Posted on 06/03/2009 8:48:44 AM PDT by cbkaty
The Department of Justice on Tuesday said the state of Georgia's system cannot check driver’s license information and Social Security numbers to prove that prospective voters are U.S. citizens.
Georgia’s voters have an entirely different perspective. Rasmussen Reports polling conducted during Election 2008 found that 77% said prospective voters should first be required to show a legal photo ID first.
Georgia’s voters also held that view two years earlier despite a state judge’s ruling that a new law requiring a photo ID at the polls was a violation of the state constitution.
Nationally, three-out-of-four U.S. voters (76%) said a person should be required to show photo identification at the polls before being allowed to vote.
While the Justice Department expressed concern that photo ID requirements might disenfranchise some voters, a plurality of voters nationwide have the opposite concern. Forty-two percent (42%) believe it is more common for people to vote illegally than it is for legal voters to be denied that right. Thirty-three percent (33%) disagree and say it is more likely that people are prevented from voting who should be allowed to do so.
The state of Georgia complains the latest Justice Department action will allow non-citizens to vote, but the Justice Department said the state’s system discriminated against minority voters. The ACLU and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) have sued the state over the law.
(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates also available on Twitter.
Views on the need for photo ID before voting have held constant for years. Polling in both 2007 and 2006, to found that Americans overwhelmingly requirements for photo identification.
This is the second time this year the Justice Department has made headlines bucking popular local actions that it fears might violate minority rights. In March, 68% of Arizona voters had a favorable view of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose aggressive enforcement of laws against illegal immigration triggered an investigation by the Justice Department.
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“Hi! I’m from the Justice Department, and I’m here to help!”
When did the Justice Dept get put in charge of writing and interpreting law?
The people of Georgia need to change their Constitution and make it law. I would ask the judges....”What can I ask for to prove the person is a US Citizen?”
No the Rat plan is for the vote to be subverted by their combination of actions that will make any ugliness at the polls unnecessary.
Dead, illegal alien voters and such work just fine: see ACORN.
Here in NJ, they won’t even eliminate the dead from the voter rolls. I wonder why. /sarcasm off
As a Georgian, I am PISSED!
“prospective voters should first be required to show a legal photo ID first. “
Must be from The Department of Redundancy Department! Maybe Zero’s Redundant Redundancy Czar himself!
The Justice Department is now supporting voter fraud to create a one party political system. Watch all of the ACORN indictments quietly go away.
Where did the President get the power to fire and hire private industry executives?
....We are headed off the cliff....and the driver is drunk with power...
but, hey, then mean well when they take away our individual liberties.
The Democrats Are Already Winning the 2010 Elections — Which Is What Happens When the Justice Department Is REALLY Politicized [Andy McCarthy]
Never a dull moment with the Justice Department of Eric Holder, aka “the right man at the right time to protect our citizens in the critical years ahead.”
In fact, it would be more accurate to say he’s the right man at the right time to protect our non-citizens in the critical years ahead. Unbelievably (or, perhaps, entirely too believably), Holder has told Georgia that it may no longer verify identification in order to ensure that voting is done only by citizens eligible to vote. The AP reports:
ATLANTA — The Justice Department has rejected Georgia’s system of using Social Security numbers and driver’s license data to check whether prospective voters are citizens, a process that was a subject of a federal lawsuit in the weeks leading up to November’s election.
In a letter released on Monday, the Justice Department said the state’s voter verification program is frequently inaccurate and has a “discriminatory effect” on minority voters. The decision means Georgia must halt the citizenship checks, although the state can still ask the Justice Department to reconsider, according to the letter and to the Georgia secretary of state’s office.
“This flawed system frequently subjects a disproportionate number of African-American, Asian and/or Hispanic voters to additional, and more importantly, erroneous burdens on the right to register to vote,” Loretta King, acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said. King’s letter was sent to Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker on Friday.
Georgia is required to seek DOJ approval before implementing voting protocols because of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (see George Will here and Roger Clegg here). Quite apart from the fact that the VRA is an anachronism in modern America, is there not something perverse about cancelling out the votes of eligible citizens — the inevitable result of permitting ineligible citizens and non-citizens to vote, as DOJ is effectively forcing Georgia to do here — under the auspices of something called the “Voting Rights Act”?
Michelle Malkin notes that Georgia’s secretary of state, Karen Handel, has blasted DOJ’s move:
The decision by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to deny preclearance of Georgia’s already implemented citizenship verification process shows a shocking disregard for the integrity of our elections. With this decision, DOJ has now barred Georgia from continuing the citizenship verification program that DOJ lawyers helped to craft. DOJ’s decision also nullifies the orders of two federal courts directing Georgia to implement the procedure for the 2008 general election. The decision comes seven months after Georgia requested an expedited review of the preclearance submission.
“DOJ has thrown open the door for activist organizations such as ACORN to register non-citizens to vote in Georgia’s elections, and the state has no ability to verify an applicant’s citizenship status or whether the individual even exists. DOJ completely disregarded Georgia’s obvious and direct interest in preventing non-citizens from voting, instead siding with the ACLU and MALDEF. Clearly, politics took priority over common sense and good public policy.
Handel’s letter demonstrates the absurdity of the claims by DOJ’s Civil Rights Division of undue burdens simple verification — i.e., the process airport security personnel put you through if you want to get on an airplane and Amtrak randomly puts you through to get on a train — imposes on minority voters:
It is important to underscore that not a single person has come forward to say he or she could not vote because of the verification process. Further, while DOJ argues that the process is somehow discriminatory, the historic voter turnout among Hispanic and African-American voters in the 2008 general elections clearly says otherwise.
This outrage does not happen in a vacuum. It comes on the heels of the Civil Rights Division’s astounding dismissal of the slam-dunk voter intimidation case against members of the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia (a case in which the Justice Department surrendered after it had already won), and Justice’s blatant undermining of a federal law that commands states to purge their voter registration lists of ineligible voters (e.g., citizens who have died or moved out of state) in order to minimize opportunities for fraud. (See Hans von Spakovsky’s incisive work on these issues, here and here). At the same time the Justice Department is busy preserving the infrastructure of fraud, congressional Democrats are filling the overflowing coffers of the notorious voter-fraud practitioners at ACORN — longtime allies of President Obama.
No need to wait another 18 months: We are losing the 2010 election right now.
06/03 10:30 AMShare
GA voting ID requirements were already held up in the courts (and for several other states.)
This is one the state should fight.
Will there ever be any lawsuits filed against this administration? Not that they would win. Just a question.
So...what are you prepared to do? (from the Untouchables....Sean Connery)
bump to bitch later!
Will somebody remind the A$$holes at the “JusticeDept” that they serve at the pleasure of the American TAXPAAYERS.
THEY WORK FOR US NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND ??????
Hey, if they can dismiss the lawsuit against those 3 black panthers, then here is the blueprint for 2010: Get everyone who wants to to wear jumpsuits with big letters on it: I N S ! If you are caught just say that it would be discrimination on clothing preference and that you’ll file a lawsuit if they try to press charges! Time to “go to the mattresses”
Georgia should reject the Justice Department! Hell one must show ID to by alcohol, buy tobacco, drive a car, board a plane....cash a check, pick up a prescription in some states...and on and on....
There will soon only be one way to remind them (since
they will steal all elections going forward).
The method will involve the cartridge box.
Can you imagine what the independence-minded Georgians of Revolutionary War times would say about the wusses currently populating state offices?
The federal government is breaking contract laws every day in taking over private businesses and voiding contracts and bankruptcy laws. Why should the states continue to let such a gaggle of tyrants over-ride what 77% of their citizens feel is necessary to guard their right to free and fair elections?
It’s time the Tenth Amendment is exercised.
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