Voter fraud that's legal (MICHELLE MALKIN)

Townhall.com ^ | November 6th, 2002 | Michelle Malkin

[Sabertooth]

Michelle Malkin (archive)

November 6, 2002

Voter fraud that's legal

More Third World shenanigans from the land of the free and the home of the electorally challenged: The Justice Department dispatched more than 400 federal observers and lawyers to guard against illegal voting fraud at polling places in 14 states yesterday. By mid-morning, complaints of rigged machines, racial intimidation and partisan interference had already been lodged from all parts of the country. Overlooked on Election Day, however, were the myriad examples of voter fraud -- and the undermining of American citizenship -- that government officials allow to go totally unchecked and unpunished.

In Florida, a Democrat named Rafael Velasquez was able to run for state office despite admitting that he voted twice in the 1990s before obtaining U.S. citizenship. Under Florida election laws, voting as a noncitizen can be prosecuted as a felony. Velasquez said he voted in the 1996 presidential election and the 1998 Florida gubernatorial race because of a "misunderstanding." The candidate claimed that he informed election officials that he was a resident alien, but that they let him vote anyway.

Miami-Dade County elections records, however, contradicted Velasquez's characterization of his illegal votes as clerical errors. According to The Miami Herald, the documents showed that he falsely claimed to be a citizen (he was not naturalized until May 2001). Yet, no charges were filed against him, and his illegal votes did not disqualify him from running for public office.

Belying the din of "disenfranchisement," the state of Florida seems all too willing to hand over voting privileges to those who don't deserve them. Another prominent noncitizen allowed to vote in the Sunshine State was Sami Al-Arian, a controversial University of South Florida Islamic professor with long-alleged ties to terrorism, who cast his ballot in a Tampa referendum in 1994 -- while his citizenship application was pending. He, too, claimed the illegal vote was the result of a "misunderstanding." State officials have declined to prosecute.

Elsewhere, noncitizen voting is not merely overlooked. It is encouraged. Here in my home county of Montgomery County, Md., five municipalities allow noncitizens (with no distinction between legal and illegal aliens) to cast ballots in local elections: Takoma Park, Somerset, Chevy Chase, Martin's Additions and Barnesville. Last month, Washington, D.C., Mayor Anthony Williams endorsed a similar proposal championed by Hispanic activists. "I'm committed to expanding the franchise," Williams said in explaining why citizenship should be thrown out the window as the standard for voting eligibility.

In 1993, the federal Motor Voter law "expanded the franchise" for political expediency, and exacerbated the perilous trend of lowering the safeguards for voting that continues to undermine the value of U.S. citizenship today. As former INS Commissioner Alan C. Nelson noted when Takoma Park passed its noncitizen voting referendum a decade ago:

"In many countries of the world, an alien is always an alien. In our country, we are proud that our laws and social policies encourage aliens of all races and cultures to become citizens. In recent years, however, an increasing number of aliens have not pursued citizenship . . . This trend is disturbing, because it could seriously affect the assimilation process immigrants have pursued in this nation for 200 years . . . This important value of becoming a citizen is lost if an alien can vote without becoming a citizen. Any legal resident alien can become a U.S. citizen in five years. That is not an unreasonable time to wait to be able to participate in our democracy. The five-year wait emphasizes the value of citizenship as a requirement to vote and to becoming a full member of the community. If local voting by noncitizens is allowed, state and federal voting could be next. Either there is a policy basis for noncitizens to vote, or there is not. If we open the door, it cannot be closed halfway."

Where are those federal monitors when we need them?

Contact Michelle Malkin | Read her biography

©2002 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

[chemainus]

Feeling feisty last night, I went to my polling place, went up to the steward, took my wallet, and told him I was an illegal alien and had found this wallet in the parking lot outside and I wanted to vote ...The steward looked at me quizzically and asked for my name and address...I told him I was simply reading it off the card in the wallet I found and gave him the name...I asked him if he was going to verify my identity....he said yes..."What is your address?" ...again I held up the wallet and said I was merely reading whatever address was on the card in the found wallet...he said that was fine...I asked him if he wanted some other identification...he said he wasn't allowed to ask for it...I asked him if he wanted to see picture ID...he said it was against Federal Election Laws...he gave me my voting pass... after voting, he was on break and I went up to him...he said, hell it's easier than that, just go to a neighborhood nearby and steal some mail from the boxes and come in here and give the names and addresses and vote...if someone has already voted then just say it was your brother and leave to 'check it out' as no one will follow you....or as an illegal or legal foreign visitor get a drivers license from the Virginia DMV, ask for motor voter form and just check the box as a citizen ; no one checks it...or just get names from neighborhood mail or mailboxes and come in to vote and with no I.D. just sign a fake name to the form ... hell he said, there is no requirement at all that is checked in Virginia to ascertain the voter is a citizen or the voter is who he/she says......now FR friends, Virginia is not nearly as loose as North Carolina, Florida, Nuu Joisie, Maryland, D.C. , New York, California, or Tennessee ( who begged all illegals to come get a free drivers license sic. a voter card)....the pride and reward for being a citizen and participating is being diluted drastically by illegals usurping OUR INALIENABLE RIGHTS with the consent and collusion of our politicians, both Democrats and Rewpublicans alike. Do you like your country? Then we had all better band together to stop this legal , sanctified, codified and allowed vote fraud. Voting used to be a sacred duty and privilege of the citizen. It must be thus again, if democracy is to survive.

[oust the louse]

Great post!

[technoCon]

the presumption that white=conservative is a bit of Democrat trolling that we have to stop.

Michelle Malkin ain't no nordic blonde. She is the future and the future looks good.

The future of this nation ain't Ayrian. Freedom is color blind. Right now, Republicans have to recruit more candidates of color. We have to educate people about what Freedom means and what's in it for all of us.

That includes our newest citizens who may look at Democrat machine politics, compare it to the 3rd-world kleptocracy they left and think it acceptable.

No, this is America, and there's a reason why we don't want Clinton-style politicos to run this country like some banana republic.

[afraidfortherepublic]

... five municipalities allow noncitizens (with no distinction between legal and illegal aliens) to cast ballots in local elections: Takoma Park, Somerset, Chevy Chase, Martin's Additions and Barnesville...

Outrageous!

[afraidfortherepublic]

As a descendent of some of the first Virginians (Jamestown, 1607)I am shedding tears over the situation you describe! Surely there is something we can do about it, although it is much the same way in Wisconsin. I've been complaining for years, to no avail.

[ezo4]

What a wonderful women! I cant wait until I get to see my girl tonight...she happens to look allot like Michele ....nice

[MissAmericanPie]

Oh, so Democrats can talk about who constitutes the majority of their base, minoirities, but it's racist if we discuss who constitutes the majority of our base? That is the kind of double PC standard I will not allow anyone to lay on me.

What? Are you assuming that I don't believe that Michelle Malkin isn't as American as apple pie because she isn't a blonde nordic? Wrong, she is as American as I am, and far more heroic, but mathmatically she does not constitute the majority of our base in the way that politicians measure their bases.

What? Everytime "white" is mentioned are you going to curl up into a little guilt ball, or go over the top and decry racism, where non exists, by being racist to yourself? No thanks, not me.

In simple mathmatical terms, in the main, poor, uneducated, minorities vote their bellies, they love the freebies and that is not going to change before the Republican Party self destructs attempting to be Democrat lite. This is why the Democrats call the majority of minorites their "base".

Michelle Malkins, like all conservatives, are rare thinking people with an independent streak, and an internal moral compass, who understand and love the Constitution. She is the very definition of conservative, and hopefully people of value, like her, will grow in numbers and come in all flavors, but that takes time, education, life experience, a connection to country. Evidently you are not listening to what she herself is telling you, thinking people with independent streaks are being over run by people just off the boat from some hell hole that thinks what we have today is freedom.

People with no understanding, and many with no concern, for the responsibilites of guarding freedom, the Constitution, or of the fact that they need to understand they are part of something bigger than themselves or their "race". Far too many are only concerned with what's in it for them now, consider themselves noble if they try to get the largest piece of pie for their race, and what their race card can buy them. That is a fact not to be ignored by thinking people who wish to responsibly preserve what generations have fought for. I'm not careless with my responsibilites, conservatives never are.

If you want to take the race lie away from Democrats then our politicans should preach in terms of unity, vision, American spirit, goals, personal responsibility, and the desire to give everyone the opportunity to succeed while not promising a free ride on the backs of other free men. Then you better hope the masses arriving here, in ever doubling numbers, has the enternal moral fortitude to desire that. Or you better insure it by stopping immigration until those here have the time under their belt to learn it. If not, your irresponsibly sinking your boat with your children in it, while sinking the new arrivals boat also. Because to be very frank, they need to be protected from themselves and the lie the Democrats sell them, and we also need to be protected from it.

[Free the USA]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[technoCon]

Excuse me. You may have misunderstood me. I think that it is important that when countering the Rats' empty claims that we're crypto-klansmen, that the spokesperson be a person who ain't white.

I think the world of Michelle Malkin, and I think the world of Ann Coulter. They're both beautiful women and their skin tone is no different to me than their eye color. My point is that when addressing your typical person of color the beautiful brown lady will be better received.

Please don't think I was in any way inferring that your opinions were either racist or consciously Rat-like. The Rats claim to be color-blind but then say that political rhetoric is racist only because the spokesperson is white. I wasn't attacking you, but the Rats.

[MissAmericanPie]

"My point is that when addressing your typical person of color the beautiful brown lady will be better received."

So the typical "person of color" can't receive the simple truth unless it's from a person with some pigmentation because of the person of colors racism? LOL, I'll have to think about that one, you could be right, but then, I know that is not Michelle Malkins requirement nor the requirement of any true conservative.

[technoCon]

well, i was speaking in generalities. no slap at the cognitive or perceptual abilities of the typical person of color, merely an observation of predilictions. Smart people often have to be challenged to overcome preconceived notions and "received truths."

if the preconceived notions say, "whitey lies to you," it's gonna be harder to hear counter-intuitive arguments from a Nordic blonde. (Not that I don't like Nordic blondes.)

In communications-theory terms, we're shaping the message to better get thru the channel.