Posted on 02/24/2014 9:05:35 AM PST by jazusamo
A federal court in Tennessee has dealt a serious setback to those attacking photo voter identification laws around the country – including Eric Holder’s Justice Department in North Carolina. United States District Court Judge Ronnie Greer has thrown out a lawsuit brought by the Green Party challenging the Volunteer State’s photo voter ID law.
While the decision was bad for the Green Party in Tennessee, the opinion may be even worse for voter ID opponents nationwide such as the NAACP, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund and Eric Holder .
Greer’s opinion undermines most all of the arguments being pushed by leftwing election-integrity opponents like Eric Holder and the NAACP.
One of the favorite talking points of the left is that voter ID is a “solution in search of a problem.” Any search of stories about voter ID reveals a coordinated push of this strategy by the left and their paid public relations firms.
But Greer, like the United States Supreme Court before him, ruled that states are entirely free to enact election-protection statutes even without proof of voter fraud. In other words, states have the power to get ahead of the criminals and vote-fraudsters.
Greer:
Plaintiff’s allegations of Tennessee’s lack of empirical evidence of in-person fraud or that requiring photo identification will reduce it are irrelevant.
Greer relied on the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Crawford vs. Marion County.
This is bad news for Eric Holder and the plaintiffs challenging North Carolina voter ID.
Not to be deterred, however, Holder’s leftist lawyers have cooked up a fall-back plan. In North Carolina they are arguing what they already argued and lost in Texas and South Carolina – that the lack of “widespread” voter fraud means that the voter ID law must be a racially motivated legislative plot to harm minorities.
If you didn’t catch that, it goes like this.
Since legislators in Texas, South Carolina, and North Carolina could not point to “widespread” voter impersonation, racism must be the real reason behind passing voter ID.
The argument openly made in court reveals the rancid paranoia about Southerners by Voting Section lawyers. No surprise there given the backgrounds of the lawyers involved.
But put aside for the moment the fact that mainstream media like the Houston Chronicle, the State, and the Charlotte Observer bury or ignore incidents of voter fraud. Ignore for a moment that the left never tells you what “widespread or pervasive” fraud means. Nor will they reveal how many units of fraud they find to be acceptable before a legislature may act.
Judge Greer echoes what sensible Americans already understand: it’s no big deal for a state to require you to prove you are who you say you are when you go to vote.
This isn’t a racist plot by southern white male legislators or the Ku Klux Klan version 2.0. It’s common sense.
Judge Greer’s opinion upholding Tennessee’s voter ID law was all about common sense.
No plaintiff has ever successfully challenged a voter ID law in federal court. All of the cases have been characterized by the same comic flaw: the person who can’t obtain a photo ID cannot be found. The elusive snow leopard is easier to find than someone who can’t get a photo ID.
The recurring void was no different in the Tennessee case. From Judge Greer’s opinion:
Defendants argue that plaintiff’s complaint does not identify a single injured person [or] allege that one injured person is a member of the Green Party.
The case is a warning to the plaintiffs challenging Texas and North Carolina voter ID. Bluster, sound bites and talking points only go so far. The country isn’t under the boot of structural racism perpetrated by conniving Republicans in North Carolina and Texas (and Democrats in Rhode Island ).
It’s not 1963 anymore, and federal courts are increasingly coming to understand it, even if Eric Holder does not.
They didn’t judge shop very well, apparently.
Judge Greer is a good judge.
Most of the judges in the Eastern District of Tennessee are good.
Bump!
There is only one real reason they object to voter ID laws: It makes it more difficult for them to steal elections........................
That’s really tough to do in the Fed system. MUCH easier in State.
Having said that ... get back to me when the Cir rules on this one then I’ll be excited.
- With the US Senate seriously up for grabs and cash this November - the progressive judiciary (even SCROTUS) is realizing that any or all of them could be impeached and removed and might have to use tanning lotion and find an 108% Obamabot district to run for Congress as the Chocolate idiot from Florida had to do…..
The hypocrisy of that was unbelievable...almost.
All that the Supreme Court had to say to justify its decision in Crawford v. Marion is the following. The states have amended the Constitution to protect voting rights only on the basis of race, sex, tax status and age as evidenced by the 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendments. In other words, the states have never amended the Constitution to make not having to show a valid photo ID in order to vote a right. But post-FDR era justices are evidently determined to leave the Constitution out of the discussion.
I know they need a phot ID law in Florida to stop all the vacationing New Yorkers from voting in Florida elections.
The judge is completely right, in that a legislature shouldn’t have to wait for proof of wide-spread corruption (that probably already existsm but thanks to the corruption will never be “proven”) to enact legislation that protects the electoral process.
Claiming that this is a “solution in search of a problem” is sort of like ridiculing a home owner for locking the doors and windows unless the home has already been robbed... Or for owning a fire extinguisher unless you’ve already had a fire.
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