Feds Nix Vote Suppression Law in S.C.
South Carolina's past came back to haunt the state last week when the Department of Justice rejected its new voter identification law, a tarted-up version of the Jim Crow era poll tax. Because of the state's history of electoral abuses aimed at minorities, South Carolina and many other jurisdictions in the South must have any new voting measures likely to affect minorities approved by the U.S. attorney general or a panel of federal judges under the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Proponents insist such laws are needed to stop voting fraud...except voting fraud is virtually non-existent. After an intense investigation by the Bush Justice Department between 2002 and 2006, the government prosecuted exactly zero voting fraud cases despite 300 million ballots cast during that period.
When I told a conservative friend this, he went off on ACORN, which is also non-existent. "I don't understand why people have a problem getting a photo ID," whined another buddy who's a Tea Partier. Not the point, I patiently explained. In the past, you could show up at the polls with a voter registration card and sign an affidavit. Why, suddenly, is it necessary to obtain a government issued picture ID?
Here's a possible answer: The Justice Department told South Carolina its law was discriminatory because minority voters in the state were 20 percent less likely to have a governnment-issued photo ID.
Let's be honest, shall we? African-Americans generally don't favor Republican policies or candidates. This is reflected in the number of minorities who call themselves Republicans, just 11 percent, according to a 2009 Gallup poll. More telling is that 95 percent of African-American voters went for Barack Obama in 2008.
None of this is lost on the GOP-controlled state legislatures that scurried to pass strict new voter ID laws in the wake of Obama's inauguration. The goal is very simple: Place as many obstacles as possible between voting booths and those likely to cast their ballots for Democrats.
It's not going to stand, as the good folks in the Palmetto State learned.
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And just because congress passed the DEFUND ACORN ACT in 2009, that doesn't mean it's gone. It lives on, with names changed and is even getting funds from the Obama Administration in defiance of the law.
New York Communities for Change has funded the Occupy movement. New England United 4 Justice is another spinoff. According to Andrew Breitbart's Big Government blog, Obama’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) gave ACORN $461,086 last January. The funds were earmarked for ACORN Housing Corp. under HUD’s Self-help Homeownership Opportunity Program (SHOP), according to the government website USAspending.gov.
The administration isn’t even trying to conceal the fact that it gave this money to ACORN.
USAspending.gov identifies the recipient as “ACORN Housing Corporation Inc.” even though that nonprofit entity filed papers last year legally changing its name to Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA).
The website also provides the address of record for ACORN Housing as 1024 Elysian Fields Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana. That’s the renovated funeral home that until recently served as headquarters for ACORN’s 370-plus shady affiliates.
This means the Obama administration has given at least $540,905 in taxpayer money to ACORN last calendar year alone.
The money was given to ACORN in defiance of Public Law 111-117 which spells out in pretty clear terms that ACORN should not be funded with taxpayer monies.
Now what was that about voter fraud again?
Also, are the dead people who didn't have voter ID but who apparently cast ballots in a recent SC election disenfranchised if they aren't able to vote again? Having dead people vote isn't voter fraud? How many black, white, purple people don't have ID cards of some sort anyway? How hard is it to pick one up for free from the DMV if one doesn't drive? How do these people survive in the modern world?
This last question never gets answered by liberals who don't like photo ID cards for voters, which I've never understood. I think this is where a lot of conservatives feel liberals are just crazy, and Southerners feel discriminated against because other states can have these laws to protect their elections, but Southerners cannot.
Anyway, I can't remember the last time I did anything without a photo ID. I was asked for one when I bought a bottle of wine at the store. I had to show one when I cashed my last check. I also had to have one when I voted last.
Somehow, this wasn't difficult for me.
Why is it difficult for anyone else?