Posted on 06/30/2017 7:37:33 PM PDT by MarvinStinson
Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe was the first governor to defy requests for information from Donald Trump's voter commission, announcing that he refuses to turn over voter registration information from the state.
An attorney for McAuliffe previously filed voter identification lawsuits in a number of states that were bankrolled by millions of dollars from liberal billionaire George Soros, who wants to expand the electorate by 10 million voters, documents leaked last year show. The governor's attorney also works with a number of major progressive groups on voter efforts.
McAuliffe, who has vetoed a number of voter identification related bills in recent months, announced Thursday that he will not abide by the request from Trump's voter commission.
"Today the Commonwealth and the other 49 states received a lengthy request from Kris Kobach, the vice chair of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, requesting a list of all registered Virginia voters, the last four digits of their social security numbers, their addresses, date of birth, political affiliation, and their voting history," McAuliffe said in a statement. "The Vice Chairs letter also contained a list of vague inquiries about the election policies and laws of the Commonwealth."
"I have no intention of honoring this request. Virginia conducts fair, honest, and democratic elections, and there is no evidence of significant voter fraud in Virginia," it continues. "This entire commission is based on the specious and false notion that there was widespread voter fraud last November. At best this commission was set up as a pretext to validate Donald Trumps alternative election facts, and at worst is a tool to commit large-scale voter suppression."
Marc Elias, a powerhouse lawyer for a number of high-profile Democrats, is an attorney for McAuliffe. Elias is a partner at the D.C.-based law firm Perkins Coie and served as general counsel for Hillary Clinton's failed presidential campaign.
As Elias was serving as Clinton's top lawyer, he was simultaneously filing voter identification lawsuits in a number of states. Elias spearheaded the effort from his capacity as an attorney at Perkins Coie and separate from the Clinton campaign.
Elias began the effort by filing lawsuits in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Virginia. The Ohio Organizing Collaborative, one of the initial plaintiffs on an Elias lawsuit in Ohio, was replaced and later investigated for voter fraud. A canvasser for the group was ultimately jailed on 13 felony counts of voter fraud, including registering dead people to vote.
The voter identification efforts were fueled by at least $5 million from Soros, whose top goal includes expanding the electorate by at least 10 million people by 2018, the Washington Free Beacon discovered after hacked documents from the billionaire's organizations were leaked last year.
Following Trump's victory, Democrats quickly scrambled to build a massive network to combat voter ID-related issues.
Let America Vote, a nonprofit founded by former Democratic Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander, filed paperwork with the federal election commission in February. The group carries a mission of "winning the public debate over voter suppression in the United States." Elias sits on the group's board of advisers.
Elias was also tapped earlier this year for the board of Priorities USA Action, a liberal Super PAC that shifted their focus to pushing back against voter ID laws.
The group pulled in $157 million in itemized individual contributions last year, with $9.5 million coming from George Soros. Alexander Soros, George's son who has quietly stepped up as a major liberal donor, cut a $1 million check to the group.
Priorities announced plans of absorbing Every Citizen Counts, a nonprofit created by Clinton allies that focused on mobilizing Latino and African American voters. Elias would lead the challenges for Priorities from the nonprofit arm.
"McAuliffe's posturing should surprise no one. Every time someone takes a good look at Virginia's voter roll, they find evidence of election crimes that his policies inspired," said Logan Churchwell, spokesman for the Public Interest Legal Foundation, an election integrity group.
"Given his party's recent obsession with all things Russia, I do not see how he can justify refusing to answer questions like, How can the Commission support local and state election administrators with regard to information technology security and vulnerabilities?'."
Elias responded to inquiries from the Free Beacon by referring to two of his tweets.
"No state should cooperate with this sham effort and no Democrat should serve on this voter suppression commission," one reads.
Agreed. A good tweet slap in the mouth from Trump is just what McAuliffe needs. That, and the DoJ up his @$$ for God only knows how many crimes he’s committed over the last 30 years.
that’s actually a great idea.
Virginia could just give that portion of the state to DC !
That’s not exactly how the constitution reads.
CHAPTER 205NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION
§20501. Findings and purposes
Your argument is without merit. Follow the law, Terry!
Or don't and let the winning continue when you're hauled before the courts and are forced to comply with the law.
Let the games begin. I like our chances in this one, Kris Kobach is as tough and smart as they come, and he’s been at this for decades.
Done!
@realDonaldTrump
Numerous states are refusing to give information to the very distinguished VOTER FRAUD PANEL. What are they trying to hide?
Great point!
I disagree, Hildy. State elections, they can do any way they like.
Federal elections must conform to federal standards.
There should be (and are) federal laws, statutes and guidelines regarding voting, and the Federal government is entitled to comply with requests for information to determine if they are in compliance.
I ask myself the question: How often are Democrats going to level charges of voter fraud? It is not a door they wish to open, for obvious purposes. If they do, both sides will have access to information, and it is going to hurt them far more.
This is analogous to the cops coming to someone’s front door to arrest them, and the person denies they broke any law and closes the door. Those cops have the force of law, and so do we.
Well, to some extent you are true. The state presents its vote, and it can decide what votes to allow and whether it is accurate. The Feds have ways to reject the state’s vote, too. The House and Senate can refuse to seat people sent to them. In presidential elections, the House can reject electoral votes sent to them from a state that sends fraudulent totals. The judiciary can order states on how to conduct their elections for federal elections, and even for state elections. They can, for example, say that term limits don’t apply to federal legislators, or require that all citizens be allowed to vote without restrictions, like a poll tax.
But more importantly, the Congress can, by legislation, set standards for the holding of elections in which federal officials are being elected. Congress could issue a federal ID or require the use of procedures to ensure that only citizens are voting. A state’s failure to comply with those standards could result in all kinds of penalties, monetary and nonmonetary. Even criminal. (It could be tantamount to conspiracy to allow illegal voting to violate the standards required.)
If a state still failed to comply, sending, say, a congressman who was clearly elected with illegal aliens voting (or if a state decided to give illegal aliens the votes, which California has talked about) that sets up the issue of not seating the tainted congressman.
So, there’s no direct way to refuse to recognize a state’s election if they fail to follow federal standards for an election, but there are ways that will result in compliance, if (and this is a big if) the feds actually follow the methods that are available to them. In this day and age, Republicans don’t actually have the stones to do what they need to do in the face of such attacks on the Constitution, but the abilities are there. Maybe after Trump’s 8 years, we will rediscover checks and balances and there will be a breed of Republican that is not of the whipped puppy variety.
He was just being McAwful
You can thank the RNC.
Pretty sure he was elected via voter fraud. That would be one major reason why he is not keen on having fraud uncovered. Perhaps in addition to being the beneficiary of fraud, his fingerprints are all over it as one of the perps.
I think what they’ll find is vote machine over voting...ballots put thru the optical scanner machines multiple times to pad the votes....like they found in Detroit....Optical machines are “dumb”..they just count dots...so they can’t discern between fresh ballots and reused ballots. Take 50 Hillary ballots and put them thru 6 times and you get an increase of Hillary votes 6 fold. And that is how they are cheating! Virginia uses mostly optical scanners accept in few areas.
Remember, folks... there IS NO RIGHT TO VOTE... the ONLY recognized right is that every citizen must have the same rules/rights/privileges as everyone else in whatever election system is offered in each state. If the voter fraud that gets revealed is bad enough, some states could decide to have a different system (only elected representatives vote, or only superdelegates vote, whatever). The Left is intentionally trying to ruin the nation’s every traditional process and institution.
Obama hired and imported a massive liberal workforce that took over NoVa (Northern Virginia).
“Their business” ?
The republicans do have the stones you claim they dont. They just do not align with ours.
Perkins - also the law firm that sent a mid level lawyer to Hawaii to personally pick up and deliver to the White House two paper copies of the “birth certificate.” I wonder if that attorney is now dead or promoted. It has to one or the other...
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