By Kevin Mooney — Take a look at the press releases from progressive organizations that deny voter fraud is a serious problem and the organization that appears to be out in front these days is the George Soros funded Advancement Project.
The group, founded in 1999 by civil rights attorneys, describes itself as “a policy, communications and legal action group committed to racial justice.” It has offices in Washington D.C. and Los Angeles. Shortly after the disputed 2000 Bush/Gore election the group released a report, “America’s Modern Poll Tax: How Structural Disenfranchisement Erodes Democracy.” It concluded that the ballot irregularities in Florida were “pervasive across the nation” and prevented minorities from voting.
During the 2004 election, Advancement Project attorneys tried to block Republican efforts to protect the integrity of the ballot. They claimed Republicans were prohibited from implementing ballot security programs by a 1982 federal court consent decree in the case DNC v. RNC.
That same year Republicans challenged the authenticity of tens of thousands of voter registrations in Ohio and other key battleground states. The Advancement Project responded by filing lawsuits in Ohio and Florida to prevent those states from implementing voter security measures.
The difference in 2012 is that the Advancement Project has allies in President Obama’s Justice Department.
DOJ attorneys are “philosophically opposed” to enforcing Section 8 of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, says J. Christian Adams, the former DOJ voting rights section attorney. That section calls for state officials to purge ineligible voters from registration rolls. President Clinton signed the NRVA into law in 1993 after reaching a bipartisan compromise with Senate leaders. Section 7 includes the “motor voter” provision, which calls for social service departments and motor vehicle offices to include voter registration services.
Section 8 of NVRA makes it a requirement for state officials to keep voter rolls up to date and free of ineligible voters.
“Congress passed Section 7 and Section 8 as a way to increase participation and as a way to combat voter fraud,” Adams said at a Tulane University 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.”
In 2012, the Advancement Project’s overriding priority is to weaken voter ID laws in key battleground states before the November election. The commonwealth of Virginia is central to this project. In February both houses of the Virginia legislature passed bills requiring voters to produce some kind of identification at the polls for their votes to count. As Net Right Daily has reported, Gov. Bob McDonnell had proposed amending the bill to make the requirements less stringent, but the legislature has rejected those changes.
Under the Virginia legislation, it would still be possible to vote by way of provisional ballot after signing an affidavit. But the vote would not count unless identification could later be presented to election officials.
The Advancement Project, and other leftie groups, are fighting the voter ID initiative in Virginia, and in other states around the country. Tea Party activists and other concerned citizens who favor ballot integrity efforts should know they are likely to be overmatched financially.
Two foundations established by George Soros direct major funding to the Advancement
Project. The Open Society Institute has made grants totaling $3,925,000 since 1999 and the Foundation to Promote Open Society has given it $552,775 since 2009, according to the Capital Research Center.
Bill Wilson, president of Americans for Limited Government, worries that the Soros backed group will succeed in its campaign against honest elections, “There really 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.”
The Advancement Project is undeterred by these criticisms saying the actions of the Virginia legislature mark the culmination of a disturbing trend across America “propelled by conservative and Tea Party electoral victories in 2010.”
At least 32 states are considering policy changes that call for “specifi c reforms of non-expired state or federally issued photo IDs” in order to vote, the organization contends in a new report entitled “What’s Wrong With This Picture: New Photo ID Proposals Part of a National Push to Turn Back the Clock on Voting Rights.”
Even if Gov. McDonnell does sign off on the voter ID law, it would still need to pass muster under the federal Voting Rights Act (VRA). The 1965 law prohibits certain jurisdictions from implementing any changes to their voting laws without clearance from the DOJ. Those jurisdictions are all of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, and parts of California, Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, and South Dakota.
Kevin Mooney is a contributing editor to Americans for Limited Government. You cna follow Kevin on Twitter at @KevinMooneyDC.
