Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton is demanding states provide 20 days of early voting and also for Congress to strengthen the federal Voting Rights Act.
She’s making the demands known in her Thursday afternoon campaign speech at Texas Southern University in Houston, various media reported.
An aide told reporters Clinton is calling for “a new national standard of no fewer than 20 days of early in-person voting in every state, including weekend and evening voting,” CNN reported.
In a sign of likely voting fights to come, Clinton is also planning to outline her problems with voting laws imposed by leading Republicans in key election states – North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin.
Her campaign’s lawyer, Marc Elias, filed a lawsuit against Wisconsin a week ago, claiming the state’s recent restrictions on early voting and regulations on voter IDs are unconstitutional. MSNBC reported the suit isn’t directly affiliate with Clinton’s campaign.
Clinton’s strategy of denouncing Republican voting rules could bolster her influence with minorities. Her call for a nationwide standard of 20 days of early voting could also resonate with the working class and family-oriented voters, many of whom work long hours and weekends, election analysts say.
Legal experts have found early voting can open the door to manipulation. For instance, some 2012 voting districts reported 100 percent ballots for President Obama and none for challenger Mitt Romney, despite statistical evidence showing a slim-to-none chance of such naturally occurring.
As WND previously reported, 59 districts in Philadelphia claimed a “head-spinning” number of ballots for Obama and zero for Romney. The local Philly.com said of the turn-out: “The unanimous support for Obama in these Philadelphia neighborhoods – clustered in almost exclusively black sections of West and North Philadelphia – fertilizes fears of fraud, despite little hard evidence.”
But the Market Daily News in Ohio reported similar results. The newspaper found 100 precincts in Cuyahoga County simultaneously turned up their noses at Romney, and 99 chose Obama. The report went on to say “in more than 50 different precincts, Romney received two votes or less,” and “one would think that such improbably results would get the attention of somebody out there.”
Other legal minds also point out that the Constitution does not allow for the federal government to issue national standards for voting. Such authority rests with the individual states.
