Free Republic

Libertarianism isnÂ’t confined to caucasians anymore. The Pew Research Center recently released a study on who in America describes themselves as libertarian while being able to accurately identify what the label actually means. Of the total demographic, 12 percent of respondents who identified as libertarian were white, unsurprisingly the largest demographic population. However, Hispanics self-identified as libertarian at almost the same rate, 11 percent. By comparison, only three percent of blacks fell into the same category (other demographics were not included in the final results). Libertarians also tend to be young; Millennials are the largest group of libertarians, with the...

Even after the unrest in Ferguson has subsided, we're left with questions about the tension that built up and exploded in the small St. Louis suburb. Among those questions: How did a city where two-thirds of the residents are black elect an almost entirely white city government? The answer is simple: Ferguson holds its city elections entirely separate from state and national elections, and that can make all the difference. People rarely think about the timing of elections. But Missouri's election rules set the stage for the discontent that has tormented Ferguson recently. The state requires its cities to hold...

<p>An Oct. 20 trial has been set for a Mesa woman accused of running over her husband with an SUV because he didn't vote in the 2012 presidential election.</p>

A Florida Catholic parish's 45-year tradition of serving as a polling place for elections came to an end after Tuesday's primary after ongoing complaints by a handful of pro-abortion and pro-homosexual activists led church leaders to end their partnership with the Brevard County Board of Elections. Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church in Indialantic, FL, has hosted about 5,000 voters from three precincts in a multi-use area of the building that is separate from the main church. Florida Today reported that the trouble began in 2008, when the church displayed a message on its marquee urging parishioners to vote for...

Elections: The city of Los Angeles is considering paying voters to encourage turnout. Needless to say, it's a ridiculous idea that will reward low-information voting, foster political demagogues and breed corruption.Sure, some in the political class will say what's not to like? Higher voter turnout sounds good and, more to the point, the political left likely will benefit from paying people to vote.This is what's done, officially or not, in places like Venezuela, Central America and southern Mexico, where the political class doles the goodies and subliterate voters sell their votes for bags of beans. Lots of left-wing demagogues have...

In Ferguson and many towns like it, majority African-American communities most grapple with mostly white county governments. How this leads to dysfunction, racial tension, and a skewed justice system. As we watch Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson bumble his way through press conferences, let’s take a couple steps back and think about how this two-thirds African-American town has retained such a nearly complete all-white power structure. It is partly, as Slate noted, a question of voting power, as whites are more entrenched and vote in greater numbers. But there’s a larger story here about race in America that involves the...

I seriously admire one thing in particular about most tea party members. If you ever wonder how a relatively small group of people have so much impact on state, local and national policy, the answer is simple: They show up. They outwork most other groups. They go to meetings, study the issues and rally the faithful to the cause. They make sure their voices are heard (and man, are they heard). ItÂ’s also easy to say they make the most noise, but thatÂ’s because theyÂ’re often the only outside voice in the room when issues are being decided. In short,...

Los Angeles is considering turning voting ballots into lottery tickets. With fewer than a fourth of voters showing up for recent local elections, the city's Ethics Commission voted unanimously Thursday to recommend that the City Council consider a cash-prize drawing as an incentive to vote. Commission President Nathan Hochman suggests the prizes could be $25,000 or $50,000, saying a pilot program should be used first to find out the number and size of prizes that would bump up turnout. The Los Angeles Times reports (http://lat.ms/1uV1Ekw) that federal law prohibits payment for voting, but Ethics Commissioner Jessica Levinson says that statute...

A pilot project at 25 Pima County polling places will have workers asking voters to scan their driver’s licenses with an iPad. The goal is to replace the signature roster books currently used at the polling places, Pima County Elections Director Brad Nelson said. Poll workers will use the iPads to scan voters’ driver’s licenses and verify their identification. Voters will then sign their names on the iPad screens with their finger. The information scanned will be matched to data already contained in county databases that’s filled out when a person registers to vote, Nelson said. An Arizona driver’s license...

From voter ID laws to broken immigration detention centers, the U.S. is not the model democracy it fancies itself. Watching Israel’s brutal treatment of Palestinians in Gaza over our TV screens makes it easy to forget about the human rights abuses taking place right here on American soil. Sybrina Fulton and Ron Davis, whose sons were killed in what many believe were racially motivated attacks, are using their children’s deaths to remind Americans that human rights are being violated right here in the United States. More than a year after George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, Fulton felt the humiliating pendulum...

I've been trying till I'm blue in the face to get an Astorino Lawn Sign!!

Abbott said requiring voters to present government issued IDs is “the first step in the process is to ensure that only those that are legally allowed to vote actually vote.” Under the law, seven forms of identification are accepted at Texas polling stations, among them state drivers’ licenses and identification cards, election identification certificates, military IDs, passports, citizenship documents with photos, and concealed handgun licenses. And noticeably absent from that list: student identification cards. Ryan Haygood, director for the Legal Defense Fund’s political participation group, said student IDs were specifically left off the list because they fail to prove whether...

MADISON, Wis. -- A court-ordered change to Wisconsin's photo identification law that's designed to cut down on voter fraud is creating confusion and may even open the door to the very type of behavior Republican lawmakers were trying to prevent. Policy makers, attorneys and voter ID experts were struggling Friday with how to interpret a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling from a day earlier, which mandated a change to the law in order to make it constitutional. The court said the state can't require applicants for state-issued IDs to present government documents that cost money to obtain, such as a copy...

With the newest border crisis focusing on the influx of immigrants from Central America, many of them children, the political punching bag that is immigration reform is again leading the news.  Democrats, incongruously, claim that the obvious ineffectiveness of our border is proof that we need to reform immigration laws to allow current foreigners who are here illegally to stay.  How this stops the flow rather than increase it is not explained.Many Republicans have taken up the cause of amnesty by raising the curious proposition that many of those currently here illegally may eventually join the ranks of the Republican...

The Hennepin County attorney’s office is investigating whether a private mailbox center in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood has been improperly used as an address for more than 140 voters. State records show that 419 Cedar Avenue S. has been used by some of the voters as far back as 2008. No one lives at the address, which is a Somali-dominated commercial building housing several small businesses and a popular mail center. Several dozen apartments upstairs use a different building number. Records also show that more than 90 of the registrants at that address have voted in previous elections, although it’s unclear...

Absentee voting started Friday, six weeks ahead of primary elections. Already there are strong allegations of voter fraud. The attorney for Phyllis Kahn says he got word Thursday night; there might be hundreds of people who are registering and voting using an address that's not their home. Absentee voting kicked-off Friday morning in a hotly contested democratic primary race for the state house between incumbent Phyllis Kahn and Mohamud Noor. Brian Rice, attorney for the Phyllis Kahn Volunteer Committee, claims there's voter fraud. "I think there is a coordinated effort to use this address to bring voters into the DFL...

At the end of the Civil War, but before the pernicious reach of Jim Crow undermined the Union Army’s battlefield victory, former slaves and free blacks found themselves in possession of a most precious right -- the right to vote. It didn’t matter if a man had been a war hero in the famed, all-black 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment or a house servant on a Southern plantation. All that mattered was that he was a man. To say that this development didn’t sit well with the progressive-minded women of this country is an understatement. Before the war, the abolitionist...

It's not just that there's a lack of a Christian way of thinking -- a "Christian mind" -- but there is hardly a mind at all. Some years ago I read an article in Newsweek about a husband and wife team of scientists who studied ducks. In order to observe their habits, they built a blind by a pond, then settled in to watch. During their investigations, they observed among the ducks incidences of what they called gang rape. While it was not written in so many words, the bottom line of the article was this: If gang rape takes...

As you know, we are committed to overturning Minnesota election law that enables ineligible individuals to vote in two ways: by not determining the eligibility of election-day registrants before counting their votes, and by accepting the statements of individuals that they are eligible even when the state has records showing they are not, such as non-citizens and felons. We have spent considerable time with our attorneys refining the arguments that connect the precise text of the Minnesota Constitution (“[Ineligible] persons shall not be entitled or permitted to vote at any election in this state.”) to the statutes that in fact...

A Carver, MA, man has pled guilty to three counts of vote fraud, one a felony, according to Assistant Attorney General Stephen LaBonte. Lorin C. Schneider Jr. pled guilty in Hillsborough County District Superior Court and will received a one to three year suspended sentence and a $5,000 fine, plus a 24 percent penalty assessment.