Why Democrats fear voter fraud investigations

As President Trump's Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity met on Tuesday in New Hampshire to discuss voter fraud, the usual liberal suspects cried wolf.

During last year's election, the president voiced what we know - that voter fraud exists. The only question is to what degree, and that's the mission of the commission.

For anyone who dismisses concerns about voter fraud, the unhinged reaction by the left at investigating it should, at the very least, make a logical person wonder what they're so concerned about.

After all, if you believe the issue is false, or at the most an irrelevant factor in end results, you should welcome confirmation of that fact. Unless, of course, one fears the actual outcome may prove how voter fraud impacts local and state races to the point of shifting the balance of power in Washington, D.C.

Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state and vice chairman of the president's commission, has already caused quite the stir. In a Breitbart article, Mr. Kobach revealed that out-of-state voters may have changed not only the outcome of the New Hampshire U.S. Senate race, but also could have impacted who won the state's presidential contest.

Mr. Kobach's assertion is quite simple and demands an investigation, which is exactly what the commission will do. He noted that New Hampshire is a state with same-day voter registration, which eliminates the ability to determine the eligibility of those voters. He said that last year there were 6,540 same-day registrants with out-of-state driver's licenses.

The state requires residents to obtain a state driver's license within 60 days of moving, yet since the election "5,313 of those voters neither obtained a New Hampshire driver's license nor registered a vehicle in New Hampshire. They have not followed the legal requirements for residents regarding driver's licenses, and it appears that they are not actually residing in New Hampshire. It seems that they never were bona fide residents of the State."

This number, Mr. Kobach pointed out, is large enough to have made the difference in the state's U.S. Senate race as well as the presidential election. Hillary Clinton won the swing state by only 2,738 votes. Incumbent Republican Kelly Ayotte lost her Senate seat to Democrat Maggie Hassan by the slim margin of 1,017 votes.

Some critics of Mr. Kobach's assertion argue that the driver's license issue could reflect voting by out-of-state college students who live in New Hampshire. Sure, that's possible, so let's find out, shall we?

Liberals usually claim if there is fraud, it's so small and isolated that it doesn't impact end results. The margins in New Hampshire prove the falsity of that argument.

This issue and others were discussed in Manchester on Tuesday, as a cacophony of liberal whiners and harpies demanded a dismantling of the commission itself.

Because, you know, it's just so much easier to burn down something with which you disagree. Just ask the #Resist gang antifa.

The ACLU's farcical headline serves as a good example of how panicked the left really is: "Kris Kobach Pushes Voter Fraud Lies While Meeting With Fellow Suppression Activists."

Looks like they ran out of room for "Klan," "Nazi," and "Puppy killers."

Prior to this week's meeting, Stephen Dinan of The Washington Times reported on the thousands of comments that have poured into the commission.

"For a problem that critics say doesn't exist, Americans seem to have a lot of stories of voter fraud or the potential for it. They are sharing those stories with President Trump's voter integrity commission as it wades into one of the administration's thorniest fights," Mr. Dinan reported.

"Democrats have vowed to use the legislative process to try to derail the commission. Last month, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York compared the commission to the white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, and said he would try to eliminate the panel as part of a must-pass bill," The Times noted.

Why so afraid, Chuck?

The issue of voter fraud must be addressed so every voter can be sure that their right as a citizen is not being erased by a fraudulent vote. Last year, this newspaper reported on a variety of fraudulent situations demanding reviews, including dead people voting in Colorado, illegals voting in Virginia, some Pennsylvania citizens voting twice, underage voters voting in the Wisconsin primary, and vote rigging in Texas.

Meanwhile, "[A] Heritage Foundation database tracking documented voter fraud now contains 492 cases and 773 criminal convictions, with untold other cases unreported and unprosecuted," the National Review reported.

"Across the country, as Heritage's database shows, voter-fraud convictions include everything from impersonation fraud and false registrations to ineligible voting by felons and noncitizens. American voter fraud continues apace, and the United States remains one of the only democracies in the world without a uniform requirement for voter identification," the magazine continued.

Democrats and their allies are afraid of something - an end to a scheme that they have relied on for far too long. And now, with the president's voter fraud commission and the tenacity of people like Mr. Kobach, perhaps they're also afraid of losing a Senate seat and an increase of Mr. Trump's 2016 electoral college victory.

SOURCE

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Deputy Attorney General Says Rule of Law Is About `Character of the People' Enforcing the Law

As judge Learned Hand once put it: "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it."

The Constitution's 230th anniversary is  Sept. 17, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein says it is incumbent on the American people to help preserve the rule of law as the Founders intended.

"On Constitution Day, it is appropriate to keep in mind that although the power of the federal government is vast, it is expressly limited, and those who are entrusted with the exercise of federal authority must be energetic in enforcing the law," Rosenstein said at an event at The Heritage Foundation Thursday.

The challenge, nearly two centuries later, Rosenstein said, is to stay within the confines the Constitution dictates.

"We must restrain ourselves from assuming authority beyond our lawful [place]," Rosenstein said. "Our power is limited by law, and we are obligated to respect those limits, even when no one objects."

Another challenge, Rosenstein said, is communicating to society the importance of the Constitution.

"Unfortunately, too few American citizens know the details of our Constitution," Rosenstein said. "And some discount the rule of law. If you ask whether a particular legal decision is right, most of the citizens focus on whether they favor the policy outcome."

Rosenstein, who assumed office as the 37th United States deputy attorney general on April 26, recounted a story about how Benjamin Franklin, a signer of the Constitution, warned about the struggle future Americans would have staying true to the Founders' vision.

As the story is told, Franklin was walking home from the Constitutional Convention when he encountered a woman named Mrs. Powell who asked Franklin what kind of government the Founders had created.

"And Franklin replied with these words, `A republic, madam, if you can keep it,'"  Rosenstein said. "Mrs. Powell's question illustrates that it was not inevitable that our nation would begin as a democratic republic."

Ordinary citizens play a significant role in preserving the role of the Constitution as the Founders saw it.

"The rule of law is not just about words on paper. The rule of law is about the character of the people who are charged with enforcing the law," Rosenstein said. "If they uphold it faithfully, the result will be a high degree of consistency and uniformity. Those features are among the primary reasons why our nation has flourished."

The Justice Department has a unique role in upholding the Constitution and the rule of law, Rosenstein said.

"The Department of Justice does not choose sides because of the identity of a party," the deputy attorney general said, adding:

We do not enforce the law among some people, and ignore others based on our own biases, or any other inappropriate considerations. We follow mutual principles. The point of the rule of law is to maintain a fair and rational system, characterized by impartiality and universality. That is, it applies equally to each person.

The task sounds simple, Rosenstein said, yet it remains a detailed process.

"To say that we enforce the law impartially does not mean that we enforce it mechanically," Rosenstein said. "It means that we enforce it rationally, and the results must be based on different facts, and the differences need to be objective."

The task of a good prosecutor is "to select cases for prosecution, and to select those for which the offense is the most flagrant, the public harm the greatest, and the proof almost certain."

He added:

Such power calls for the exercise of discretion and the wise use of that discretion. So when asked, `Why did you prosecute this case?' it will not do for the prosecutor to respond, `Because I can' or `Because I must.' The right answer is, `Because I should.' The task of enforcing the law is not devoid of discretion.

The event, "A Constitution Day Address," was hosted by Edwin Meese III, who served as the nation's 75th attorney general and is The Heritage Foundation's Ronald Reagan distinguished fellow emeritus.

Rosenstein praised Meese's role in upholding the Constitution during his service in the Reagan administration.

"General Meese famously told the American Bar Association in 1985, `We will peruse our agenda within the context of our written Constitution of limited and energetic powers,'" Rosenstein said, adding:

`Our guide in every case will the the sanctity of the rule of law and the proper limits of government power.' Those words resonate today. The rule of law is not merely a feature in America. The rule of law is the foundation of America.

SOURCE



New online

I have just put online the last article I ever had published in a learned journal.  It was published in 2004 but I had lost my copy of it.  But I recently did a big clean-out of my library and found then that which was lost. It is Ray, J.J. (2004) "Explaining the Left/Right divide". Social science and modern society.  41(4), 70-78 .

The first half of the article does a brief survey of the last 1500 years of history and shows that a concern for individual liberty and a distrust of government has always been central to conservatism.

The second half looks at the various theories about the psychological underpinnings of conservatism.  I think all the theories discussed there do reduce to my more recent formulation that conservatives are the dispositionally contented people. For more on that formulation, see here, here and here

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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