The Obama Administration's Attack on Fair Elections

Judicial Watch recently announced a major new campaign to stop leftist activists and their allies in the Obama administration from undermining the integrity of the elections in 2012.

As the nation heads into another presidential election season, our 2012 Election Integrity Project is one of JW’s top priorities.  Our investigators have uncovered a multi-pronged strategy by leftist radicals to make certain Barack Obama and other liberal candidates are reelected by hook or by crook – with the full support and participation of the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ).

Consider this from The Washington Post:

The Obama administration on Monday blocked a new law in Texas that requires voters to show a photo ID, drawing fierce criticism from Republicans who say the move was aimed at boosting President Obama’s reelection prospects.

The DOJ said that the law disproportionately harms Hispanic voters.

The action follows a similar move in late December to block a voter ID law in South Carolina that federal officials said adversely affects black voters.

American citizens need identification to purchase an adult beverage, drive a car and pick up certain over-the-counter medicines.  But the DOJ, which currently is a bastion of left-wing radicalism, argues that requiring an ID to make sure a person is eligible to vote is somehow discriminatory.

The Obama administration’s attack on voter ID laws has absolutely nothing to do with discrimination. As I pointed out to you a few weeks ago, this is all part of the DOJ’s partisan program to ensure the reelection of Barack Obama.

First, as Judicial Watch exposed, the DOJ is working hand-in-hand with scandal-ridden Project Vote to use Section 7 of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) to register as many welfare recipients as possible to vote in the upcoming election.  (Because these government-dependent individuals typically vote for big government Democrats, some have called this Obama’s “Food Stamp Army.”)

At the same time, the Obama DOJ refuses to enforce an important counterpart to Section 7 of the NVRA – Section 8, which requires that state election officials keep voter rolls clean so that dead people, convicted felons and other ineligible individuals don’t have a chance to vote.

(By the way, if you want to how see how easy it may be for “dead people” to vote, check out this video from BigGovernment.com by James O’Keefe.  O’Keefe, you may recall, was responsible for the video showing ACORN employees teaching undercover reporters to evade tax and prostitution laws.)

Evidently, ignoring Section 8 isn’t enough for the Obama DOJ, and it is doubling down by legally attacking states that are trying to enact clean election measures such as voter ID laws.

Thankfully, the law allows private citizens and organizations to do what the DOJ won’t do, help to enforce voting registration laws.  And that’s where we come in.

According to a Judicial Watch investigation, based on publicly available data, voter rolls in the following states contain the names of individuals who are ineligible to vote:  Mississippi, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Florida, Alabama, California, and Colorado.

In February, Judicial Watch began putting election officials in these states on notice that they are required by law to “maintain accurate lists of eligible voters for use in conducting elections.”  And if they fail?  We made it very clear we are prepared to take legal action if election officials fail to clean up their voter rolls:

Allowing the names of ineligible voters to remain on the voting rolls harms the integrity of the electoral process and undermines voter confidence in the legitimacy of elections.

As the top election officials… it is your responsibility under federal law to conduct a program that reasonably ensures that the lists of eligible voters are accurate.

We hope our concerns can be resolved amicably. However, with the November 2012 election on the horizon and in light of the importance of Section 8 of the NVRA  to ensuring the integrity and legitimacy of the electoral process, we must emphasize the importance of timeliness. Accordingly, if we believe you do not intend to correct the above-identified problems, a lawsuit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief may be necessary.

As we indicate in our letters, under Section 8 of the NVRA, states must make a “reasonable effort” to clean up registration rolls. Section 8 also requires states to make available for public inspection “all records concerning the implementation of programs and activities conducted for the purpose of ensuring the accuracy and currency of official lists of eligible voters.”

Judicial Watch neither supports nor opposes candidates for public office.  All we want – indeed, all the American people want – are clean and honest elections.  Unfortunately, the Obama administration and the Obama campaign (is there really any difference between the two?) disagree.

In addition to abusing the NVRA, the Obama administration continues to bankroll ACORN and its offshoots with American tax dollars in defiance of a federal funding ban so the “community organizations” can continue their corrupt work and enact “stealth amnesty” policies that allow greater numbers of illegal aliens to vote for Obama and other liberal candidates in 2012.

We all know the Obama DOJ will enforce voter intimidation laws only on behalf of minority victims and ignore crimes against white voters (see Black Panthers).

Make no mistake:  The Obama gang is aggressively employing Chicago-style tactics to stuff the ballot box come Election Day in violation of the law.  And Judicial Watch is prepared to go to court if necessary to make sure the elections are fair and honest.  And we do what we can to stand with Texas, South Carolina and other states under assault from the Obama DOJ.