Free Republic

Time and again, Eric Holder’s Justice Department and its Civil Rights Division has shown how highly partisan it is. From its dismissal of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case, to its harassment of jurisdictions with voter ID laws, the Division has proven that its far-left liberal ideology determines whether it will enforce (or not enforce) the law. Now it is ignoring the plight of military voters. The Division once again revealed its true colors in several recent cases to enforce the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (Motor Voter). Keep in mind that in 2009, shortly after the...

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, (R-TX), a member of the Senate Judiciary and Armed Services Committees, today sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder urging him to proactively enforce the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act and the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act to prevent further disenfranchisement of service members and their families. In the letter, Senator Cornyn wrote, “The November 2010 elections were marred by the Justice Department’s grossly inadequate enforcement of federal laws designed to safeguard the voting rights of our military service members and their families, including the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment...

The Department of Justice has launched a new website to rehabilitate its damaged reputation among uniformed servicemembers. Good luck, because servicemembers have figured out that this administration is not their friend, particularly in protecting their right to vote. It is an effort to put more “lipstick on the military voting pig.” If you serve in the military, don’t waste your time looking for help through the website. The DOJ doesn’t want to hear from you. The website is www.servicemembers.gov. “The Department of Justice, in partnership with other federal agencies, is committed to enforcing the federal laws that protect the...

Today, two very different stories will be heard at a hearing before Congress. Eric Eversole and Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez will both testify about the plight of military voters in the 2010 election and whether or not the Justice Department did all it could to protect them. Perez will exaggerate DOJ efforts to protect military voters, and Eric Eversole will testify truthfully about where DOJ dropped the ball in 2010.In 2010, the Department of Justice was suggesting that states mail overseas ballots to servicemembers that listed federal elections but intentionally omitted state contests. With the approach of the electoral...

WASHINGTON — As the effect of a new law protecting the rights of overseas U.S. voters is felt, those voters are reporting an easier time in requesting and receiving ballots. But a very substantial number of their ballots still went uncounted in the 2010 midterm elections, according to a private foundation. “There was definitely an indication from the voters themselves that there was improvement,” Claire M. Smith, research director for the Overseas Vote Foundation, said Thursday in explaining the group’s findings. “One voter said, ‘For the first time in 34 years, I got my ballot on time.”’ Improved procedures received...

PJM covered the mess and delays associated with military voting during the 2010 election. The first set of Congressional hearings to investigate the failures of the Department of Justice to monitor the implementation and compliance with the MOVE Act are scheduled for next Tuesday.  Accuracy-challenged Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez takes the stand to put lipstick on the DOJ military voting enforcement pig.  The hearings should be full of fireworks, especially given the release of a study by the Overseas Vote Foundation (OVF). The study confirmed many of the issues raised by me, as well as the Military Voter Protection Project...

Key committees in both the House and Senate are preparing to examine closely what happened with MOVE Act implementation this year at the Department of Justice.  It was announced today that House Administration Committee will be Chaired by Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA).  Lungren is already familiar with various aspects of DOJ enforcement of the federal voting laws.  He is thorough and dismissive of spin.  The Senate Rules Committee will be examining what happened with military voting also. Expect a tag team. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) is on the Rule Committee and is keenly aware of the mess of 2010 MOVE Act implementation,...

As work gets underway Monday morning, members of the House Administration committee will receive a letter from Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady. The letter urges an investigation into shortcomings of election districts tasked with providing absentee voters, specifically combat soldiers, ballots in the time required by law. "I respectfully write with an urgent request for the House Administration Committee to investigate serious deficiencies in the nationwide implementation and enforcement of the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act of 2009," writes Brady. The MOVE act is an amendment to the 1986 Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act ("UOCAVA"). The key element...

BREAKING NEWS:  Congratulations to the Military Voter Protection Project.  They have broken new legal ground in protecting military voters.  A Maryland Federal Court ruled today that it is a violation of a soldier's constitutional rights to not receive his complete ballot on time under the MOVE Act.  The court ruled that the John Doe officer stationed in Iraq had standing to sue under the federal law requiring ballots to be sent by a certain date (MOVE Act).  This is huge news which will affect the 2012 elections. This is an enormously important decision.  One thing it means is that military...

The Justice Department on Wednesday vowed to thwart any efforts to intimidate voters at the polls on Tuesday and to ensure that the ballots of military voters are counted, as activists on both sides of the political aisle reignite their regular election-time tango over the dangers of voter fraud versus voter suppression. Facing separate investigations in its handling of a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party and questions over the failure of absentee ballots to be sent to military personnel and their families by the legally required date, the Justice Department moved to assure voters that they will...

Justice Department disenfranchises military, protects Black PanthersThe Obama Justice Department is doing everything it can to boost Democrats in the upcoming election. It's helping stifle military votes, facilitating criminal voting and encouraging intimidation at the polls by deep-sixing the New Black Panther voter-intimidation case. In an Oct. 15 letter representing the views of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich tied together the department's mishandling of military voting rights and the Black Panther case. Mr. Weich wrote Rep. Frank Wolf, Virginia Republican, to give assurance that Justice would "not take any action that would be inconsistent...

EXCLUSIVE TO ELECTION LAW CENTER: Election Law Center has learned about some strange things happening in Illinois when it comes to military and overseas ballots. Because of events in Chicago, overseas and military voter ballots will have election judges “recreating” their ballots before they are fed into the tabulating machines. In Illinois, military and overseas voters can ask for either a paper ballot or a ballot sent by email. Ballots sent by email must be reprinted by the voter on the voter’s printer and send back. In most counties the electronic choice is made by about a quarter of voters....

Eric Eversole appeared on Fox News Sunday.  The former DOJ Voting Section lawyer described how his nonprofit, the Military Voter Protection Project was able to detect failure to comply with federal military voting laws when the Department of Justice could not. As a former Voting Section lawyer, Eversole knows firsthand the particular reasons why the Department of Justice has been unable to aggressively enforce military voter protections.  That's why he founded an organization that relies on law students instead of $140,000 a year lawyers to do a better job detecting violations of federal law.  The full video his here. 4:41 minutes

Poor James Cole.  At least he won't have to take a pay cut anytime soon.  Cole doesn't get his DAG job, but what of the people responsible for it? The whirlwind cometh to DOJ regarding the failure to protect military voters in 2010.  The soon to be Chairmen strike. Letter from Congress. One of many zingers:  "What we find most troubling about this situation is that the Department of Justice, which has the sole and exclusive authority to enforce UOCAVA, not only failed to ensure compliance but apparently was not even aware when widespread noncompliance occurred." The letter also states a private...

An amazing revelation over at BigGovernment.com. They report Illinois has been “lying” about whether or not military ballots mailed on September 18 as required by Federal law. They lied to the DOJ.  Obviously if they did lie, this is not a happy day for America’s servicemembers. But take special note of why the lie worked: because the Department of Justice deploys a Keystone Kops enforcement operation. You can actually read the extent of the Justice Department’s inquiry to Illinois here.  It isn't much.  After the Illinois board of elections tells the DOJ that the ballots mailed in time in all the...

You know, comrades,” says Stalin, “that I think in regard to this: I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how.  Boris Bazhanov’s Memoirs of Stalin’s Former Secretary, published in 1992 Sadly, it would seem that several blue states decided the would cut out the middle-man — rather than worry about counting the votes, they’ll simply neglect to send them in a timely fashion. According to the MOVE Act, the states were supposed to mail out absentee ballots to overseas...

At least 25 IL counties failed to mail military ballots on time, and I have obtained communications from the past week showing the Justice Department never had a clue. When I reported at PJM that military ballots in New York failed to mail just three weeks before the election, I described it as surreal. Surreal became tragic when considering how badly the DOJ dropped the ball. They failed to do anything about the problem for eight days after learning about it. Now it has gotten much worse. I can report that Illinois has at least 25 counties which failed to...

Feds looking at Illinois' military ballots SPRINGFIELD — State election regulators are trying to determine how many Illinois counties complied with federal voting laws regarding overseas military voting. At the request of the U.S. Justice Department, the Illinois State Board of Elections is asking counties to report back on whether they sent out military ballots for the Nov. 2 election by Sept. 18. At least one county, with a large portion of military ballots, acknowledges missing the deadline. St. Clair County Clerk Bob Delaney said 1,297 overseas military ballots — many of them connected with Scott Air Force Base —...

Election '10: The de facto disenfranchisement of soldiers by an incompetent Board of Elections is a shameful slap in the face of those who are fighting and dying in two wars to protect our right to vote and theirs. There's no excuse for this. None. The failure of the state of New York's Board of Elections to send out absentee ballots to the state's military and overseas voters, even after being granted a federal extension under the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act, is made worse by the fact that New York City on 9/11 was the Pearl Harbor...

   Barely three weeks before the election, the Department of Justice has opened "urgent" discussions with New York.  New York has failed to mail ballots to military voters.  This is the latest breakdown in DOJ enforcement of the MOVE Act. The MOVE Act required ballots to mail out on September 18.  New York obtained a waiver allowing the ballots to mail October 1.  But that didn't happen across a sizeable portion of the Empire State - including all of New York City and Westchester County.  On October 2, the failure to comply with the deadline should have been known.  Fox...