Private Citizens Fight Voter Fraud--Upholding the law when government won't. (True the Vote)

Pajamas Media ^ | January 25, 2011 | J. Christian Adams

[jazusamo]

This past weekend, citizens from across Texas held a summit in Houston to help protect the future integrity of the electoral process. Called “True the Vote,” this amalgam of tea party groups and interested citizens met to learn about how they can fight voter fraud when their governments won’t. True the Vote is going nationwide in March with a summit for the rest of the country. Citizens who care about honest elections can, at last, do something about it.

At PJM, I’ve covered the corrupt abdication of law enforcement obligations when it comes to fighting voter fraud. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes instructed the Department of Justice Voting Section that federal laws requiring voter rolls to be free of ineligible voters won’t be enforced. Former Voting Section Chief Christopher Coates testified that Fernandes and other Obama appointees spiked at least eight investigations into states with voter roll problems.

The Obama DOJ hasn’t brought a single case to require a state to remove dead and ineligible felon voters from the rolls. Fernandes spiked these investigations because she is ideologically opposed to enforcing laws protecting election integrity — and she relishes the partisan benefits of inaction.

When governments fail to do their job, citizens must rush into the breach. Various federal laws provide citizens the right to act like a privatized attorney general. Section 8 of the Motor Voter law requires states to have only eligible and legal voters on the rolls. Citizens have the legal power to review, and even demand, voter registration data to detect fraud.

Yet almost 20 years after Motor Voter was enacted, only left-wing activist groups have utilized the provisions of the law. Neither political parties nor private citizens have used the law to fight voter fraud.

Enter True the Vote, formed in Houston, Texas, by citizen activists energized by the rise of the tea party movement.

Together, they sought a task where they could make a difference. Issue-driven battles in the 1990s saw Ross Perot’s forces assemble and then disperse when the issues like term limits or insider dealing withered. Instead, True the Vote adopted a process-driven agenda — secure the integrity of American elections and fight voter fraud.

It was a good choice. Although millions poured into operations like ACORN and others dedicated to high-volume ballot access regardless of eligibility, hardly anyone representing the silent millions of law-abiding Americans stood watch on Election Day. Never before had the voter fraudsters been challenged by a well-organized and brilliant foe.

Before the 2010 election, True the Vote reviewed thousands of pages of voter data in Houston. They found non-citizens registered to vote, citizens registered at vacant lots, forgeries in registrations, and multiple registrations of the same individuals. These violations of federal and Texas law were forwarded to the Department of Justice as well as Texas authorities.

Hopefully, both agencies will take advantage of the hard work of True the Vote and enforce the laws they are charged to enforce. Thus far, nothing has happened.
The lack of government action corroborates my testimony and the testimony of Christopher Coates. Perhaps Chairman Lamar Smith’s Judiciary Committee can add the absence of DOJ response to their oversight agenda.

At the True the Vote National Summit in March, these data mining and analysis methods will be shared with activists nationwide.

True the Vote is also revolutionizing poll monitoring on Election Day. While political parties have deployed poll watcher programs, few can match the zeal and scope of True the Vote. In Harris County alone, almost 800 True the Vote trained poll watchers were deployed across Houston.

Every election, the Department of Justice deploys poll observers all over the nation, usually between 500 and 1,000. True the Vote has copied the federal observer program in almost every respect — placing hundreds of highly trained eyes and ears inside the polls to carefully memorialize everything. These reports are then forwarded to law enforcement.

It is obvious they are successful when their efforts anger both Representative Sheila Jackson Lee and the New Black Panther Party. For years, polling places in many parts of the nation were free-for-alls, plagued by forced assistance, poll officials voting for voters, and precinct bosses telling people how to vote. Lawlessness reigned. True the Vote shatters their stranglehold on electoral corruption.

Couldn’t we just rely on government to police the polls? Hardly. As I’ve detailed at PJM, in places like Hale County, Alabama, certain DOJ Voting Section lawyers actually supported the bad behavior. They viewed effective minority turnout as more important than following the law. If hundreds of voters were told how to vote by assistors, it was but a small price to pay to reverse centuries of disenfranchisement.

These offending government officials are still in the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice.

The True the Vote National Summit is March 25^th to 26^th in Houston. Those seeking to learn about the laws and ideas available to fight voter fraud should attend. I will be speaking, and so will other experts, to describe the federal laws available for citizens to fight voter fraud, data mining methods to detect voter registration fraud, and Election-Day operations to deter and record electoral malfeasance.

Never before has a systematic counter-fraud operation been deployed so successfully. True the Vote wants to help establish similar operations across the country.

2012 is just around the corner. If you are one of those Americans who want to make a difference but don’t know how, we’ll see you in Houston.

J. Christian Adams is an election lawyer who served in the Voting Rights Section at the U.S. Department of Justice. His website is www.electionlawcenter.com.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

And it took you more than 20 words to explain why it means what you say it means.

It took more than 20 words to explain it to you. I grasped the meaning immediately. Perhaps others did too. Dunno.
I do get your point though. It does sound a bit to close to a slang quip like, "True dat".

[Bitsy]

Double yep!

[jazusamo]

BUMP! Hopefully this National Summit in March will be well attended.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[stevie_d_64]

A related story...

The good, the bad, and the downright ugly!!!

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7399973.html

Notice how fast an “Elections Administrator” can sway an election in their county???

Look at the paragraph containing the statement by Pearlie Valadez…I’ll give you one guess as to what their political affiliation is, and who they are beholden to…

This Voter ID may not be effective right away, but eventually, the few who do get caught will bear a price they were not ready to pay…

This is another reason I do not, and will not, and we should all fight against is an “Elections Administrator” position in Harris County…

One person, who is appointed by County Commissioners Court, who is beholden to no one, not the voters, but only to the Court that appointed them to operate and officiate over the elections in that county is too powerful and susceptible to improper influence cannot be allowed to occur…No amount of assurances to the opposite can suppress this fact…Not in Harris County…

Of course, we know who and what the Houston Comical is all about…

As a few in Texas say, the re-election of Joe Strauss to the Speakers position may have serious consequences if this and a few other bills get “chubbed” again like they did in the last legislative session...

Quite a few Republicans who went along with this may have a few hard questions to answer for it if this does happen...

[thulldud]

And it took you more than 20 words to explain why it means what you say it means. FAIL

I understood it immediately. And you may count me as one who rejects and despises the current image-driven, monosyllabic culture that the left has forced upon us.

A picture is supposed to be worth a thousand words, but many things there are which cannot be pictured, and they don't go away just because they aren't seen on TV. Words are the only way to get at such things.

Btw, did anybody happen to notice that in marketing, the immediately obvious is not always the most effective? Banners which require no thought to understand completely are soonest forgotten, while those that raise a question in the onlooker — well, you know what I mean.

At least, the title "True the Vote" has a meaning that can be found out. 40+ years on and still nobody knows what "Monday, Monday" means, or "MacArthur Park".

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

"Monday, Monday"

Egad. I hate that song.

And...totally off topic...I always must ask....What was the lyricist thinking when he/she wrote about a cake being 'left-out-in-the-rain-and-I'll-never-have-that-recipe-again' ?

Maybe I just don't get it.

[La Lydia]

Of course your understood it immediately. So did Bloody. You already are invested and know quite a bit about the cause. But if you weren’t, and didn’t know, your reaction would be very different, something along the lines of “What?” Effective branding appeals to emotion, not reason. There has to be something for people to attach to emotionally, and bizarre English usage doesn’t lend itself to that. So just stand on your principles, all of you, and watch no one attach to what you are taking about. No skin off my nose. Oh, and it was WAY before my time, but I know what “Monday, Monday” and “MacArthur Park” signify, although I think both songs are faintly ridiculous. Loose lips sink ships.

[wintertime]

Voter fraud is treason.

[thulldud]

Maybe I just don't get it.

You weren't supposed to "get it", just buy it.

It worked well enough for its intended purpose.

[wintertime]

Voter fraud is treason.

[thulldud]

Effective branding appeals to emotion, not reason.

I have a deep negative emotional reaction to chickification, however it is branded.

Oh, and it was WAY before my time, but I know what “Monday, Monday” and “MacArthur Park” signify, although I think both songs are faintly ridiculous.

To say "faintly" ridiculous is a poor choice of words; Mark Twain had something to say about that. But if you actually understand lyrics that were intentionally written to have no particular meaning, then I guess I can understand your understanding of English usage.

As the cockroach might say, no chitin off my ventral carapace.

Oh, btw, I don't live in TX, and today was the first time I heard of "True the Vote."

[Eye of Unk]

There was a prime opportunity to True the Vote in Alaska recently, but hardly anyone was interested.

And so in the wake of it remains a Senator back in office who performs a daily act of selling out, crosses party lines and is basically a Republican Turncoat.

Her votes should have been exposed for validity but instead they were allowed to progress without scrutiny.

[La Lydia]

Misogynistic snark from cranky old geezers does not count as a rational response. I am describing reality, not defending it.

[Eva]

Right, a death penalty for voter fraud.

In Philadelphia, in the 2000 election, Al Gore garnered more votes than there were people of voting age in Philadelphia. Ed Rendell, the former mayor of Philadelphia, was head of the Democrat party. They were using touch screen voting machines that were allegedly programmed by a man who had already served time in jail for voter fraud in another state.

Voter fraud is an institutionalized part of the Democrat party. That was the real reason that the justice dept dropped the case against the New Black Panthers, they were afraid the investigation would expand to other areas of voter fraud and intimidation in Philadelphia.

[jazusamo]

I believe in photo ID and also think it’s good they’re stiffening the penalty for vote fraud. Jail time is warranted and if someone decides to undermine out system they deserve to be locked up.

Mail in votes do offer a greater opportunity for fraud and that makes it more important to purge dead registered voters from the system. Holder and his thugs are not interested in enforcing the law requiring states and counties to remove dead voters, one more reason for him to be investigated.

It seems the True the Vote movement is effective at checking voter lists for bogus registered voters and this alone can make a significant difference.

If all of the above are done nationwide it surely wouldn’t stop all voter fraud but would come close, IMO.

[jazusamo]

You’re correct. Republicans rejected Murky but Dems wanted her and they got her, both in Alaska and in the Senate.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

You already are invested and know quite a bit about the cause.

FWIW, I've never heard of it until I read this thread.

[La Lydia]

Never given a thought to voter identification and verification, eh?

[apocalypto]

bump