By Kevin Mooney — Complaints about voter fraud are not rooted in reality and divert attention from electoral reforms that would invigorate America’s democratic system, lawyers with the Brennan Center for Justice have long argued. In a commentary entitled: “The Myth of Voter Fraud,” authors Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt even go so far as to equate voter fraud investigations with the search for Sasquatch.
Moreover, according to a Brennan Center report, voter fraud allegations have been used to rationalize policies that disenfranchise innocent Americans, this would include “overly restrictive identification requirements.”
But J. Christian Adams, a former attorney in the Voting Section of the U.S. Justice Department, has identified localities throughout the country that have “implausible” registration numbers.
Unfortunately, a well-funded “industry of vote fraud deniers” has worked to block any meaningful investigations, Adams told audience members at forum held at Tulane Law School.
This industry includes the Brennan Center, Demos, ACORN’s Project Vote, and the NAACP.
Some of the major financial backers supporting the “vote fraud denier industry” are the George Soros’s Open Society Institute, the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and Pew Charitable Trusts, according to Adam’s new book entitled “Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department.”
Adams resigned from the DOJ after the department declined to pursue a voter intimidation case from the 2008 elections against members of the New Black Panther Party (NBPR) in Philadelphia. He now works as a private election lawyer and writes for Pajamas Media.
In “Injustice”, Adams describes how Obama’s DOJ deliberately avoids enforcing Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which calls for registration rolls to be purged of ineligible voters. At the same time, the DOJ is pushing “motor voter” lawsuits activated under Section 7 of the NVRA.
Congress passed Section 7 and Section 8 as a way to increase participation and as a way to combat voter fraud,” Adams said at the forum. “It was a compromise. Section 7 would not have become law without Section 8, because there would not have been enough votes in the Senate to prevent a filibuster of `motor voter.’ What we have now in the Justice Department are bureaucrats who have vetoed out that compromise from 1993. Heading into next year’s elections, I do not believe this is a place where we want to be.”
An example of this selective enforcement of the law occurred earlier this year when the Obama DOJ filed a “motor voter” lawsuit against Louisiana that was closely timed with a separate suit from the NAACP. Both suits allege state officials have failed to provide voter registration forms at health and social service agencies. Top figures in Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration have said they will vigorously fight both lawsuits.
As the U.S. approaches what many believe is the most important presidential election in our nation’s history, the belief that the voting outcomes are fair is essential to the public’s acceptance of the results. The Justice Department’s refusal to enforce the entire National Voter Registration Act to ensure that only eligible voters participate is alarming in the wake of the voter fraud convictions that caused Congress to ban ACORN from receiving future federal funds.
Bill Wilson, President of Americans for Limited Government commented, “The fact that Soros is spending large amounts of money to prevent voter fraud investigations is a bright red warning light that the sanctity of our election system is under unprecedented attack, and Governor Jindal is to be commended for fighting to ensure that the vote in Louisiana is fair and honest.”
Kevin Mooney is a contributing editor to Americans for Limited Government. You can follow Kevin on Twitter at @KevinMooneyDC.
