by Ed Naile
You may have read about the attempts by some members of the NH House to limit voter fraud in our Presidential Primary State.
So let me show you how each party is trying to promote their cause, be it election integrity or promotion of non-resident voting through our porous same day registration system.
Here is a recent case – not an irrelevant case from 1972 as proponents of voter fraud would like:
CRAWFORD ET AL. v. MARION COUNTY ELECTION BOARD ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 07–21. Argued January 9, 2008—Decided April 28, 2008*
This case rather plainly sets out an argument for cleaning up NH’s dirty little voter fraud secret.
Here is the first paragraph of the case syllabus regarding the recent adoption of photo ID in Indiana.
After Indiana enacted an election law (SEA 483) requiring citizens voting in person to present government-issued photo identification, petitioners filed separate suits challenging the law’s constitutionality. Following discovery, the District Court granted respondents summary judgment, finding the evidence in the record insufficient to support a facial attack on the statute’s validity. In affirming, the Seventh Circuit declined to judge the law by the strict standard set for poll taxes in Harper v. Virginia Bd. of Elections, 383 U. S. 663, finding the burden on voters offset by the benefit of reducing the risk of fraud. Affirmed.
This means the Court of Appeals and the US Supreme Court upheld a photo ID bill in Indiana very similar to the one proposed in NH.
Paragraph number two is enlightening:
JUSTICE STEVENS, joined by THE CHIEF JUSTICE and JUSTICE KENNEDY, concluded that the evidence in the record does not support a facial attack on SEA 483’s validity. Pp. 5–20.
(a) Under Harper, even rational restrictions on the right to vote are invidious if they are unrelated to voter qualifications. However, “even handed restrictions” protecting the “integrity and reliability of the electoral process itself” satisfy Harper’s standard. Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U. S. 780, 788, n. 9. A state law’s burden on a political party, an individual voter, or a discrete class of voters must be justified by relevant and legitimate state interests “sufficiently weighty to justify the limitation.” Norman v. Reed, 502 U. S. 279,
How about we break this down.
The Harper case placed a poll tax on voters and was unconstitutional.
Photo ID is a legitimate tool in preventing voter fraud and not a “burden” on a “discrete class” of voters – like with college students, military, absentee ballots, homeless, or any other definable class.
When you are at these hearings or read in the press accounts of disenfranchised students, homeless, or any other class of voters ask yourself if proponents of non-resident voting can show one single case of a disenfranchised voter in our state.
You hear it all the time from The League of Women Voters, ACLU, college shills for student voting, and party activists.
But do they have a case?
More about Crawford v. Marion County, emphasis mine:
“Indiana has a valid interest in participating in a nationwide effort to improve and modernize election procedures criticized as antiquated and inefficient. Indiana also claims a particular interest in preventing voter fraud in response to the problem of voter registration rolls with a large number of names of persons who are either deceased or no longer live in Indiana.”
The national effort to stop voter fraud is gaining steam. New Hampshire should be leading it instead of obfuscating and outright lying about no evidence of voter fraud found by state officials charged with it prevention and prosecution.
Another quote from Crawford:
“While the record contains no evidence that the fraud SEA 483 addresses—in-person voter impersonation at polling places—has actually occurred in Indiana, such fraud has occurred in other parts of the country, and Indiana’s own experience with voter fraud in a 2003 mayoral primary demonstrates a real risk that voter fraud could affect a close election’s outcome. There is no question about the legitimacy or importance of a State’s interest in counting only eligible voters’ votes. Finally, Indiana’s interest in protecting public confidence in elections, while closely related to its interest in preventing voter fraud, has independent significance, because such confidence encourages citizen participation in the democratic process.”
When you make a decision regarding new voter fraud legislation think about this:
1. Proponents of non-resident voting have shown me, to date, NO evidence anyone has ever been disenfranchised.
2. I have evidence of voter fraud, flagrant election law violations, failure of the State to prosecute voter fraud, and proof of our voter check lists being swollen beyond recognition by non-existent voters.
3. The mission of pro non-resident voting have one agenda: deny it happens, do not look for it and if you do find – it ignore it, claim some vague constitutional problem, and delay, delay, delay, past 2012.