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Out of 1.3 Million voter registrations, only 450,000 were legit

True the Vote is a citizen-led effort to restore truth, faith, and integrity to our elections.  On their website, they post many informative articles about the fact that our “free and fair elections” are not as free and fair as most may think.  Below is a recent post they put up with links about former ACORN voter registration director Amy Busefink, who was in charge when only 450,000 of 1.3 million claimed registrations turned out to be legitimate new voters.  Below, you can read the post as well as the article from Watchdog.org that they linked to:

“Vote Fraudster Lobbies Against TX Election Bills”

 Link: “Busefink was in charge of ACORN’s infamous 2008 voter registration drive, in which only 450,000 of some 1.3 million claimed registrations turned out to be legitimate new voters. A full 400,000 of those registrations were thrown out; the rest were duplicates or voters who’d moved.

Busefink and supporters such as the ACLU of Texas, the League of United Latin American Citizens, and Texas AFL-CIO, were writing in opposition to three bills.”

Full Article posted by adams@electionlawcenter.com (Christian Adams) at http://electionlawcenter.com/2013/04/22/vote-fraudster-lobbies-against-tx-election-bills.aspx?ref=rss

Convicted vote fraudster lobbies against TX election bills

By Jon Cassidy | Watchdog.org

(Photo via Matthew Vadum, NewsReal Blog)

(Photo via Matthew Vadum, NewsReal Blog)

Former ACORN voter registration director Amy Busefink in court on 13 charges of voter fraud. She was convicted of two counts in a plea deal.

Two dozen left-leaning groups have written the state House Elections Committee in opposition to three bills aimed at preventing voter fraud.

Ironically, one of the April 8 letter’s two authors has multiple voter fraud convictions herself.

Amy Busefink, who signed the letter as the deputy director of Project Vote, was convicted in 2010 in Nevada on two gross misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit the crime of compensation for registration of voters.

Busefink was in charge of ACORN’s infamous 2008 voter registration drive, in which only 450,000 of some 1.3 million claimed registrations turned out to be legitimate new voters. A full 400,000 of those registrations were thrown out; the rest were duplicates or voters who’d moved.

Busefink and supporters such as the ACLU of Texas, the League of United Latin American Citizens, and Texas AFL-CIO, were writing in opposition to three bills. Two bills were sunk in committee — one to reduce early voting from 14 days to eight and another to install video cameras at polling stations. A third bill, Rep. Stephanie Klick’s HB 2372, would have Texas join 22 other states in cross-checking voter registrations to make sure voters aren’t registered in multiple states. It was reported favorably out of committee last week.

The cross-check system, which compares first and last names and dates of birth, has already found 308,579 potential duplicate registrants. Yet Busefink’s group argues that “the technology has not matured to a point where this program could be done without improperly removing otherwise eligible voters.”

Catherine Engelbrecht, president of True the Vote, said a recent study by the Pew Center for the States estimated that 2.75 million Americans are registered in more than one state.

“Amy Busefink represents organizations that violated Texas Election Codes against the proposals that could prevent similar illegal behavior in the future,” Engelbrecht said in a statement. “If you’ve ever wondered why voter ID and other integrity measures became so popular across all demographics, look no further.”

Contact Jon Cassidy at jon@watchdog.org and follow him on Twitter @jpcassidy000.

 

Judicial Watch Sues DOJ for Records

In the April 19th issue of the e-newsletter Judicial Watch, there is a post by their President Tom Fitton detailing their efforts to obtain records revealing “any and all” communications between the DOJ Civil Rights Division and New England United for Justice (NEU4J), the reincarnation of ACORN in New England.  You can read the entire post below:

 

Judicial Watch Sues Department of Justice for Records on Controversial Voter Registration Effort in Massachusetts

As I’ve said before, Judicial Watch’s Election Integrity Project, launched in 2012, continues to be a major priority for the organization. The next election season is already almost upon us, believe it or not, with the mid-terms next year. Much remains to be learned from dissecting the Left’s attempts to lie, cheat and steal votes during the last go-around.

And so JW’s investigations continue, including our efforts to get to the bottom of a rather obvious effort to aid the campaign of Elizabeth Warren, now a Senator from Massachusetts.

On March 27, 2013, we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) to obtain records revealing “any and all” communications between the DOJ Civil Rights Division and New England United for Justice (NEU4J), NEU4J President Maude Hurd, the NAACP, Demos, and Project Vote regarding the enforcement and implementation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) in Massachusetts. (Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.)

The Judicial Watch lawsuit came in response to the failure of the DOJ to comply with two separate FOIA requests regarding voter registration activities in Massachusetts. In both cases, the DOJ not only failed to produce the records in the time period required under FOIA, it also failed to indicate when the records would be produced, as required by law. No surprises there, right?

Now here’s what we’re specifically after pursuant to our original May 24, 2012, FOIA request submitted to the DOJ Civil Rights Division seeking information dating back to January 1, 2011:

Any and all records of communications between any official or employee of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and any officer, employee or representative of New England United for Justice (NEU4J), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and/or Demos, regarding, concerning, or related to the implementation and enforcement of the National Voter Registration Act in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Any and all records of communications between any official of the Department of Justice and Ms. Maude Hurd, the President of New England United for Justice.

By a letter dated May 29, 2012, the DOJ Civil Rights Division acknowledged receiving the Judicial Watch FOIA on May 24, and was required by law to respond by June 21, 2012. It failed to do so.

Regarding the second FOIA, on August 20, 2012, we sent a request to the Civil Rights Division seeking the following information also dating back to January 1, 2011:

Any and all records of communications between any official or employee of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and any officer, employee or representative of New England United for Justice (NEU4J), Demos, and/or Project Vote regarding, concerning, or related to voter registration in Massachusetts.

By a letter dated August 21, 2012, the Civil Rights Division acknowledged receiving the FOIA request on the same day, and was required by law to respond by September 19, 2012. Once again, it failed to do so.

The Judicial Watch lawsuit filed on March 27 asks that the District Court order the Obama DOJ to “conduct a search for any and all responsive records” to the FOIA and “produce, by a certain date, any and all non-exempt records,” along with an index of all records the department continues to declare exempt. It also asks the Court grant Judicial Watch attorney’s fees and additional litigation costs.

Now let’s get to the heart of why this information matters.

According to a Judicial Watch analysis of records, NEU4J is the reincarnation of the corrupt “community organization” ACORN in New England, the nationwide Obama-tied community organization famous for operating fraudulent voter registration drives during the 2008 presidential campaign. Judicial Watch research found that ACORN’s Boston office rebranded into New England United for Justice, headed by Maude Hurd, the former president of ACORN and ACORN Housing. (Click here to read JW’s special report on ACORN rebranding.)

And in 2012, the ACORN-connected organization was up to its old tricks.

In the final days of the senatorial election campaign between then-Sen. Scott Brown current and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, NE4J’s Hurd orchestrated a move by the state of Massachusetts to send out voter registration letters to some 500,000 welfare recipients. The mailing was forced through by the Department of Transitional Assistance after a lawsuit pushed by Hurd’s New England United for Justice. The mailings, which were seen to directly aid the Warren campaign, cost taxpayers nearly $275,000. The state also had to advertise on TV and radio stations, again targeting welfare recipients.

In March, the DOJ’s Office of Inspector General issued a report raising questions about inappropriate coordination and conduct on this election integrity issue by the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and outside left-wing groups. Thomas Perez, President Obama’s nominee for Labor Secretary, had headed the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and has stonewalled the American people for nearly a year now. (Perez reportedly “breezed” through a Senate hearing this week on his nomination.)

Now, as you know by now, this latest lawsuit against the DOJ is part of the JW’s comprehensive Election Integrity Project, which seeks to force states to maintain accurate voter registration lists, while upholding voter integrity measures, such as Voter ID laws.

Judicial Watch has been a leading critic of the Obama DOJ’s efforts to abuse Section 7 of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which seeks to expand the number of registered voters on public assistance, while failing to enforce Section 8 of the NVRA, which requires states to maintain clean voter registration lists. In fact, we’ve done more than criticize. We’ve gone to court over the matter and sued states directly to clean up the rolls.

And we’ve also taken actions to expose the rampant collusion between the DOJ and leftist special interest groups.

It seems clear from our investigations that leftist special interest groups are running the DOJ and we need to know the full extent of this corrupt partnership – especially on this matter of election integrity.

We aim to get to the bottom of this corrupt partnership.


Waste Book

Every year, Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn puts out a report called the “Waste Book” which details the reckless spending in Washington.  The 2012 report came out in October and featured expenses such as a $325,000 charge to build a “Robo-Squirrel”.  A video and article from ABC News on the Waste Book can be found below:

Coburn’s ‘Waste Book’ Details $19 Billion in Eye-Opening Government Expenses

 

What do robotic squirrels, menus for Martian meals and a musical about climate change have in common?

 

They’ve all been made possible with taxpayer assistance, according to the latest survey of government waste put out by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.

Known simply as the Waste Book, the report is a watchlist of eye-opening expenditures, which Coburn blames on a “let them eat caviar” attitude in Washington — at a time when “23 million of our fellow Americans do not have good jobs,” Coburn notes.

Coburn, while chiding the agencies that spend this money for their “lack of judgment,” said Congress is also to blame for failing in its oversight duties.

“We’re running trillion-dollar deficits. The way you get rid of trillion-dollar deficits — a billion at a time,” Coburn told Fox News on Tuesday.

Here are some highlights of the report:

— Though skeptics say there’s no such thing as a free cellphone or service funded by the federal government, Coburn’s report shows otherwise. It estimates that taxpayers are subsidizing phone service at a cost of nearly $1.5 billion a year. Though the roots of the program can be traced back to an effort in the 1930s to make sure all Americans had access to telecommunications, it has morphed into a program that provided free cell service to some 16,500,000 participants last year.

— Though NASA has no plans or budget for any manned spaceflights to Mars, the agency spends about $1 million each year on developing “the Mars menu.” It’s an effort to come up with a variety of food that humans could eat one day on Mars.

— A $325,000 grant for the development of “Robosquirrel” – a robotic rodent designed to test the interaction between rattlesnakes and squirrels.

— An estimated $70 million loss for producing pennies. According to the Waste Book, “The cost to produce a penny in 2012 is more than two times its actual value.” After the pennies are manufactured and sold at face value, taxpayers are left to cover the loss.

— The report spotlights widespread abuse of the food stamp system — including an exotic dancer who earned more than $85,000 a year in tips, but also collected nearly $1,000 a month in food stamps while spending $9,000 during that time period on “cosmetic enhancements.”

— Nearly $700,000 from the National Science Foundation to a New York-based theater company so it could develop a musical about climate change and biodiversity. “The Great Immensity” opened in Kansas City this year. Along with the songs one reviewer described as sounding like “a Wikipedia entry set to music,” the audience was also able to experience “flying monkey poop.”

In all, the 2012 Waste Book report details 100 examples totaling nearly $19 billion. Coburn acknowledges that’s a drop in the bucket in contrast to the overall federal deficit, which tops $16 trillion, but he says the items are snapshots of the bigger problem.

“Would you agree with Washington that these represent national priorities, or would you conclude these reflect the out-of-touch and out-of-control spending threatening to bankrupt our nation’s future?” he said.

This type of treatment is unacceptable! Just say no!

Below is a note from the Facebook page of Dan Bongino, Maryland Political Candidate.  Such a shame to see that things like this go on but good for Dan for standing up for what’s right:

 

To the cowards who sent a false press release to some members of the media this morning and interrupted my precious time with my daughter during parent’s day at school. And to the cowards who put nails in my wife’s tires while she was pregnant with my daughter Amelia. And to the cowards who put nails in the tires of my campaign staff at the GOP convention. And to the cowards who have thrown things at my home late at night waking my now one year old daughter. And to the cowards who have put eggs in our mailbox. And to the cowards who have left vitriolic messages on my home’s answering machine and sent hate mail to my home:

You have only strengthened my resolve to fight here & fight now. We will never be intimidated, we will never walk away, we will never be silenced, & we will never stop fighting against the power-brokers of both political parties who believe that a political title is the hallmark of dignity. It is not, dignity & honor are earned by standing for what is right & just, not what is easy & popular.

-Dan

Voter ID Law

In the March 29th issue of Judicial Watch, there is a link to an article about a case that is currently in front of the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the right of the state of Arizona to ensure that every vote cast in the state is legitimate.  Below is the blog post from Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton regarding this case:

 

JW Monitors Arizona Voter ID Law Supreme Court Showdown

Last week, JW attorney Jim Peterson and I visited the U.S. Supreme Court with former Arizona State Senate President Russell Pearce to attend oral arguments concerning a critical issue – the right of the state of Arizona to ensure that every vote cast in the state is legitimate.

Senator Pearce was the driving force behind Proposition 200 (the Arizona Taxpayer and Citizen Projection Act), which requires voters to offer proof of citizenship before casting a ballot. (As you may recall, Senator Pearce also crafted SB1070, Arizona’s tough illegal immigration enforcement law.)

Now I cannot believe we have allowed illegal immigration activists to bully public officials and the courts to the point where clean elections have become controversial. But here we are in the Supreme Court fighting over a basic American principle in a high-stakes case that will have ripple effects across the country.

How high stakes? As UPI put it last October, “an eventual Supreme Court decision will help shape the voting landscape of the future…” The Guardian noted this week that as many as 16 states would be immediately impacted:

The Supreme Court was hearing oral arguments on Monday in a case which will decide whether US states can require voters to submit proof of citizenship to cast a ballot.

The case focuses on whether a voter-approved Arizona law known as Proposition 200, which requires voters to prove they are US citizens, violates federal law. Four other states, Alabama, Georgia, Kansas and Tennessee, have similar laws while 12 other states are contemplating such legislation, officials told The Associated Press.

The measure, amended state laws to require voters to show proof of citizenship to register as well as ID at the polls. Defenders of the law, enacted in 2004 with 55% of the vote, say it is necessary to prevent people from fraudulently impersonating registered voters at the election booth.

Does the country have a problem with election fraud?  You bet. Independent research published by the non-partisan Pew Charitable Trust in February 2012 indicated that, at that time, approximately 24 million active voter registrations throughout the United States – or one out of every eight registrations – were either no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate.

And the situation has gotten no better under the Obama administration which not only refuses to enforce provisions of the National Voter Registration Act (which requires that states keep clean voter registration lists), but bends over backwards to attack states that try to impose any voter integrity measure.

As you know, Judicial Watch has led the fight for voter integrity. We launched our Election Integrity campaign in 2012 to force states to clean up their voter registration lists and earned some key victories. And specifically relevant to this case, JW filed an amicus curiae brief on December 14, 2012, with the United States Supreme Court challenging the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit declaring that Arizona’s Prop 200 violated the NVRA. (Judicial Watch filed the amicus brief on behalf of Senator Pearce.)

Now let’s take a look at exactly what Prop 200 requires. According to the law, state election officials “shall reject any application for registration that is not accompanied by satisfactory evidence of United States citizenship.”

Such evidence can include a driver’s license, a photocopy of a birth certificate or passport, naturalization documents, or “other documents that are meant as proof that [may be] established pursuant to” federal immigration laws. On April 17, 2012, the Ninth Circuit ruled that voter registration provisions of Arizona’s Proposition 200 violated certain provisions of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. On October 15, 2012, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council, a challenge to Proposition 200.

With its amicus curiae brief Judicial Watch maintains that the Ninth Circuit erred when ruling that the NVRA “accept and use” provision prohibited states from requiring additional documentation:

The NVRA also does not provide that it is the exclusive authority on eligibility verification or that, as the Ninth Circuit contended, “Arizona’s only role was to make [the Federal] [F]orm available to applicants and to ‘accept and use’ it for the registration of voters.” [Emphasis added] The language of the statute not only does not prohibit additional documentation requirements, it permits states to “require . . . such identifying information . . . as is necessary to enable the appropriate State election official to assess the eligibility of the applicant . . .” Besides express authorization for a state to “develop and use” a form compliant with the statute’s criteria, the NVRA also provides that “each State shall establish procedures to register to vote in elections for Federal office . . .”

Judicial Watch further argues that, “The Ninth Circuit also failed to give any weight to the stated goal of the NVRA to ‘protect the integrity of the electoral process’ and ‘enhance the participation of eligible citizens as voters in elections for Federal office’ as guiding purposes of the statute. [Emphasis added] Under no sensible reading of the statute is the goal of election integrity advanced by allowing non-citizens to vote.”

As our client Russell Pearce stated when we jointly filed our amicus brief, the rule of law must prevail: “The Ninth Circuit Court ruling ignores the rule of law, common sense and states’ rights. This court (Ninth Circuit) is apparently okay with illegal votes or non-citizens voting. This ruling absolutely flies in the face of common sense and ignores the will of the people of Arizona, who overwhelmingly passed Proposition 200 in 2004.”

We hope the Supreme Court sees the wisdom in these arguments. There is no coherent reason for refusing to allow states to check voter identification other than a desire to circumvent the law and let non-citizens determine the results of American elections. The people of Arizona, and every other state, have the right to protect the sanctity of the ballot box. I am cautiously optimistic, after attending listening to the oral argument, that the High Court will uphold Prop 200 and election integrity.

Stay tuned…

Alliance for Double Voting

Double Voting, where people vote multiple times in the same election, is becoming a more prevalent problem and states are becoming more and more diligent about watching out for this.  Below is an article from TC Palm, a local Florida Paper, discussing how the State of Florida has joined an alliance that cross-checks voter registrations.  You can read the entire article below:

 

Florida joins multi-state alliance watching for double voting

FILE PHOTO<br />
Leslie Swan (center), the supervisor of elections for Indian River County, looks over vote totals with Gary Gordon, IT manager at the facility, and Dick Lemoi, warehouse manager, during a test of voting equipment with members of the canvassing board from Vero Beach, Sebastian and Fellsmere in 2011. Swan agrees that fighting voter fraud (people completing ballots in multiple states) is difficult with the way things are set up now. "You have no way of figuring out which ballot was theirs," said Leslie Swan, Indian River County supervisor of elections.<br />

FILE PHOTO Leslie Swan (center), the supervisor of elections for Indian River County, looks over vote totals with Gary Gordon, IT manager at the facility, and Dick Lemoi, warehouse manager, during a test of voting equipment with members of the canvassing board from Vero Beach, Sebastian and Fellsmere in 2011. Swan agrees that fighting voter fraud (people completing ballots in multiple states) is difficult with the way things are set up now. “You have no way of figuring out which ballot was theirs,” said Leslie Swan, Indian River County supervisor of elections.

 

Florida has joined a 22-state alliance that cross-checks voter registrations, with the aim of catching scofflaws who vote in two states during the same election.

State election officials submitted a list of 12 million registered voters to the Kansas Secretary of State’s Office, which oversees the cross-check program it launched in 2006. Kansas examines voting records yearly at no charge.

No definitive data exists for the number of people who illegally double vote, though officials estimate it could number in the thousands in a nationwide election, possibly enough to affect the outcome of tight races, a Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers investigation found last year.

Double voting is especially a concern in Florida, with its numerous part-time residents and heavy influx of out-of-state transplants. Election supervisors have said preventing this type of fraud is crucial because once an unlawful ballot is cast, it can’t be reversed, even if the person is convicted of the crime.

Absentee ballots, which are growing popular, make it easier to pull off this fraud because the person doesn’t need to travel to both states.

Voter fraud is a third-degree felony in Florida, punishable by up to five years in prison.

Florida has begun receiving data from Kansas about duplicate registrations and possible double voters and will need time to sift through the information, said Chris Cate, spokesman for Florida’s elections division.

Cate said the state signed on for one year with Kansas to see how well the program works.

“We will not know how beneficial the partnership will be until we know what information the Kansas project is able to confirm for us,” Cate wrote in an email. “But the potential to improve Florida’s voter rolls is worth the effort it takes to gather information from other states.”

high profile catch

Vicki Davis, Martin County supervisor of elections, said the alliance falls well short of a national database, leaving gaps that fraudulent voters could slip through.

Still, it’s greater interstate scrutiny than Florida was involved in before, making it a worthwhile partnership, she said.

“It’s an added safeguard to protect the voting process,” Davis said. “It would be helpful for the state to have the ability to cross-check our voters … to make sure they are not registered in another state.”

Gertrude Walker, St. Lucie County supervisor of elections, wouldn’t comment on Florida joining the network or the need for interstate cross-checking.

One high-profile case involved Wendy Rosen, a Maryland congressional Democratic candidate who withdrew from the race in September when her state party said she voted both in Maryland and Pinellas County in 2006 and 2010.

In December, Maryland authorities charged her with double voting in the two elections while she was a Florida resident. She faces up to 10 years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Bernie McCabe, state attorney for Pinellas and Pasco counties, said his office dropped the charges against Rosen because the Florida portion of the case seemed questionable.

Rosen lived in Florida when she voted in the two elections, so she might not have broken state laws, McCabe said. He also was told she had last double voted in 2008 and believed Florida’s three-year statute of limitations on voter fraud ran out.

Maryland court records show prosecutors have charged Rosen with double voting in 2006 and 2010, which means the second count falls within Florida’s statute of limitations. Still, McCabe said he won’t pursue charges and will let Maryland prosecute her.

“I’m not saying it couldn’t be a crime in both states,” McCabe said. “We just feel Maryland has a stronger case.”

Cross-checking grows

After Florida’s controversial presidential election in 2000 when votes were mishandled, the state created a database to keep people from voting in two different counties, and most states followed suit. A federal law was passed requiring voters to use their driver’s license or last four digits of their Social Security number to verify identity.

But these measures don’t deter interstate fraud.

Also, voter identification rules, which are highly partisan, are designed to prove people are who they claim to be — U.S. citizens eligible to vote — and not whether they’re registered in only one state.

In 2006, the Kansas secretary of state launched an interstate cross-check program to catch duplicate registrations and potential double voting. Florida is among seven states to join the consortium since November, bumping the membership to 22 states.

The nonprofit Pew Center on the States oversees another cross-checking alliance. Like the Kansas program, its aim is to catch double-voting and clean up duplicate registrations and other faulty records.

This seven-state program flagged Rosen’s voting history.

Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner decided to go with the Kansas network because it’s run by another secretary of state, making it a natural match, Cate said.

Many of the states in that network are glad to see Florida participate because they have snowbirds who flock there during the chillier months, said Brad Bryant, who oversees Kansas elections.

The states submitted about 88 million records this year, almost double the 45 million dispensed in 2012, Bryant said.

Last year, the 15 participating states had 1.4 million duplicates, most of which were unintentional mistakes, such as an elections supervisor not purging outdated records or people failing to mention they’d moved from a different state, Bryant said.

“I would say the majority of them don’t turn out to be double votes,” Bryant said. “Sometimes, they are.”

Cross-checking works best if neighboring states are on board because people tend to migrate to nearby states, Bryant said. For Florida, it helps having Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi part of the network, though Alabama’s nonparticipation creates a gap, he said.

As with any crime, finding evidence that certain people double voted is easier than building an ironclad case against them, Bryant said, noting that 16 people in Kansas have been prosecuted for this felony in six years.

Leslie Swan, Indian River County’s supervisor of elections, agreed with Bryant.

Florida voters who show up registered in two or more states shouldn’t be presumed guilty of fraud, she said, adding they should be notified and given a chance to explain.

Flagging possible lawbreakers voting outside Florida should prove helpful, Swan said. “I definitely think it’s a start.”

Kansas consortium

Florida

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

Colorado

Georgia

Illinois

Iowa

Louisiana

Kansas

Kentucky

Michigan

Mississippi

Missouri

Nebraska

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Virginia

Pew Center

Colorado

Connecticut

Delware

Maryland

Utah

Virginia

Washington

ABOUT THIS STORY

Investigative reporter Scott Wyland looked into the potential for people to vote in two states during the same election, which is especially a concern in Florida with its high number of part-time residents. The investigation found many other states have recognized this problem and are forming alliances to cross-check each other’s voter registrations. Florida recently joined a Kansas-based cross-checking network following the October story.

Flawed Voter Records

USA Today (@USAToday) recently posted an article discussing the Pew Study that said that more than 24 million voter registration records, about 1 in 8, are inaccurate, out of date or duplicates.  You can read the entire USA Today article below:

 

Pew study: 1 in 8 voter records flawed

By Gregory Korte, USA TODAY

Updated 2/14/2012 6:28 AM

WASHINGTON – More than 24 million voter-registration records in the United States— about one in eight — are inaccurate, out-of-date or duplicates. Nearly 2.8 million people are registered in two or more states, and perhaps 1.8 million registered voters are dead.

  • Caucus voters fill out voter registration paperwork Jan. 3 so they can participate in the Republican presidential caucus at the University of Iowa Campus in Iowa City, Iowa.By Brian Ray, APCaucus voters fill out voter registration paperwork Jan. 3 so they can participate in the Republican presidential caucus at the University of Iowa Campus in Iowa City, Iowa.

Those estimates, from a report published today by the non-partisan Pew Center on the States, portray a largely paper-based system that is outmoded, expensive and error-prone.

“We have a ramshackle registration system in the U.S. It’s a mess. It’s expensive. There isn’t central control over the process,” said Lawrence Norden of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

Experts say there’s no evidence that the errors lead to fraud on Election Day. “The perception of the possibility of fraud drives hyper-partisan policymaking,” said David Becker, director of Pew’s election initiatives. But inactive voters do cost money. Inaccurate lists mean wasted money on mailings and extra paper ballots.

In Wood County, Ohio, home of Bowling Green State University, there are 106% as many registered voters as there were people in the 2010 Census. “We can’t explain it, but obviously having a major university here creates challenges to having our voter-registration list cleaned up,” elections director Deborah Hazard said.

Multiple registrations

Nearly 2.8 million people are registered to vote in more than one state.

Number of people registered in:

Two states — 2,688,046

Three states — 68,725

More than three states — 1,807

Source: Pew Center on the States

The 1993 National Voter Registration Act, known as the “motor voter” law, made it easier for people to register to vote by, for example, allowing them to register when they get a state driver’s license.

That same law also made it more difficult to remove someone from the voting rolls. Unless officials have a death certificate or written confirmation from the voter that they’ve moved, a voter must miss two presidential elections — that’s eight years — before they can be removed.

The problem is particularly bad in swing states, where parties, campaigns and others canvass the state registering voters, even if they’re already registered, and often collecting inaccurate information, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted said. “Everybody’s registering you here,” he said. “We don’t really have control of that.”

Husted is asking the U.S. Justice Department for guidance on how to clean up the rolls before the presidential election without violating motor voter. “It undermines voter confidence and creates the potential for voter fraud where people could act and vote on their behalf,” he said.

Pew’s solution: create a multistate data center to give officials voter registrations, motor vehicle records and death certificates from other states, allowing them to spot records that could be removed. That effort is starting this year with Colorado, Delaware, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Virginia and Washington.

“This gives election officials more control over their lists,” Becker said. Even so, the motor voter law still applies: “Nothing happens automatically, and even more importantly, it requires something affirmative from the voter.”

Hazard said Ohio has a similar system to catch voters who die in Ohio, or move within the state. But if a voter moves or dies elsewhere, they can remain on the rolls for years.

Gowdy gets tough with ICE Director Morton

On Tuesday March 19th, ICE Director John Morton was present at a House Judiciary Committee hearing entitled “The Release of Criminal Detainees by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Policy or Politics.” During the hearing, things got heated when South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy accused the department head of endangering the safety of Americans with the recent release of over 2,200 illegal immigrant detainees, including over 600 aggravated felons. You can read more about the exchange here and here, and also watch the video below:

 

Obama’s Release of Illegals

Yesterday afternoon, Newsmax released an article discussing how radio talk show Host Rush Limbaugh called President Obama’s release of hundreds of illegal aliens from local jails an impeachable offense.  You can read the entire article regarding this below:

 

Limbaugh: Obama Release of Illegals ‘An Impeachable Offense’

Wednesday, 27 Feb 2013 06:38 PM

By Todd Beamon

Conservative radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh said on Wednesday that the Obama administration’s release of hundreds of illegal aliens from local jails to save money before huge budget cuts take effect was “an impeachable offense.”

“This is in direct violation of the oath of office,” Limbaugh said on his radio show. “Defend and protect the Constitution of the United States and the people.“We’re opening the doors of prisons before the sequester has even happened, before there have even been any budget cuts,” Limbaugh added. “This is so childish, except the consequences are real for people that live near these detention centers. This is in-the-ground, hard, cold reality.”

Arizona officials on Tuesday lashed out at the White House after the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said they had released hundreds of illegals after the agency reviewed their cases.

The illegals were placed on supervised release, an agency spokeswoman said on Tuesday, which requires them to abide by a strict reporting schedule that may include attending appointments at regional ICE offices and telephone and electronic monitoring.

Gillian M. Christensen, the agency spokeswoman, could not specify how many detainees had been released or when the releases began — though a source told Newsmax that slightly more than 300 illegals had been released across the country since last Thursday, and all were classified as low-security threats.

About 50 immigrants were released from facilities in Pinal County, Ariz., about 70 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, the source told Newsmax.

The agency’s move there was attacked as a serious public-safety threat by Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu.

“These are criminal illegals,” Babeu told Newsmax. “They were headed for deportation — but now, they have received a budget pardon.”

The immigration agency falls under Homeland Security, headed by Secretary Janet Napolitano. About $85 billion in broad government cuts are scheduled to take effect on Friday. Approximately 5.3 percent of the ICE budget would be cut.

“The president of the United States has opened up the jails,” Limbaugh declared on Wednesday. “Hundreds of illegal alien criminals have been released from illegal alien jails.

“Now, I know Obama thinks that he’s harming Republicans,” he added. “This is exacting harm on the country — and it’s entirely unnecessary. None of these so-called budget cuts are necessary. None of this panic is necessary.”

Limbaugh sympathized with Arizona officials, who long have fought the White House on immigration matters. “Apparently, Obama never gets tired of sticking it to Arizona,” he said.

“The purely cynical view is that Obama has just let loose 30,000 new Democrat voters,” Limbaugh said later in the program. “So this is how far Obama’s willing to go to try to punish this country and anybody who stands in the way of him doing and getting what he wants.”

The talk-show host also lambasted the White House for saying earlier on Wednesday that Obama and Homeland Security were not involved in the decision to release the illegals.

Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, said at a news conference reported by the Associated Press, “This was a decision made by career officials at ICE without any input from the White House, as a result of fiscal uncertainty over the continuing resolution, as well as possible sequestration.”

Homeland Security officials also were not aware of the decision until ICE announced it, Carney said.

“He’s not even in charge of his own Department of Homeland Security,” Limbaugh said of Obama. “He’s not even in charge of his own Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. All of this stuff happens; he doesn’t know anything about it.”

He then reminded listeners: “Obama didn’t know about Benghazi, either,” referring to the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. consulate in Libya that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

“He didn’t know about the prisoner release. He didn’t know about Benghazi. I wonder if Napolitano did that.

“A bunch of career bureaucrats did it — and what Carney tried to say was that there’s so much panic in the bureaucracies over the upcoming spending cuts, these massive spending cuts, that they’re practically panicking — and they’re doing things that nobody is aware of until they do them.

“The lengths to which they are now going to try to convince people that Barack Obama has literally no association with this government whatsoever is stunning,” Limbaugh said.

 

Multiple Votes in 2012 Election

The article below from the Tea Party talks about a woman in Ohio who voted multiple times in the 2012 election but claims that she did not commit voter fraud.  Read the article for yourself and you be the judge:

 

Woman Votes Multiple Times in Election 2012 but Denies Voter Fraud!

2/8/13 – Critics of voter ID and other laws cracking down on voter fraud claim they’re unnecessary because fraud is nonexistent. For instance, Brennan Center attorneys Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt claimed last year: “A person casting two votes risks jail time and a fine for minimal gain. Proven voter fraud, statistically, happens about as often as death by lightning strike.”

Well, lightning is suddenly all over Cincinnati, Ohio. The Hamilton County Board of Elections is investigating 19 possible cases of alleged voter fraud that occurred when Ohio was a focal point of the 2012 presidential election. A total of 19 voters and nine witnesses are part of the probe.

Democrat Melowese Richardson has been an official poll worker for the last quarter century and registered thousands of people to vote last year. She candidly admitted to Cincinnati’s Channel 9 this week that she voted twice in the last election.