the moral and legal wrong of racial disparity in the criminal justice system exists. See the 1993 Minnesota Supreme Court Report on Racial Justice.
Solution 2.
Require data collection by law enforcement officers on the race and/or ancestry of suspects seized, arrested, charged, detained, cited, or otherwise deprived of liberty. This entails enactment of legislation that ex-Governor Pawlenty and ex-Commissar of Public Safety Stanek opposed.
Solution 3
Report racial disparities in the judicial system publicly on all available public media.
Solution 4
Judges must stop making excuses for racially intolerant cops in probable cause findings. Throw judges out who do not.
Solution 5
Reduce sentencing disparities between crack and powdered cocaine to 1:1, as State v. Russell prescribes.
Solution 6
Decriminalize possession of small masses of controlled substances. The War on Drugs is a pretext for Big Government control.
Solution 7
Abolish the Department of Fatherland Security. See #6.
Solution 8
Repeal Public Law 107-56 (mislabeled Patriot Act)
Solution 9
Make firearms education compulsory in public schools, with an out for conscientious objectors.
Other issues to consider
a. Did the convicted felons who voted have driver’s licenses?
b. Did the unlawful voters live in Mr. Banaian’s district?
Sir:
Your column on Photo ID overlooks the most influential voter: Big Money.
Solutions:
1. Abolish corporate personhood by constitutional amendment.
2. Establish publicly funded mass media on the funding model of the BBC and Canadian Broadcasting Co. — a tax on each radio, television, and computer to feed into a trust fund that pays for wide variety of programming and air time for political parties and candidates across the spectrum, to make unnecessary fawning, prostitution, and prostration before corporate Mammon.
3. Eliminate gerrymandering in municipalities, counties, and school boards by mixed-member proportional representation.
4. Establish a unicameral legislature elected by mixed-memer proportional representation that assures geographic representation across the state and political representation consistent with the total state electorate, subject to low thresholds, such as 3 – 5 percent, as seen in Scandinavia and Germany
5. Public financing of judicial elections, at least at the Court of Appeals and Supreme Court levels. Wisconsin and North Carolina have working models. Wisconsin has a working, winning model in addition to the Packers.
I see that you’re a member of the National Lawyers Guild. Aren’t they the same organization that paid Lynne Stewart to represent the Blind Sheikh for being the mastermind of the original World Trade Center bombings? The Lynne Stewart who was the Blind Sheikh’s conduit for getting his instructions out to other terrorists?
I see that you’re a civil rights attorney. In other words, you see violations that don’t exist. I’m shocked. Go away unless you have specific proof of your insinuations.
I am a member of the NLG.
NLG lawyers prosecuted Nazis for war crimes in Germany. My godfather was one of those lawyers. As a GI, he also helped to liberate Dachau.
NLG lawyers put people ahead of profits. Do you have a problem with that?
NLG attorneys also assist terrorists. See Lynne Stewart. Yes, I have a big problem with that.
The NLG isn’t what it once was. Unfortunately, from what I’ve about them the past 3-5 years, they’re a cesspool of progressive causes. Yes, I’ve got a major problem with that, too.
Sir:
The NLG has helped to send Fascists to the Promised Land, or Valhalla for those of Teutonic persuasion. As I indicated earlier, I am most proud of the fact that my godfather helped to liberate Dachau, assisted in the prosecution of Nazi war criminals, and assisted in the rebuilding of German trade unions in Stuttgart and the surrounding area.
The NLG has its own martyrs, including legal workers Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney, who were murdered by Klansmen in Philadelphia County, Mississippi during Freedom Summer of 1964. Their deaths helped to make the case for the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Their murderers were brought to justice four decades later.
As far as your tirades about NLG defending “terrorists,” why don’t you criticize lawyers who defend war criminals like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Addington, and Yoo?
With respect to the original issue of voter fraud, why have you no comment on the U.S. Attorneys who lost their jobs in 2005 – 2006 for refusing to prosecute people for voter fraud, when there was no evidence of the same?
As another historic fact, Joe McCarthy of McCarthy Era fame began his final alcoholic descent into the next life when he attacked the General Counsel of the Army during Senate hearings in 1954 for having an associate who was a member of the NLG in law school.
“Have you no shame, have you no decency, sir?” General Counsel Welch demanded of McCarty, as McCarthy unraveled.
Even in death, McCarthy could not avoid the NLG. McCarthy’s chief of staff, Roy Cohn, referred McCarthy to his Columbia Law School classmate to prepare his last will and testament. The lawyer who performed this duty was William Kunstler.
As far your blog goes, I note that Pennsylvania’s lawmakers gave the Liberty Bell several new starts in life after the original bell, and its recast new editions, cracked. As the Liberty Bell received a second chance, and a third chance, and more in life to sing its tune, so shall you have the opportunity to sing your tune, sir, in spite of criticism or error on your part.
And you can bet a lawyer from the NLG will defend your right to communicate right down the line.
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz & Feith aren’t war criminals. Only in the warped minds of beyond-the-pale progressives are they war criminals.
I don’t doubt that the NLG once was a great organization. It’s just that I’m confident that they’re no longer a proud, sane organization because they’ve been hijacked by insane progressives.