Voter ID at last!

This is from the Texas Tribune

Voter ID Passes House After Long, Emotional Debate
by Julian Aguliar

After more than 11 hours of debate, seven points of order, more than 60 amendments and nearly as many heated exchanges, a mentally vanquished and emotionally exhausted Texas House preliminarily approved the controversial voter ID bill late tonight.

The bill, SB 14, which would require that voters present a form of approved photo identification to cast a ballot, was passed strictly along party lines, 101-48.

Throughout the debate, Democrats opposed the bill that Gov. Rick Perry designated as an emergency item. They tried — and failed — time and again through amendments to loosen the strict voting requirements.

State Rep. Patricia Harless, R-Spring, the bill’s House sponsor, bore the brunt of the Democrats’ frustrations. But she and Republican supporters of the measure dug in, and rejected even moderate proposals for change. With Republicans accounting for 101 of the 150 legislators in the House, the bill’s approval was never in doubt.

Republicans argued, as they have through years of working to pass the measure, that requiring photo identification is necessary to stop voter fraud, to restore integrity at the ballot box and to increase voter confidence and turnout. Democrats countered that voter fraud at the polling place is a myth, and that if it occurs at all, it is through mail-in ballots, a problem the bill would do nothing to address. Instead, they said, requiring photo ID would disenfranchise thousands of voters, including the elderly, minorities and students.

I cannot understand the Democratic issues here, we must have a photo ID for so many things, including the privilege to drive, why should we not have one to vote?  Their argument is a specious one.

As a Texan I am offended by this, as a taxpayer I am outraged

We support our universities very well here in Texas.  We know many professors are liberal, but how many are activists using our time and our money. I didn't hear about this from the mainstream media, I read it on Pajamas Media.
It starts out with a tale of misconduct at the polls in Houston, that's bad, but this is the part I'm talking about (posted by Bryan Preston):

We’re gathering other evidence of the left’s particular brand of GOTV, such as hints that professors may be abusing their positions to encourage their students to vote a certain way, as in this email from a professor at the University of Texas at Brownsville (emphases in original).

Dear CoE Colleagues,
This afternoon, we received a request from the provost that all faculty walk with their students to the UTB/TSC early voting polling site located in Mary Rose Cardenas South during the last 10-15 minutes of class on Thursday and Friday (the poll will also be open on Monday).

The number of students and faculty voting on campus remains low, far below our goal of 100%, which puts our campus polling place at risk. Please consider engaging your students in a dialog about why they choose to vote or not to vote. With several positions on the ballot for the local school board, there is much to talk about in a College of Education regarding voter participation.

No class? No problem. CoE staff will be available to drive faculty and staff (not students) in the golf cart to MRCS to vote. The minimum number of passengers is three. Call 882-7220 for a free ride to the polling place.

Starting tomorrow, tallies will be taken by college for student, faculty, and staff voter turnout. Let the College of Education lead the way!

Enthusiastically,

Selma Yznaga

Selma d. Yznaga, Ph.D., LPC-S
Founder, Texas Counselors for Social Justice
Associate Professor
Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies
The University of Texas at Brownsville

“Founder, Texas Counselors for Social Justice.” How telling. Any chance she wants her students to vote for fiscal responsibility and limited government?

If you witness anything like these incidents, please send it to us at pollwatch@pajamasmedia.com.

How blatant can they be.  Notice this was not instigated by this professor, it was by the provost, she was just enthusiastically following up on the request.  This is electioneering
vote buying? harrassment (?) in the worst form.  I just don't know exactly what to call this, but anyway you call it is not good.  I suspect some heads will roll on this, and well they should!

Hillary Supporters are still very angry

This is an open letter to Rush that is going viral on the internet.  You need to read it.  I’m putting up the last paragraphs, it’s a very long post. Read it all, if you don’t have time just read this part below and get back to the whole thing later. to read it all click the blue heading.

An Open Letter to Rush Limbaugh and His Listeners — With Notes on the Democrat Civil War Already In Progress
[.......]
Hear that, Ben Nelson…voters will be coming for you.
You and everyone like you.
Every last one of you.

If you voted for Obamacare, you are politically dead but may not know it…and it is your own fault. Being intensely stupid is no defense. If you were a YES vote on anything related to Obamacare you are going to be defeated…if not in 2010, then in the primaries in 2012. If you survive those, you will be taken down in the 2012 general election. Your political career is over…dummy.


Hope your time on the Obama Kool-Aid bandwagon was worth ruining your life over.

We will not forget those Obamacare votes. We will not forgive being called a racist because we don’t support this terrible man and his awful agenda. We will not be silenced.

We will not give up.

It’s going to be years, if ever, before the lamestream media ever catches up to any of this, and realizes that a large swath of people who used to be Democrat loyalists are now doing everything they can to destroy the party. Some of them are out and open, like me and my friends here at HillBuzz, but many are doing their part quietly. They just stop writing checks. Or maybe now they write checks to Democrat opponents. They might continue to attend events and fundraisers, but now they call up Republican sites and give them all the dirt on what they heard in those meetings. The Democrat Party alienated so many people who are now working to bring it down that I could go on for pages and pages more on this topic.

It’s very Sidney Bristow, Rush. And if you watched that show Alias, you’d know she not only won in the end, but looked damn good kicking ass while doing it.

THAT, El Rushbo, is what your “Hillary babes” are up to.
Here in Boystown, and in every town, because the Civil War Howard Dean, Donna Brazile, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Obama started on May 31st, 2008 is raging without end until the Democrat Party is no more.

Tell your listeners to count on that.

Kevin DuJan
Editor-in-Chief, HillBuzz.org
Hillary “Babe” in Buzzquarters, Boystown

Just check

A few days ago I went to my regular beauty shop to get my hair cut. The lady who does this is a down to earth hard working lady. She has her beauty shop, although we don’t call them that anymore, she drives a school bus, and she had one child that she backs up every step of the way. And, most interesting of all to me, she’s a Democrat. The blue dog kind. And she is furious. Why?

Because she found out at safety meeting for the bus drivers last week that somehow, the schools in our parish (that is what Louisiana calls its counties) were going to be open on the November 2nd election day.

Around here, just like most of the rest of the country, a lot of our schools are voting precincts. Neither one of us have ever heard of one being left open on election day.

First of all, contemplate the logistics of such a thing. Busses, kids, cars, voters, all trying to get to the right place in a timely manner. That alone is enough to discourage voters. All of this while classes are in session.

Second of all, what about the safety of the children in those classes? There isn’t a school around now that allows ANYone to just traipse onto their school grounds in this day and age. Do you know of any? I sure don’t. We are all so very aware of what can go wrong if the wrong person is allowed on a school campus. The adults at the school are hyper-vigilant about strangers. They have to be, they are held responsible for the safety of those kids.

But somehow this got overlooked? By an entire school board? ! I don’t know that I’m buying that, and I KNOW that this particular bus driver didn’t.

I am so proud of her! She stood up and demanded an explanation. Which got blown off by the presenters . So she called her school board, and her local representative, and finally, the president of the school board. She was offered a few excuses, and of course, the blame was spread around, but finally, after having it pointed out who might be personally responsible if something went wrong, the school board president decided that maybe they should close the schools that day after all.

We both wondered at the time, if this is happening here, in a small rural community, where else is it happening? Other parishes? The whole state? Other states? THE WHOLE COUNTRY???

Okay, I’ll admit it. I started to freak at that point. Was I being a wee bit paranoid? A little over the top? Maybe. Mistakes do happen, and this is such a little thing, but a little thing that could have HUGE repercussions throughout my state, and throughout my country. I could not just sit back and expect that someone would catch that little mistake everywhere.

 So I emailed the local Republican party site. My letter bounced back. So I tried the local tea party sites. One had no contact information, the other seemed a little flaky, but hey! At least I could contact that one. So I left him a message on his Face Book page. He friended me, but I didn’t get a reply. Ooookay. I sent an email to a local conservative (or as conservative as the can be) television station. No reply.

So now this is going to get posted here. I hope someone picks up on it.

Check with your school boards, your school districts. I don’t care who they are, or what they are. Just check.

All of middle America, no matter what the party affiliation should be concerned about this and about the direction our country is going.

Just check.

Voter registration fraud right here in Texas

From Gateway Pundit

Texas SEIU Member Registers 23,207 Fraudulent Voters

Posted by Guest Contributor

Service Employees International Union (SEIU) member Steve Caddle of Houston, Texas has been caught registering 23,207 fake voters in Harris County alone due to the hard detective work of Catherine Engelbrecht and her “True the Vote” project.

This is one of the best examples of what good citizen activism inspired by Tea Party principles can do for their community.

Catherine Engelbrecht was sick and tired of the vote fraud perpetrated by unions and Democrats and set out to expose it herself. Along with many friends who donated their time, computers, and sweat, they’ve uncovered thousands upon thousands of illegal Democrat  voters in Texas.

Go here to read it all.

An occasional good news story on Voter Verification

And we should keep it mind, it might come in handy in some disputed elections.

In Georgia, a Victory for Citizenship Verification
By Hans A. von Spakovsky

Last week brought good news for those of us who believe that illegal aliens and non-citizens shouldn’t be violating federal and state laws that prohibit them from registering and voting with impunity. The Justice Department agreed to settle a federal lawsuit filed by the State of Georgia (Georgia v. Holder) that will allow Georgia to verify the citizenship status of newly registered voters.

Georgia filed the lawsuit in June because the DOJ objected to the state’s verification procedures, calling Georgia’s process “seriously flawed” and claiming it would have a disparate impact on minority voters. Because Georgia is covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, it cannot make any change in its voting laws and procedures without first getting the approval of the Civil Rights Division, the most notoriously partisan division in the Justice Department.


There’s an irony here: By verifying citizenship, Georgia was simply implementing another federal law, the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which requires states to verify the accuracy of voter registration information.

Read it all here.

More on The DOJ craziness

Lawlessness at the DOJ: Voting Section Told Not To Enforce Purging the Dead or Ineligible from Voting Rolls
It's not just the New Black Panther case: in November 2009, political appointee Julie Fernandes told a packed room of Voting Section employees to simply ignore this provision of the "Motor Voter" law.
by J. Christian Adams

I was at the Voting Section of the Justice Department for over five years. This office is responsible for enforcing most federal election laws which do not involve criminal matters. My previous articles at Pajamas Media have spoken of the DOJ’s lawless abandonment of race-neutral enforcement of voting laws, and other outrageous conduct. I will continue to publish here at Pajamas Media more instances of failure to enforce the law equally by the Department.

One such instance relates to the Motor Voter law, and will shock Americans who care about integrity in the electoral process.

The “Motor Voter” law was passed in 1993 to promote greater voter registration in the United States. It did this — most Americans now know from visits to the DMV — by requiring states to offer voter registration materials whenever someone had contact with a variety of state offices. These included welfare offices, social service agencies, and motor vehicle departments.

A lesser-known provision also obliged the states to ensure that no ineligible voters were on the rolls — including dead people, felons, and people who had moved. Our current Department of Justice is anxious to encourage the obligations to get everyone registered, but explicitly unwilling to enforce federal law requiring states to remove the dead or ineligible from the rolls.

In November 2009, the entire Voting Section was invited to a meeting with Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes, a political employee serving at the pleasure of the attorney general. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss Motor Voter enforcement decisions.

The room was packed with dozens of Voting Section employees when she made her announcement regarding the provisions related to voter list integrity:
We have no interest in enforcing this provision of the law. It has nothing to do with increasing turnout, and we are just not going to do it.
Jaws dropped around the room.
Read it all here.

Another "Gee, Who Knew?" Moment, this time on Acorn, but you won't see it in most news media

From The Daily Caller

ACORN employees tell FBI of deliberate election fraud, according to new documents

By Matthew Vadum

The radical activist group ACORN “works” for the Democratic Party and deliberately promotes election fraud, ACORN employees told FBI investigators, according to an FBI document dump Wednesday.

The documents obtained by Judicial Watch, a watchdog group, are FBI investigators’ reports related to the 2007 investigation and arrest of eight St. Louis, Mo., workers from ACORN’s Project Vote affiliate for violation of election laws. All eight employees involved in the scandal later pleaded guilty to voter registration fraud.

Project Vote is ACORN’s voter registration arm. Project Vote continues to operate despite the reported dissolution of the national structure of ACORN.

The handwritten reports by FBI agents show that ACORN employees reported numerous irregularities in the nonprofit group’s business practices.

One employee told the FBI that ACORN headquarters is “wkg [working] for the Democratic Party.”

Read it all here.

Is there a state of Florida in Great Britain? New Mexico?

I guess there doesn't have to be, they can have voter problems on there own.
From the Australian:

Voters protest as thousands unable to cast ballots in British election

WIDESPREAD voter anger has marred the British election, with thousands of people being deprived of their right to vote as polling stations were unable to cope with demand.

David Monks, chief returning officer for England, told The Times the widespread failures to deal with high voter turnout may lead to by-elections in the next few weeks as disenfranchised citizens challenge results.

Some protested in the streets at being unable to vote because of queues when polling stations closed at 10pm.

British Electoral Commission head Jenny Watson said it would investigate but that "we’ve been saying for some time that the system we have is at breaking point".

The Conservatives said reports of the queues were "disturbing" and must be "thoroughly investigated".

And Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown was "very concerned" about the reports of people being turned away from polling stations and "would support a thorough investigation into them", according to his spokesman.

The Labour Party also said 600 people were missing from the electoral roll in Chester, despite having registered.

An estimated 500 would-be voters were turned away in Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg’s constituency of Sheffield Hallam and another 200 people in Woodseats, a Sheffield suburb five miles away, were told their votes would not count.

Voters gathered outside Mr Clegg’s home and he apologised for the problems.

Police were called to deal with angry people prevented from voting in several areas including in Brockley and Hackney in London.

Many more details here.

Fraud in Many Levels

The Washington Examiner has this story on a top level NASA official who convicted of fraud in business.

Former NASA climate scientist pleads guilty to contract fraud
By: Bill Myers

A former top climate scientist who had become of one the scientific world's most cited authorities on the human effect on Earth's atmosphere was sentenced to probation Tuesday after pleading guilty to steering lucrative no-bid contracts to his wife's company.

In addition to a year's probation, former NASA manager Mark Schoeberl, 60, of Silver Spring, was also fined $10,000 and ordered to put in 50 hours of community service. He admitted in the late summer that he had hid some $50,000 in NASA contracts for a company called Animated Earth, which was run by Schoeberl's wife, Barbara. Prosecutors alleged that Schoeberl tried to help his wife's firm for years. When his colleagues balked at giving no-bid contracts to his wife's firm, Schoeberl pressured them to steer money to his wife through indirect means.

Schoeberl was the chief scientist of the Goddard Space Flight Center's Earth Sciences Division and the head of the Aura Project, a NASA mission to study the Earth's ozone layer, air quality and climate. He has written extensively about the depletion of the ozone level, and the influence of humans on global climate change.

Animated Earth offers plasma-screen kiosks that carry satellite images of the Earth's climate and atmosphere.

I suspect he had a vested interest in promoting global warming to help his business.You can't get much more of a conflict of interest than this.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights steps up on The Black Panther Voter Intimidation Case

According to the Weekly Standard:

...The USCCR is also taking a major role in the high-profile New Black Panther party (NBPP) voter intimidation case. On Election Day 2008, members of the NBPP were caught on video threatening voters at a Philadelphia polling station. Department of Justice lawyers investigated and were poised to enter a default against the NBPP and three individual members. In May, though, Obama administration officials dismissed the case without explanation. The decision enraged legal groups and Republican congressmen, forcing an investigation by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR). But no congressional hearings are forthcoming, and doubts about OPR's rigor and independence have been raised. Republican representative Frank Wolf says that he is "not so sure OPR is really digging": "They are not really talking to a lot of people and about a lot of things."

Into this breach has stepped the USCCR. It sent letters in June and August to Justice demanding to know the reasons for the dismissal and whether the department had changed its longstanding interpretation of the Voting Rights Act. The USCCR's concern goes beyond potential ethical violations by Obama appointees meddling with career attorneys' work, Reynolds explains. No one, he notes, would "seriously entertain the view that the Justice Department would have taken the same approach if we moved this out of Philadelphia, to the South with white men .  .  . in hoods, swinging billy clubs and saying 'This is a white man's world.' " The USCCR's interest, he explains, is in the "precedent": "I don't want any organization or group to point to the New Black Panther party controversy and say, 'We did the same exact things, and we want the same treatment.' "

It is a long article, read it all

Voter Fraud?

There is really no way to know. But... it is New Jersey and their reputation on that type thing is not very good. Read this and make up your mind. And remember it was one of the votes in the Congress that passed the healthcare travesty.