Democracy Has Prevailed.

July 26, 2012

Darn That Chris Potter!

In a comment to this blog post, comet pilot Bram bammed:
http://www.pghcitypaper.com/SlagHeap/archives/2012/07/24/did-the-state-really-concede-that-voter-fraud-never-happens

It's good that the lawyers put this aside. The important issue isn't whether or not there has been vote fraud -- the important thing is that the "remedy" or "safeguard" disenfranchises thousands of people in this year.

People are realizing how many people get by without "necessities" like a Drivers' License, prescription medication, and Giant Eagle cards.
The link is, of course, to Potter's slag heap.

In a blog post titled "Did the state REALLY concede that voter fraud never happens?" Potter gives us an annoying answer:
Not exactly.
His reasoning?
As the stipulation agreement notes, the state's "sole rationale for the Photo ID law," is contained in a response to written questions filed by the ACLU. And in that answer, the state makes quite clear that it has plenty of suspicions that Voter ID does take place ... and that one purpose of the law is to ferret out such cases.

State officials "are aware of reports indicating that votes have been cast in the name of registered electors who are deceased, who no longer reside in Pennsylvania , or who no longer reside in the jurisdiction where the vote is cast," the state's answer asserts. And without some proof of ID, the state contends, "there is a risk that votes may be cast in the names of registered electors who are dead or who have left [the area] by a person other than the registered voters ... Requiring a photo ID is one way to ensure that every elector who presents himself to vote [is] the person that he purports to be, and to ensure that the public has confidence in the electoral process. The requirement of a photo ID is a tool to detect and deter voter fraud." [emphasis in original.]
I haven't been able to find the State's response to the ACLU's interrogatories (a little help, Chris? Bram?) so I can't link to it.  So while Pennsylvania stipulates no evidence of voter fraud, they're now saying that they need the law to find the evidence they suspect is out there.

Potter has more:
What's more, even after reading a fuller explanation of the state's position, it's not as if they have a particularly strong case. Many of the voting irregularities it cites are more than a decade old, took place in other states, or both. Some of them are simply canards: Chris Briem at Null Space, for example, has previously addressed the myth of dead voters showing up at polls.
But still, he says, it's a "distortion" to say that Pennsylvania admitted that there's no voter fraud.

Ok, fine.  He's right.  Leave it to Potter to buzz kill our triumphant chest thumping with, you know, facts and stuff.

7 comments:

Social Justice NPC Anti-Paladin™ said...

I love the progressive talking point that Voter Fraud is not a problem because the "extremist" Bush DOJ only found 8 cases.
The same Bush DOJ that railroaded a Republican Senator to give the Democrats a filibuster proof majority.

Dayvoe said...

That's RIGHT! The Bush DOJ was such a fan of the Democrat party that they railroaded Ted Stevens, an innocent man!

Social Justice NPC Anti-Paladin™ said...

The public integrity section of the Bush DOJ is so full of Democratic hacks that they railroaded Ted Stevens, an innocent man and only punished them for misconduct with a 40/20 day suspension.

And prosecutors are fighting that light punishment
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-05-24/ted-stevens-prosecutors-suspended/55192934/1

EdHeath said...

HTTT - and the public integrity section has to do with vote fraud how?

Are you saying the Bush DOJ was not trying to find vote fraud? Do you have evidence they were not trying?

And you have what proof that "The public integrity section of the Bush DOJ is so full of Democratic hacks that they railroaded Ted Stevens, an innocent man"? (which is to say proof of the Bush DOJ being full of Democratic hacks).

EdHeath said...

As for David's post - so the State agrees with the ACLU that there have been virtually no convictions for vote fraud in Pennsylvania, but the State (or perhaps more accurately the legislature) suspects there is a lot of vote fraud, and wants to use the voter ID to expose this fraud.

For that happen, law enforcement officers will have to be stationed at the polls, to arrest people trying to vote whose ID is either a) improper or b) non-existent. The State Attorney General will then have to establish that these persons were trying to vote fraudulently with the intention of influencing the election toward one direction (or the other). In that light, I believe it is possible to describe the voter ID law as a fishing expedition, which seems like a poor premise for a law.

Where does the State (legislature) get its suspicions of wide spread vote fraud from, considering that the State and the ACLU agree there have not been many if any convictions for it? Even if the stipulation means the State does not have to discuss the conviction rate directly, i the State argues the suspicions, that seem to me to open the door to the conviction rate for vote fraud?

Now I don't know what the punishment for have no or improper ID and trying to vote is. I assume that at least you will not be allowed to if your ID is not up to snuff. I suspect there will not be State cops at every polling place. Which means that the State (legislature)'s suspicions will not not be confirmed or invalidated by the election.

What we do know if that Mike Turzai expects that enough voters will be disenfranchised in this fishing expedition to win the State for Romney. That is the practical effect, robbing perhaps hundreds of thousands of their right to vote.

By the way, who was the last Pennsylvania Attorney General, who failed to find instances of vote fraud that the Legislature seems to think there is so much?

Social Justice NPC Anti-Paladin™ said...

The DOJ (under Bush and Obama)
never prosecutes prosecutorial misconduct
rarely prosecutes Police Misconduct see Jordan Miles.
Never prosecutes torture by Government officials.

So like Voter Fraud, those almost never happen and are not a problem.

EdHeath said...

HTTT, you are living in a weird bubble. There are some high profile cases where indeed either Bush and/or Obama's Justice department drops the ball. But Bush tried hard to find cases of vote fraud on the Democratic side. There may well have been vote fraud in 2004, but it all favoured Bush, and so was not worth prosecuting. Bush's Justice department efforts toward vote fraud