Voter ID bill signed amid fierce resistance

A state that WND reported had at least 100 instances of voting irregularities in the 2012 presidential election is fighting back against fraud.

Virginia Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell has signed a law requiring voters to present photo identification at the polls, beginning next year.

The state will provide a free photo ID to any registered voter who requests one.

McDonnell also issued an executive order requiring the State Board of Elections to conduct a public education program informing voters of the new rule before 2014 elections.

Virginia joins Georgia, Indiana, Tennessee and Kansas in requiring voters to present a photo ID.

Mississippi, Texas, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have passed similar measures, but they have not gone into effect because of court rulings or because of the need for approval by the Justice Department.

WND has reported extensively on fraud issues related to inadequate voter identification, including problems with absentee ballots, motor-voter laws, voting machines, voting by illegal immigrants and voter suppression. WND has also reported on the Department of Justice’s fight against voter ID laws.

Pew Research Center published a report revealing election rolls in a shambles nationwide. It found:

• 24 million invalid or inaccurate voter registrations
• 1.8 million deceased voters
• 2.75 million registered in multiple states.

A North Carolina group, the Voter Integrity Project, found close to 30,000 dead voters still on the rolls in North Carolina, a state President Obama won by only 14,000 votes in 2008.

“Mainly, what we’re concerned about is the potential [for fraud],” said project Director Jay DeLancey. “Since there is no voter ID law in North Carolina, anybody can walk in and claim to be anyone else.”

One month after the November election, investigative journalist James Simpson, writing for WND, reported at least 100 cases of voting irregularities in Virginia’s Prince William County, including:

• People unable to state their name or address on their ID without assistance.
• Many unable to speak English who could not follow simple directions.
• Many times upon recording a vote, it was discovered that a vote in that person’s name had already been checked off.
• The apparent age of the person voting sometimes did not match the age on the registration.
• Several times, Dara Fox, a Republican poll watcher certified by the Virginia Board of Elections, observed what appeared to be the same person voting twice, or the same name called twice.
• Many times a person who looked Hispanic answered to a name of some other ethnicity that he or she could barely pronounce.
• All of these people, except for one, voted, and none voted with a provisional ballot.
• One person was denied the vote who admitted through an interpreter he was underage but said he was told he could vote anyway. He was denied the vote only after repeated protests.

The Republican poll watcher, Fox, was interviewed on Washington, D.C.’s WMAL Radio about her experiences, prompting many other Virginia poll watchers to call in or comment about similar experiences they had witnessed.

Republican lawmakers who supported the new Virginia voter photo ID law say it is necessary to prevent voter fraud.

Democrats disagree, claiming the real intent is voter suppression.

“This is merely a continuation of attempts by Republicans to suppress the vote of individuals who are not likely to support their right-wing agenda. I guess it’s true that if you can’t win elections the right way, cheat,” Sen. Mamie Locke, D-Hampton, and chairman of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus told the Associated Press.

While Democrats cry foul, however, evidence is accumulating that they may have been playing fast and loose with the vote:

• Patrick Moran, son of longtime U.S. Rep. Jim Moran, was caught on video by James O’Keefe’s Veritas Project, telling an undercover journalist how to commit vote fraud.
• Other Veritas videos showed Obama campaign officials in Texas, New Jersey and New York providing multiple forms to journalists posing as voters so that they could vote in two or more states.
• On Election Day, Veritas reporters recorded poll officials on camera telling voters not to vote for Romney.
• The Obama campaign accepted illegal donations from other countries. WND’s Aaron Klein proved it by donating to the Obama campaign twice under the name “Osama bin Laden” using a Pakistani Web address.
• A Korean interpreter in Flushing, N.Y., directed Korean voters to vote Democrat. He was expelled from the poll.
• Two cases of forged votes were reported in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., by Republicans who discovered their votes had already been made.
• Non-citizens were charged with voting illegally in Austin, Minn.
• Cases of double voting in Ohio were investigated.
• A non-citizen allegedly voted in Iowa.
• Double voting was investigated in North Carolina.
• NBC reported dead voters voting in California.
• Mentally disabled were coaxed to vote for Obama in North Carolina.
• Widespread absentee vote fraud was investigated in South Texas.
• A non-English-speaking, under-18 youth reported he was “told he can vote.”Simpson says it is clear that Democrats are up to something at inner city polls. Following are a few examples of real voter suppression and threats to voter integrity that occurred last year:
  • Seventy-five GOP vote inspectors were ordered to leave Philadelphia poll locations by Democrat poll judges. One judge was caught on audio. A court order sent them back but who knows what went on while they were gone? These poll locations were all within the 59 precincts where Romney received no votes.
  • In Philadelphia, the Community Voters Project, an ACORN clone that employs former ACORN workers, shredded Republican voter registrations. It’s not the first time they have been in trouble.
  • The Florida AFL-CIO threatened True the Vote and Tampa Fair Vote with legal action for submitting voter registration challenges.
  • Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., issued a highly publicized threat against True the Vote and Election Integrity Maryland just for checking voter rolls. EIM found 11,000 questionable registrations, including 1,566 dead voters. The Maryland Board of Elections took no action.
  • Cummings also attacked the Ohio Voter Integrity Project with the same baseless claims.
  • Think Progress falsely claimed True the Vote was “under investigation” by Rep. Cummings, when in fact he has no legal authority to do so.
  • Despite overwhelming nonpartisan public support for voter ID laws, Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department and liberal jurists have delayed, emasculated or defeated ID laws in Texas, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Arizona and Pennsylvania.
  • Holder has vowed to fight voter ID laws as restricting voters’ rights.
  • The Obama administration “spiked investigations” of eight states that had major voter roll problems.
  • The Holder Justice Department conspired with Project Vote on National Voter Registration Act (aka Motor Voter) enforcement lawsuits, which force state and local agencies to become, essentially, low income voter registration drives.
  • In 2009, the DOJ announced to its attorneys that it would not enforce voter-roll maintenance laws because it wouldn’t increase voter turnout.Simpson says another important factor is the National Voter Registration Act. “Motor Voter” was passed in 1993 under the signature of President Bill Clinton. One of Barack Obama’s early legal cases was against Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar, a Republican who refused to enforce the new law because he feared it would open the door to widespread voter fraud. Obama, in concert with the Clinton Justice Department, ACORN, Project Vote and the League of Women Voters, sued the state, which eventually gave up the fight.Motor Voter requires state and local government offices – most notably motor vehicle and welfare agencies – to provide voter registration services. Successive lawsuits by ACORN, Project Vote and others have forced state agencies to become de facto registration drives. Because these agencies serve largely low-income voters, it is in essence a taxpayer-funded voter registration program for Democrats.Moter Voter means anyone who obtains a new driver’s license is automatically registered to vote. Furthermore, the NVRA does not require voting officials to verify proof of citizenship when people register. In states where illegal aliens can obtain driver’s licenses, including California, Washington, New Mexico and Utah, they are likely already registered to vote. How many illegals actually vote on a systematic basis is not known, but many do.Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler found that about 5,000 Colorado illegal aliens voted in the 2010 midterm elections and 12,000 were registered to vote. In 2012, he sent letters to 3,900 people identified as potentially illegal voters.

    According to Latino Decisions, an election eve poll claimed that 87 percent of Latinos in Colorado supported Obama over Romney. Nationwide, they found that the GOP was supported by only 25 percent of Hispanics. An October 2012 Pew Hispanic Center poll showed only 21 percent of Hispanics supporting Romney to 69 percent for Obama.

    Simpson also cited a number of complaints about electronic voting machines that tallied votes for Democrats despite a Republican vote and a few instances of the opposite case.

  • Voters in Pueblo County, Colo., complained that their votes were being changed to Obama, reported local NBC affiliate KOAA.
  • Maryland congressional candidate and veteran investigative journalist Ken Timmerman reported many voters claimed their votes were changed to Obama, lodging complaints with vote judges. Timmerman has requested to see voting machine records.
  • Maryland House of Delegates member Kathy Afzali and Carroll County Commissioner Richard Rothschild requested the FBI impound two electronic voting machines suspected of switching votes based on complaints from other voters, including a state official.
  • Robert Ashcroft, a Republican poll watcher in Allentown, Pa., reported that about 5 to 10 percent of electronic votes would “change the selection back to default – to Obama.”
  • Electronic voting machine problems were also reported to have occurred in Ohio, Nevada, North Carolina and Texas.
  • A 2008 Fox News report showed how electronic voting machines can be infected with a computer virus to change votes. A Princeton University study in 2006 found the same thing.Simpson concludes that vote fraud did take place in the 2012 election. While no single instance or aspect of vote fraud likely was enough to tip the election for Obama, the aggregate of their corrupt activities – including illegal campaign donations, taking advantage of states without voter ID requirements, military ballots delivered too late, as well as the laundry list of elements identified in this report, may well have been.