The progressive left is obsessively opposed to voter ID laws. One outfit called the Advancement Project leads the way in trying to block implementation of voter ID laws.
It was founded by civil rights attorneys in 1999. It is a “legal action group committed to racial justice.”
Kevin Mooney in an article in Net Right Daily says that the group released a report following the 2000 Bush/Gore election of hanging chad fame which claimed that the problems in the Florida election were “pervasive across the nation and prevented minorities from voting.” I’m not quite sure how older citizens having trouble with the voting system in Florida lead to that conclusion.
Anyhow, the group continues to try to weaken measures that ensure only registered citizens actually vote, like voter ID laws. And now they have friends in Holder’s DOJ. It’s good to have friends in high places when your trying to “weaken voter ID laws in key battleground states before the November election.”
When congress passed the National Voter Rights Act back in 1993 in the Clinton administration, it included two sections. Section 7 was the motor voter provision which allows for voter registration at motor vehicle offices and social service departments. That wouldn’t have passed without Section 8 which required state officials to purge the voter rolls of ineligible voters. The two sections were a compromise to achieve passage.
According to J Christian Adams, former DOJ voting rights section attorney, DOJ is “philosophically opposed” to making sure the state’s comply with Section 8. “What we have now in the Justice Department are bureaucrats who have vetoed out that compromise from 1993.” So without the purge of the voter rolls and with weakened or no voter ID laws, the left has the election right where they want it.
The Advancement Project has very deep pockets thanks to that lovable leftist, George Soros. Two of his foundations are actively supporting the Advancement Project in its efforts. Of course, the project contends that the voter ID laws are attempts to “turn back the clock on voting rights” while completely ignoring the issue of voter fraud.
Bill Wilson from Americans for Limited Government said, “There is only one reason a group would oppose making certain only eligible voters are able to vote, and that is to attempt to defraud the election process. Given what we learned in 2008 when ACORN engaged in a massive voter fraud effort, this should be a concern to every American regardless of political party.”
Real Clear Politics has an article about why American support voter ID laws. Maybe the Advancement Project should listen to former Democratic Rep Artur Davis, himself black, who said that voter fraud is a huge problem in African-American districts.
“The most aggressive contemporary voter suppression in the African-American community is the wholesale manufacture of ballots at the polls and absentee, in parts of the Black Belt,” Mr. Davis said. “Voting the names of the dead, and the nonexistent, and the too mentally impaired to function cancels out the votes of citizens who are exercising their rights.”
Although Democrats claim that voter ID laws suppress minority voting, the facts don’t back them up. “In Georgia, black voter turnout for the midterm election in 2006 was 42.9 percent. After Georgia passed photo ID, black turnout in the 2010 midterm rose to 50.4 percent. Black turnout also rose in Indiana and Mississippi after photo IDs were required.”
After looking through election data, researchers at universities in Delaware and Nebraska came to the conclusion that, “Concerns about voter identification laws affecting turnout are much ado about nothing.”
Voter fraud investigations indictments or convictions have taken place in ten states this year and all but one case the fraud perpetrators were, well those who want to keep fraud going—Democrats.
So even though the Supreme Court holds that voter ID laws are not only constitutional, but necessary, Holder and the Advancement Project are working overtime to ensure that our elections will not have voter ID law protections.