He is a fellow named Christopher Broach, a Democrat who is an elections inspector in Colwyn, Pa., which is quite near Philadelphia. Broach told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he has no intention of enforcing Pennsylvania's voter-suppressing photo ID law, explaining: "To ask me to enforce something that violates civil rights is ludicrous and absolutely something I am not willing to do.''
Although Broach risks a fine or jail, he's not backing off. The law has the potential of denying tens upon tens of thousands of otherwise eligible voters from casting ballots, particularly in the City of Brotherly Something, where 43 pct. of the voters do not have a state-issued ID. This GOP inspired witch's brew is now being challenged in court by the ACLU and the NAACP and is being investigated by the U.S.Department of Justice.
All of this in the name of fighting voter "fraud". But , wait. As the case went to trial, the state has now said it cannot produce in court any evidence of fraud. No evidence!!!.. We thought so.
And Pennsylvania's Republican Gov. Tom Corbett , who signed the law, concedes that he can't remember what kind of ID's are acceptable. Well, a governor can't think of everything.
The only honest view from a Republican in this matter is state House Majority Leader Mike Tarzai, who inocently says the law "allows Romney to win Pennsylvania." But the fraud, sir. The fraud...Oh?
Meanwhile, time to whip up the spirited wave for Christopher Broach. I'm glad somebody is getting it right. Wanna bet no Republican is dumb enough to charge him with breaking the law? On the other hand, we're not really dealing with functioning brains on the other side.
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4 comments:
Please allow your own brain to function, my friend. Where's the voter fraud? Even Krauthammer
Republicans can't offer any supporting figures.
Texas for example, has convicted 6 people for voter fraud in the last ten years..... not much of an issue in my book unless you consider the scandal in New Hampshire in 2002 where Republican Black Ops used a telemarketing firm to jam the Get Out the Vote operation. 4 were convicted
including James Tobin, George Bush's New England Campaign manager. Tobin's conviction was over turned, surprise, surprise..... the RNC spent $750,000 defending him.
KrautDawg, still hoping you pick up a history book in the future. You'd be a lot more fun to play with.
What does someone being charged with jamming phone lines ten years ago have to do with the current debate over voter ID laws? You sound as incoherent as always, Mencken.
Back to the topic, I read an article in the Wall Street Journal that detailed numerous instances of voter fraud at the polls. Nevertheless, the burden of proof in this debate falls not on the supporters of voter ID laws but on the opponents.
Where are the specific, real life examples of legitimate voters not having their vote counted because they lacked ID? The fact is that people who show up without photo ID at the polls are allowed to cast a provisional ballot that is counted after proof of identity is offered. That is why virtually every court, including the US Supreme Court, has upheld voter ID laws as an acceptable safeguard to protect the integrity of elections.
It is a heavy burden to carry to enactment a law that professes to protect against a problem that is virtually non-existent. To do so requires inventing an argument that not only sounds legitimate but, on the face of it, appears to be sincerely motivated. Yet, Republican governors and legislators in several key states have succeeded so far in surmounting that burden even though they have done so at the cost of disenfranchising hundreds of thousands citizens of the right to vote, a constitutional and statutory guarantee. The vote is not a privilege, it is a natural right in a democracy. But in the interest of suppressing the votes of many young, elderly and poor people -- the majority of whom are more likely to vote for Democratic than for Republican candidates -- GOP authorities have forged ahead unashamedly with suppression rules in the upcoming (and future) local, state and federal elections. In Pennsylvania alone, according to one authoritative estimate, more than 750,000 citizens lack the newly required identification document(s) to access the voting booths in their precincts. The Republican advocates of such voter-suppression laws insist they are doing so with clean hands; they mean nothing more than to protect the sacred right to vote from fraud. When asked to produce evidence of such misconduct, the suppression advocates are mostly nonplussed. Last year, for instance, the National Republican Lawyers Association produced a report that found some 400 cases in TEN years throughout the fifty states of voter-fraud, less than one per state per year over that time. In several other instances, a few cases turned up in a few states of unregistered or ineligible voters casting ballots either through ignorance or mistake. Any suggestion that improper voting is somehow epidemic is a preposterous myth spread by people with an ulterior motive. Such a motive may have been revealed in Pennsylvania when a Republican legislative leader bragged openly to political supporters that the new suppression law there guaranteed that Mitt Romney would win the state's electoral votes in the November presidential election. In other words, the law was meant to rig the outcome of the election. That's what one should believe is voter fraud.
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