Nov.10.2007
4:50 pm
by Brian Garst
DoJ Questions Florida Voting Protections
Voter fraud is a serious problem all across the country, a problem made much worse in the 90’s thanks to Clinton’s “motor voter” debacle. Many states, responding to public pressure, have moved to close loopholes and ensure the integrity of the voting process. The Florida legislature has passed a sensible bill that made what can at best be described as moderate changes in hopes of providing better protection to legitimate voters from having their ballots diluted.
Feds question whether state’s new voting law is fair
A sweeping new elections law passed with great fanfare earlier this year is coming under the scrutiny of the U.S. Department of Justice, which wants to make sure parts of it won’t discriminate against minorities.
Buried in the lengthy 42-page law, which forced counties to switch to optical-can voting machines for the fall 2008 elections, are changes to identification requirements for voters as well as new requirements for groups that register voters.
An Oct. 29 letter from the Department of Justice says the agency needs more information to decide the impact the changes will have on minority voters.
”Our analysis also indicates that the information is insufficient to enable us to determine that the proposed changes . . . do not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race, color or membership in a language minority group,” wrote John Tanner, chief of the voting section of the Civil Rights Division.
The Department of Justice, however, has decided to play on race fears by pretending that it needs more information to insure that minority voters aren’t “disenfranchised”. This is transparent nonsense, for the rule changes apply equally to all. There is no legitimate and factual basis for assuming that one sub-group or another is unduly targeted, unless of course that sub-group just happens to be engaging in greater fraud than others.
The usual rabble of race-related outcry has of course emerged.
‘Anything that burdens or shuts down voter registration drives will have a negative effect in those communities,” said Renee Paradis, an attorney with the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law.
The only drives that will be “shut down” are those which are fraudulent. Meanwhile, a necessary burden is already inherent in the process for all to ensure the protection of all votes. That has nothing to do with race. It’s time to stop with the racial fear-mongering and fix our beleaguered voting mechanism.
Read this post and more at the Conservative Compendium.
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