Free Republic

RALEIGH — The state House passed a bill Wednesday requiring voters to show a photo ID when they go to the polls in 2016, after an emotionally charged debate that underscored North Carolina’s political polarization. House Republicans pushed through the measure saying that the public demanded more stringent ballot security at polling places, that voter fraud was more prevalent than is understood, and that in a modern, mobile society fewer election officials personally knew voters. “Our system of government depends upon open and honest elections,” said Rep. David Lewis, a farm equipment dealer from Dunn and a Republican. “Having people...

by John HillStand With ArizonaWebsite | Facebook | Twitter Sheriff Joe Arpaio is facing a campaign to recall him from office. They are collecting signatures, and already have more than half the required amount with two months to go. This follows a re-election campaign last year which saw unprecedented amounts spent on both sides, as George Soros committed $10 million to oust "America's Sheriff". Joe was forced to spend his entire 'war chest' of $8 million to (barely) hold onto office - the closest race of his career. Why?Why is the Left in America so focused on a single county's...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas legislators passed a law Monday requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls, overriding Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe's veto of the bill, which he called an expensive solution to a non-existent problem. The Republican-led state House voted 52-45, largely along party lines, to complete an override that started in the GOP-controlled Senate on a 21-12 vote last week. Only a simple majority was needed in each chamber. "We are trying to protect the integrity of one of the most fundamental rights we have here in America," said state Rep. Stephen Meeks, a Republican...

by John HillStand With Arizona The following statement would seem to be a no-brainer: people who vote in national elections must be U.S. citizens. Yet we see bizarre headlines such as this from the Associated Press today: Must voters have to prove citizenship to register?You might as well ask: "Must drivers have to open their eyes to drive"? It is the biggest 'duh' imaginable. Unless of course, you have a vested interest in enabling and expanding voter fraud in the United States. And so we have the U.S. Supreme Court today hearing arguments in Arizona vs. Inter Tribal Council of...

Imagine you're a waitress, out with friends on a night off, when you lose your wallet. Cash, credit cards, driver's license—all gone. Your bank later informs you that checks are being issued in your name.

TTV 2013 Summit The Power of Citizen Engagement Join us for the True the Vote 2013 National Summit here in Houston! Devote a day and a half to discuss Education, Research, Training, Messaging, and Legislation. Leave equipped to True the Vote in your state.

BOISE, Idaho – Lawmakers fearful the U.S. Supreme Court might one day reverse itself on the issue of individual gun rights aim to change the Idaho Constitution's definition of a militia to include all the state's adults. That way, argued Sen. Jim Rice of Caldwell Wednesday in the Senate State Affairs Committee, the federal government could never swoop in and disarm residents.

Atheist professor and philosopher, Alex Rosenberg, says if you believe in Intelligent Design you are a chauvinist. (Posted by: Religio-Political Talk. This is one of the most incredible statements I have heard in my life. While it is trivial to many, it shows the depth of how progressive ideology in education has corrupted even the sciences with its radical multiculturalism and politically-correct thinking. Here again is Professor David Clemens explains how this thinking has crept into all corners of education, here he talks about some of the cases that the above video adds to: http://tinyurl.com/caej2oz The entire debate between Professor...

Thanks to Google Earth and puzzling new TSA rules, all you need to know to get on a plane these days is the color of your house. Traveling for the holidays? No need to fear missing your plane because you’ve lost your government issued I.D.! You can fly without it—as long as you know the color of your house. A few weeks ago I lost my wallet, or maybe it was stolen. But I had to fly from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and I didn’t have a single piece of identification—no passport, driver’s license, credit card, work I.D., nothing....

Key senators are exploring an immigration bill that would force every U.S. worker—citizen or not—to carry a high-tech identity card that could use fingerprints or other personal markers to prove a person's legal eligibility to work. snip But at least five of the eight senators writing the bill have backed biometric ID cards in the past. At least three of them—Sens. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), John McCain (R., Ariz.) and Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.)—have said they support requiring the cards under the new law but are open to other options, aides say. snip Mr. Graham, in an interview, said that...

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho - An estimated 1,000 people took to the streets of Idaho Falls in support of 2nd Amendment rights on Saturday. The group's organizers say the massive demonstration isn't exclusively about guns -- it's about freedom. “Are all of you Americans?” shouted organizer Chad Christensen, to a resounding response from the crowd. The large crowd crossed the Broadway Bridge in downtown Idaho Falls in a trek from the Bonneville County courthouse to the Shilo Inn. “This isn't about guns, I believe,” said Christensen. “It's about our freedom and our liberty and our childrens’ future.” Through city streets, marchers...

BOISE – With Idaho state lawmakers fired up to protect gun rights, more attention is being focused on an Idaho law that’s been on the books since 1990 permitting any elected official in the state, including legislators, to carry a hidden firearm without a concealed weapons permit. A 2011 survey by the National Conference of State Legislatures showed no other state with such an exemption; most states exempt only peace officers, retired peace officers, military members, and in some cases, judges and prosecutors. Earlier this week, a three-hour evening training class offered in the state Capitol on carrying a concealed...

SANTA FE -- State Rep. Cathrynn Brown, reversing herself based on her constituents' wishes, said Wednesday she will introduce a bill requiring identification to vote. Brown, R-Carlsbad, had said only two weeks ago that she would not offer a voter ID bill this session because it had no chance to pass. "I changed my mind after hearing from my constituents," she said in an interview. "The prevailing view is that election integrity is too important not to do anything."

A group of like-minded patriots, bound together by pride in American exceptionalism, plan on building an armed community to protect their liberty. The group, named Citadel, intends to purchase 2,000 to 3,000 acres for the project in western Idaho. The community will comprise of 3,500 to 7,000 families of patriotic Americans who "voluntarily choose to live together in accordance with Thomas Jefferson's ideal of Rightful Liberty." According to the Citadel website, Rightful Liberty means that "neighbors keep their noses out of other neighbors' business, that neighbors live and let live."

Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz is moving forward to establish procedures for removing voters from registration rolls if they can't prove citizenship, with a public hearing scheduled for today that is expected to draw critics who want to stop the change. “Schultz's proposed voter-suppression rules will unfairly target Latino immigrants, intimidate voters from exercising their rights and could result in voters' being purged from the rolls without cause,” said Ana Belen Mancebo, a member of the government watchdog group Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement.

Idaho Republican Rep. Raul Labrador said on Sunday that he’s “not really sure” Democrats want to avoid going over the fiscal cliff, and that they’re like “bank robbers” who want to raise taxes on everyone. … “They have tried to get us (Republicans) to fight against each other on taxes when—I’m not really sure that they don’t want to go over the fiscal cliff,” he said. “They want to expand the growth of government. They need more revenues. You know, Democrats are like bank robbers. You don’t have the money in the 2 percent—the money is in the 100 percent....

The woman revealed to have been carrying on an affair with former CIA Director David Petraeus lost her driver's license in a Washington, D.C., park recently, sources tell U.S. News. A Maryland National Capital Park Police spokesman confirmed that a jogger found a North Carolina license in Rock Creek Park belonging to Paula Broadwell. Park Police planned to hold it for 90 days, per policy, and then send it back to the North Carolina Department of Transportation. The Park Police also alerted the FBI, says Bill Kellogg, a spokesman for the Park Police. The FBI did not initially return calls...

Was the election stolen? Remember all those lawsuits by Democrats demanding that any voter identification laws be repealed? Well, now we know why they filed them. They needed to steal the vote in certain key states so that Obama could be reelected.  Curiously, Obama lost in every state that requires a photo ID to be produced before voting. A list of closely contested state elections with no voter ID, which narrowly went to Obama include: Minnesota (10), Iowa (6), Wisconsin (10), Nevada (6), Colorado (9), New Mexico (5) and Pennsylvania (20).  This amounts to a total of 66 electoral votes....

Those of us who thought U.N election observers would be completely worthless or unhelpful today, were wrong. U.N. observers are expressing their surprise at how much trust Americans put into the election system without verification and cannot believe Voter I.D. isn't a national requirement to vote. "It's an incredible system," said Nuri K. Elabbar, who traveled to the United States along with election officials from more than 60 countries to observe today's presidential elections as part of a program run by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). Your humble Cable guy visited polling places with some of the international...

Since 2001, nearly 1,000 voter ID bills have been introduced in a total of 46 states. Thirty-three states have passed voter ID laws, and 30 were in place for Tuesday's election, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In order for a constitutional amendment to pass in Minnesota, the "yes" votes must represent a majority not of the votes cast on the amendment question but of the total ballots cast in the election -- a higher bar. On election night, the state uses the number of votes cast in the presidential election as the figure for total votes cast....

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, writing about Indiana's voter ID law, said it was "amply justified by the valid interests in protecting 'the integrity and reliability of the electoral process.'" Stevens was a liberal justice writing on behalf of the Supreme Court, which found in favor of the law by a 6-3 margin. Stevens went on to say that "We cannot conclude that the statue imposes 'excessively burdensome requirements' on any class of voters." Polls suggest that Minnesota's Voter ID amendment will pass, perhaps easily. If so, it is because on the surface it just seems to make so...

The son of a prominent Virginia congressman agreed to help an undercover reporter forge documents in what he thought was an illegal voting effort aimed at re-electing the president, a just-published video reveals. After raising legal and practical concerns, Patrick Moran, son of Virginia Democrat James Moran, encouraged the reporter to create phony utility bills that would allow others to cast multiple votes in the November 6 election. Supporters of stronger voter ID laws seized on the video as evidence of widespread corruption among liberal get-out-the-vote organizations. “What he’s doing is soliciting fraudulent voter registrations and fraudulent ballots, and that’s...

Most Minnesotans are probably not aware that our state has recently seen more convictions for voter fraud than any other state since 1936. The overwhelming majority of those convictions stemmed from felons (rapists, murderers, gangsters, drug dealers, et al) voting while still under the supervision of the Department of Corrections. Thanks to a non-governmental organization, we brought some ineligible voters to justice, with 200 convictions since the 2008 election. Prosecuting felons who willfully voted while ineligible is difficult to do under Minnesota's election laws, since it must be proven not only that the person voted while ineligible, but also that...

Afghan Vote Plan Raises TensionsGovernment Decides to Issue Electronic ID Cards for Crucial 2014 Presidential Election, a Strategy the West Has Criticized. By MARIA ABI-HABIB and NATHAN HODGE Updated October 14, 2012, 8:15 p.m. ET KABUL—The Afghan government's plan to issue biometric ID cards ahead of the 2014 presidential election is raising tensions with international donors, who are concerned the ambitious project could tarnish the vote instead of eliminating fraud. As part of its preparations for the election, the Afghan government decided last month to issue to all Afghans an electronic national ID card, known as e-tazkira, which includes scanned...

MERIDIAN, Idaho (KBOI) - Idaho State University-Meridian as well as Renaissance High School were in lockdown mode Wednesday after there were reports of an armed subject on campus. Police tell KBOI-TV that a husband and wife went to the school campus. The woman apparently went inside the school, but the man stayed behind in the vehicle, but was parked improperly. A parking lot attendant later went to the vehicle to ask the driver to move, but saw the man put a gun on the passenger seat. (Photos from the Scene >>>) The attendant went back to the school and told...

A panel of three federal judges upheld a South Carolina law requiring voters to show photo identification, but delayed enforcement until next year, in a decision announced Wednesday, less than a month before this year's presidential election. In a unanimous ruling, the judges said there was no discriminatory intent behind the law, ruling that it would not diminish African-Americans' voting rights because people who face a "reasonable impediment" to getting an acceptable photo ID can still vote if they sign an affidavit.

Two Republican state senators announced Thursday, Oct. 4, that they have filed a complaint with the Office of Administrative Hearings over Secretary of State Mark Ritchie's conduct related to the state's proposed voter-ID amendment. Mike Parry of Waseca and Scott Newman of Hutchinson said they were filing the complaint on their own behalf. They say Ritchie, an opponent of the proposed amendment that would require voters to present a photo ID at the polls, has made false statements and improperly used his office to work against the amendment's passage. A spokeswoman for Ritchie said shortly after noon on Thursday that...

BURLEY, Idaho -- Fire officials believe it was spontaneous combustion that made a gun room explode at the home of an Idaho state lawmaker last weekend. The blast sent Representative Fred Wood's wife to a burn center in Salt Lake City on Saturday night. Burley Fire Chief Keith Martin believes a gun room below Fred and Amy Wood's house exploded after rags with gun cleaning chemicals on them sat in a garbage bin and slowly produced enough heat to ignite on fire. “He cleaned his guns, and we are thinking maybe the cleaning solvent and the rags that he used...

HARRISBURG — A Commonwealth Court judge on Tuesday kept most of the voter ID law intact, ruling the state can ask for photo ID in the Nov. 6 election but people without it still can vote. The November election will be similar to the “soft rollout” used in the April primary when voter ID was optional. Judge Robert Simpson also blocked language that would have discounted provisional ballots for voters without ID who could not verify their identity within six days. Opponents of the law asked to block it entirely over concerns it would disenfranchise voters. Simpson granted a preliminary...

An Idaho state representative’s wife was injured Saturday after a room converted to a gun safe exploded at her home. Amy Wood, wife of Rep. Fred Wood, R-Burley, was taken by air ambulance to an unspecified Utah hospital suffering from second-degree burns to her face and hands. The incident occurred at 8:11 p.m., according to Burley Fire Chief Keith Martin. On Saturday evening, Martin said the owners of the home at 100 S. 147 E. were eating dinner when “they heard a sound like a 747 coming from the basement.”

NEZPERCE, Idaho -- Coming up Sunday, the long-standing rivalry between Boise State and the University of Idaho will be renewed on a little-known battlefield in northern Idaho. We're not talking football. Instead, you can expect high consequences, punishing hits, and plenty of strategy ... at the annual combine demolition derby in Nezperce.That's when the drivers of ten combines will attempt to destroy each other at the Cecil Hill Arena. The rules are reportedly few, with the last combine standing -- so to speak -- taking home the top honor.Fans should expect to see the small town of just over 500 people swell...

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie was a vocal opponent of the Voter ID bill throughout the legislative session. But once the Legislature passed the Voter ID amendment and put it on the ballot, he had an obligation to cease his resistance to the measure. As our chief elections official, Ritchie will be responsible for tallying the ballots on the Voter ID amendment this November. His continued advocacy against Voter ID undermines the credibility of his office. Ritchie has gone beyond simply campaigning against Voter ID. He is now actively seeking to dupe voters into voting against Voter ID using false...

The city of Detroit plans to remove a citizenship question from ballot applications before the November election - another direct challenge to the Republican secretary of state's authority to require the check-off box. "There's no mandate," Detroit Elections Director Daniel Baxter told MLive on Wednesday. "The governor vetoed that part of the bill. There's no legal requirement for electors to declare their citizenship when they go to vote. That's the bottom line." Election workers will black out the box ordered by Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, he said. Johnson spokeswoman Gisgie Gendreau said Johnson still expects local clerks to use...

The Associated Press WASHINGTON — The presidential election is Nov. 6, but it could take days to figure out the winner if the vote is close. New voting laws are likely to increase the number of people who have to cast provisional ballots in key states. Tight races for Congress, governor and local offices also could be stuck in limbo while election officials scrutinize ballots, a scenario that would surely attract legions of campaign lawyers from both parties. "It's a possibility of a complete meltdown for the election," said Daniel Smith, a political scientist at the University of Florida. Voters...

With just six weeks until the presidential election, a judge raised the possibility Tuesday that he would move to block Pennsylvania's controversial voter ID law. "I'm giving you a heads-up," Commonwealth Court Judge Robert E. Simpson Jr. told lawyers after a day's testimony on whether the law is being implemented in ways that ensure no voters will be disenfranchised. "I think it's a possibility there could be an injunction here." **SNIP** Critics of the law have argued that it is being rushed into effect - it was enacted in March - and will disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters, particularly...

<p>BOISE -- The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission says Idaho Power's long-term purchase agreement with wind farms means that it must buy electricity from the farms even when demand for power is low.</p> <p>The commission's decision, reached Thursday, is good news for Idaho wind farms but a loss for the state's largest utility.</p>

By 2011, voter ID was "the hottest topic of legislation in the field of elections," according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In Minnesota, voters in November will be deciding whether to move from having no voter ID requirement to adopting one of the strictest in the nation. In 2001, only 14 states even asked for ID -- and it was a request, not a requirement. Since 2001, nearly 1,000 voter ID bills have been introduced in a total of 46 states. Thirty-three states have passed voter ID laws, and at least 30 will be in place for November's...

For months, Ramsey County Elections Manager Joe Mansky has been predicting the costs and complications of the state voter ID amendment if it passes in November. Mansky has made public appearances at civic events and spoke at a state House news conference, where he's cautioned voters that Ramsey County will foot a heavy price to correct a problem that he says does not exist: widespread voter fraud. Now, some St. Paul Republicans are sending him a message of their own: Please be quiet and resign. In a public statement Thursday, Sept. 13, Greg Copeland, chairman of the St. Paul Republican...

After George W. Bush defeated Al Gore at the ballot box and in a rare show of fortitude for a Republican, didn't stand by haplessly wringing his hands when Gore tried to lawyer his way into the White House, liberals were outraged. Sure, Gore had never been ahead at any point, but OBVIOUSLY voter fraud had cost Democrats the election. Afterwards, Democrats DEMANDED that we do more to insure the integrity of our elections. Republicans agreed and for a while, we finally had an issue where there was genuine bipartisan agreement. Then came the 2004 elections and many of the...

LOS ANGELES—Illegal immigrants in California's largest city could use library cards to open bank accounts and access an array of city services under a plan being considered by city officials. Under the plan, anyone with proof of Los Angeles residency could get a library card, the Los Angeles Times reported (lat.ms/P967MO). The idea is to provide a form of ID to those who cannot get a driver's license because of their immigration status.

A Mexican who was deported decades ago for drug trafficking pleaded guilty this week to living illegally in Escondido under a false identity and fraudulently voting in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, federal authorities said Friday. Ricardo Lopez-Munguia, 45, pleaded guilty Thursday to attempted entry to the U.S. after deportation, making a false claim to U.S. citizenship, and voter fraud by an illegal alien, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney's office. Lopez-Munguia faces a maximum term of 28 years in federal prison, followed by deportation. He is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 19 in San Diego. In 1986,...

A Maryland Democratic candidate quit her congressional race Monday after her own party told state officials that she had committed fraud by voting in both Maryland and Florida in recent elections. Wendy Rosen, a small-business owner running against freshman Rep. Andy Harris (R) in the Eastern Shore-based 1st Congressional District, released a statement saying that “with great regret, and much sorrow” she was resigning from the contest. “Personal issues have made this the hardest decision that I have had to make,” Rosen said Rosen’s announcement came the same day the state Democratic party released a letter to state Attorney General...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Tonight, tonight, tonight's the big night. Tonight's the night everybody's been waiting for. It's the Star Wars bars scene come to life in Charlotte, North Carolina. That's exactly what this is going to look like. I can predict it right now. You can, too. You know exactly what this is going to look like. You know what it's going to sound like. And the contrast between what's going to happen the next three nights and what happened last week in Tampa at the Republican convention, is going to be stark. It's going to be profound. BREAK TRANSCRIPT...

RALEIGH A Raleigh-based group devoted to reducing the potential for voter fraud presented the N.C. Board of Elections on Friday with a list of nearly 30,000 names of dead people statewide who are still registered to vote. The Voter Integrity Project compiled the list after obtaining death records from the state Department of Public Health from 2002 to March 31 and comparing them to the voter rolls. “Mainly, what we’re concerned about is the potential [for fraud],” said project director Jay DeLancy. “Since there is no voter ID law in North Carolina, anybody can walk in and claim to be...

Federal court rejects Texas voter ID law Updated 11:14 a.m., Thursday, August 30, 2012 WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal court has ruled against a Texas law that would require voters to present photo IDs to election officials before being allowed to cast ballots in November. A three-judge panel in Washington ruled Thursday that the law imposes "strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor" and noted that racial minorities in Texas are more likely to live in poverty. The decision involves an increasingly contentious political issue: a push, largely by Republican-controlled legislatures and governor's offices, to impose strict identification requirements on voters.

A few years ago, state leaders got the idea to promote Idaho to the outdoor industry, including gun manufacturers. After all, Idaho is a more firearms-friendly place than most. More than half of Idahoans own guns, and state law shields firearms manufacturers from liability. One North Idaho town — Potlatch — is honing its pitch to attract the gun industry and jobs. Local economic development official BJ Swanson is key to the effort. Not long ago, Swanson drove through an overgrown patch of ground on the outskirts of Potlatch, population 800. It’s a humble spot, but in it she sees...

Two proposed constitutional amendments will be presented to voters on November's ballot in the way the Legislature intended, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday, Aug. 27. Both decisions were victories for conservatives. The Republican-controlled Legislature pushed both proposed amendments through over opposition from Democrats including Gov. Mark Dayton. Dayton last year vetoed a bill to require photo ID, but has no power to block constitutional amendments that are sent directly to voters.

In another victory for voter ID, last week a Pennsylvania district court rejected a challenge to stop the state’s new voter ID law from going into effect before the upcoming presidential election. Now the Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Viviette Applewhite, the lead plaintiff in the case who claimed that she would be unable to vote because of the new law, has obtained a voter ID. One day after the new law was upheld, Applewhite used a combination of her Medicare card, a state Department of Public Welfare card, and other documents showing her current address to obtain a free ID....

Dennis and Linnea Friemann's granddaughter showed them a website, open to everybody, that contains the Social Security numbers of millions of people who have died, including the Friemanns' relatives. "Anyone can now have access to these numbers," the Inver Grove Heights couple complained to the Watchdog. "How can we stop this from happening?" The answer, the Watchdog found, is that they can't. At least for now, the Social Security Death Master File is generally available, and that's a very hot topic in Congress. There are two sides to the debate, and they each have compelling arguments. Banks, pension funds and...

A Pennsylvania judge on Wednesday refused to grant an injunction on a new voter identification law that Democrats say could harm President Obama’s re-election chances by unfairly targeting minorities, college students and others in a key swing state.