The North Carolina legislators' privilege claim were ruled invalid http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/05/15/3864733/us-district-judge-rejects-nc-lawmakers.html the claims made by these republicans were really weak. In Texas, similar e mails are being produced over the objections of the GOP

The GOP idiots have been looking for examples of voter fraud to justify their voter suppression laws. The trouble is that voter id laws only stop one form of voter fraud which is voter suppression and the GOP can not find any real examples. The trouble is that the only documented cases of voter fraud are in the area of vote by mail or absentee ballots which the GOP does not want to regulate because a large percentage of the GOP base (i.e. Fox News viewers) use absentee ballots or vote by mail. The Bush administration spent 5 years looking for voter fraud and found nothing. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

WASHINGTON, April 11 — Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews.

Although Republican activists have repeatedly said fraud is so widespread that it has corrupted the political process and, possibly, cost the party election victories, about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year.

In Texas, Greg Abbott has been looking for voter fraud and he can not find any voter impersonation cases. http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/greg-abbott-bogus-voter-fraud-crusade

Since taking office in 2001, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has called voter fraud an “epidemic,” and made cracking down on it a top priority. Now, as he runs for governor, he’s touting his ongoing battle to implement the state’s strict voter ID law, arguing that the measure is crucial to combat fraud.

But over the 13 years of Abbott’s tenure, his office can only cite two fraudulent votes that might have been stopped by the ID law.

To put that another way, such votes accounted for one out of every 18.7 million votes cast in Texas during that period—and that’s counting only the general elections for statewide races. Meanwhile, 796,000 Texans, by the state’s own numbers, lack an ID.

The glaring difference between rhetoric and reality in Abbott’s treatment of the issue underscores the comically weak case for voter ID measures, and highlights the lengths that their backers have gone to—still without success—to find evidence of large-scale fraud. It also raises questions about Abbott’s basic intellectual honesty as he works to persuade Texas voters to make him one of the most important Republican office-holders in the country. ....
There’s just one problem with Abbott’s use of the case: The allegations involve absentee ballots, not in-person voting. That means the voter ID law that Abbott is championing would have done nothing to stop the alleged scheme.

Indeed, election experts say absentee ballot fraud is the most common form of organized voter fraud, since, because of the secret ballot, there’s no way to ensure that an in-person voter is voting for the candidate he promised to. That’s why voter ID laws are an ineffective tool for catching the small amount of fraud that exists.

The Teabagger secretary of state of Iowa has been looking for voter fraud and this idiot just released yet another study that shows that there is no voter fraud that would be prevented by voter id laws. http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/05/09/3436160/iowa-matt-schultz-no-voter-id-fraud/

Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz (R), one of the nation’s most enthusiastic voter suppressors, released a report on Thursday outlining the results a two-year investigation into possible voter fraud, conducted by the Iowa Department of Public Safety’s Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) at his request. But while Schultz has frequently scared Iowa voters with allegations of thousands of possible non-citizens voting in the state and living people showing up at the polls to cast ballots in the name of dead voters, the investigation revealed found an infinitesimal number of illegal votes cast and zero cases of impersonation at the polls.....

There was not a single identified case of impersonation fraud at the polls — people showing up and pretending to be another voter — meaning that Schultz’s own investigation found no cases at all that would have been prevented with his proposed voter identification law.

The federal judge in the Wisconsin voter id case pointed out that voter impersonation is a stupid way to steal elections and will not be a problem. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/federal-judge-in-wisconsin-looks-for-voter-fraud-finds-none/361403/

Here is the judge on page 16 of the ruling:

In the present case, no evidence suggests that voter-impersonation fraud will become a problem at any time in the foreseeable future. As the plaintiffs’ unrebutted evidence shows, a person would have to be insane to commit voter-impersonation fraud. The potential costs of perpetrating the fraud, which include a $10,000 fine and three years of imprisonment, are extremely high in comparison to the potential benefits, which would be nothing more than one additional vote for a preferred candidate (or one fewer vote for an opposing candidate), a vote which is unlikely to change the election’s outcome.

Adding to the cost is the fact that, contrary to the defendants’ rhetoric, voter-impersonation fraud is not “easy” to commit. To commit voter-impersonation fraud, a person would need to know the name of another person who is registered at a particular polling place, know the address of that person, know that the person has not yet voted, and also know that no one at the polls will realize that the impersonator is not the individual being impersonated

Study and study show that there is no reasons for voter id laws. The only purpose served by voter id law is to steal voters from minorities.

The GOP idiots have been looking for examples of voter fraud to justify their voter suppression laws. The trouble is that voter id laws only stop one form of voter fraud which is voter suppression and the GOP can not find any real examples. The trouble is that the only documented cases of voter fraud are in the area of vote by mail or absentee ballots which the GOP does not want to regulate because a large percentage of the GOP base (i.e. Fox News viewers) use absentee ballots or vote by mail. The Bush administration spent 5 years looking for voter fraud and found nothing. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

WASHINGTON, April 11 — Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews.

Although Republican activists have repeatedly said fraud is so widespread that it has corrupted the political process and, possibly, cost the party election victories, about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year.

In Texas, Greg Abbott has been looking for voter fraud and he can not find any voter impersonation cases. http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/greg-abbott-bogus-voter-fraud-crusade

Since taking office in 2001, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has called voter fraud an “epidemic,” and made cracking down on it a top priority. Now, as he runs for governor, he’s touting his ongoing battle to implement the state’s strict voter ID law, arguing that the measure is crucial to combat fraud.

But over the 13 years of Abbott’s tenure, his office can only cite two fraudulent votes that might have been stopped by the ID law.

To put that another way, such votes accounted for one out of every 18.7 million votes cast in Texas during that period—and that’s counting only the general elections for statewide races. Meanwhile, 796,000 Texans, by the state’s own numbers, lack an ID.

The glaring difference between rhetoric and reality in Abbott’s treatment of the issue underscores the comically weak case for voter ID measures, and highlights the lengths that their backers have gone to—still without success—to find evidence of large-scale fraud. It also raises questions about Abbott’s basic intellectual honesty as he works to persuade Texas voters to make him one of the most important Republican office-holders in the country. ....
There’s just one problem with Abbott’s use of the case: The allegations involve absentee ballots, not in-person voting. That means the voter ID law that Abbott is championing would have done nothing to stop the alleged scheme.

Indeed, election experts say absentee ballot fraud is the most common form of organized voter fraud, since, because of the secret ballot, there’s no way to ensure that an in-person voter is voting for the candidate he promised to. That’s why voter ID laws are an ineffective tool for catching the small amount of fraud that exists.

The Teabagger secretary of state of Iowa has been looking for voter fraud and this idiot just released yet another study that shows that there is no voter fraud that would be prevented by voter id laws. http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/05/09/3436160/iowa-matt-schultz-no-voter-id-fraud/

Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz (R), one of the nation’s most enthusiastic voter suppressors, released a report on Thursday outlining the results a two-year investigation into possible voter fraud, conducted by the Iowa Department of Public Safety’s Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) at his request. But while Schultz has frequently scared Iowa voters with allegations of thousands of possible non-citizens voting in the state and living people showing up at the polls to cast ballots in the name of dead voters, the investigation revealed found an infinitesimal number of illegal votes cast and zero cases of impersonation at the polls.....

There was not a single identified case of impersonation fraud at the polls — people showing up and pretending to be another voter — meaning that Schultz’s own investigation found no cases at all that would have been prevented with his proposed voter identification law.

The federal judge in the Wisconsin voter id case pointed out that voter impersonation is a stupid way to steal elections and will not be a problem. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/federal-judge-in-wisconsin-looks-for-voter-fraud-finds-none/361403/

Here is the judge on page 16 of the ruling:

In the present case, no evidence suggests that voter-impersonation fraud will become a problem at any time in the foreseeable future. As the plaintiffs’ unrebutted evidence shows, a person would have to be insane to commit voter-impersonation fraud. The potential costs of perpetrating the fraud, which include a $10,000 fine and three years of imprisonment, are extremely high in comparison to the potential benefits, which would be nothing more than one additional vote for a preferred candidate (or one fewer vote for an opposing candidate), a vote which is unlikely to change the election’s outcome.

Adding to the cost is the fact that, contrary to the defendants’ rhetoric, voter-impersonation fraud is not “easy” to commit. To commit voter-impersonation fraud, a person would need to know the name of another person who is registered at a particular polling place, know the address of that person, know that the person has not yet voted, and also know that no one at the polls will realize that the impersonator is not the individual being impersonated

Study and study show that there is no reasons for voter id laws. The only purpose served by voter id law is to steal voters from minorities.

Here is some good news. The ruling from the federal judge on the attempt by Kansas and Arizona to impose a two tier voting system was stayed. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/kansas-arizona-appeal-two-tiers

A federal appeals court breathed new life this week into the long-running fight over voter registration in Kansas and Arizona.

At stake is whether or not the U.S. Election Assistance Commission will have to add state-specific instructions about Kansas and Arizona's proof-of-citizenship requirements to the federal voter registration form. A federal district judge ruled in favor of the states in March, saying that the commission had unlawfully denied the states' requests. On Thursday, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a temporary stay to the lower judge's ruling, which was sought by the commission and a collection of voting rights groups.

According to the Associated Press, circuit Judges Carlos Lucero and Jerome Holmes granted the emergency stay one day after the lower judge, U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren, rejected a request to suspend his ruling pending the commission's appeal. The 10th circuit judges gave Kansas and Arizona until Tuesday to respond to the commission's request that the ruling be stayed during the appeal.

Arizona Advocacy Network, one of the voting rights groups involved in the case, hailed the ruling. Sam Wercinski, the group's executive director, put out a statement calling Thurday "a good day for Arizona voters and civic engagement groups helping citizens to register and vote."

This is great news. Hopefully, the appellant court will reverse this ruling.

Here is some good news. The ruling from the federal judge on the attempt by Kansas and Arizona to impose a two tier voting system was stayed. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/kansas-arizona-appeal-two-tiers

A federal appeals court breathed new life this week into the long-running fight over voter registration in Kansas and Arizona.

At stake is whether or not the U.S. Election Assistance Commission will have to add state-specific instructions about Kansas and Arizona's proof-of-citizenship requirements to the federal voter registration form. A federal district judge ruled in favor of the states in March, saying that the commission had unlawfully denied the states' requests. On Thursday, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a temporary stay to the lower judge's ruling, which was sought by the commission and a collection of voting rights groups.

According to the Associated Press, circuit Judges Carlos Lucero and Jerome Holmes granted the emergency stay one day after the lower judge, U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren, rejected a request to suspend his ruling pending the commission's appeal. The 10th circuit judges gave Kansas and Arizona until Tuesday to respond to the commission's request that the ruling be stayed during the appeal.

Arizona Advocacy Network, one of the voting rights groups involved in the case, hailed the ruling. Sam Wercinski, the group's executive director, put out a statement calling Thurday "a good day for Arizona voters and civic engagement groups helping citizens to register and vote."

This is great news. Hopefully, the appellant court will reverse this ruling.

The Texas voter suppression law/voter id law is a poll tax. You can not get a "free" id without paying for an official birth certificate or other court document. If you can take off work and go during weekday business hours, you can get a birth certificate for $3 but you have to go there in person and the birth certificate will have a legend stating that the birth certificate can only be used to get election identification certificate.

In a deposition in the voter id case it came out that the state of Texas has only issued 250 "free" ids. https://twitter.com/RyanPHaygood/status/464566717843537921/photo/1 The last official notice of the number of "free" ids issues was back in November and the number was a 120 or so. Between 650,00 to 1.2 million Texas voters need an id in order to vote. The State of Texas does not want these people to vote and that is why only 250 ids have been issued.

The Texas voter id law goes to trial in September and I am expecting that the judge may rule on the poll tax issue as well as the Section 2 claims. The rulings in the Wisconsin case and the opinion in the Penns. voter id case are both well written. The Arkansas voter id law was ruled invalid on state law grounds. The courts are realizing that voter id laws serve one purpose and one purpose only-to steal votes from Democrats.

The Texas voter suppression law/voter id law is a poll tax. You can not get a "free" id without paying for an official birth certificate or other court document. If you can take off work and go during weekday business hours, you can get a birth certificate for $3 but you have to go there in person and the birth certificate will have a legend stating that the birth certificate can only be used to get election identification certificate.

In a depo in the voter id case it came out that the state of Texas has only issued 250 "free" ids. https://twitter.com/RyanPHaygood/status/464566717843537921/photo/1 The last official notice of the number of "free" ids issues was back in November and the number was a 120 or so. Between 650,00 to 1.2 million Texas voters need an id in order to vote. The State of Texas does not want these people to vote and that is why only 250 ids have been issued.

The Texas voter id law goes to trial in September and I am expecting that the judge may rule on the poll tax issue as well as the Section 2 claims.

The Texas voter suppression law/voter id law is a poll tax. You can not get a "free" id without paying for an official birth certificate or other court document. If you can take off work and go during weekday business hours, you can get a birth certificate for $3 but you have to go there in person and the birth certificate will have a legend stating that the birth certificate can only be used to get election identification certificate.

In a depo in the voter id case it came out that the state of Texas has only issued 250 "free" ids. https://twitter.com/RyanPHaygood/status/464566717843537921/photo/1 The last official notice of the number of "free" ids issues was back in November and the number was a 120 or so. Between 650,00 to 1.2 million Texas voters need an id in order to vote. The State of Texas does not want these people to vote and that is why only 250 ids have been issued.

The Texas voter id law goes to trial in September and I am expecting that the judge may rule on the poll tax issue as well as the Section 2 claims.

Dan Patrick is likely to be the GOP nominee for Lt. Governor but David Dewhurst is still fighting. Dewhurst is actually somewhat sane compared to Patrick.

Here is a great video form Dewhurst attacking Dan Patrick.



Here are some good comments from Juanita Jean on this video http://www.juanitajean.com/2014/05/07/so-this-happened/

The election is May 27th so we’ve got plenty of time for competing song-offs.

The You Tube appears to be in response to a debate the candidates had this morning in Dallas.

In the most contentious matchup yet in what has become an increasingly vicious Republican runoff for lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick and incumbent David Dewhurst hurled personal attacks against each in Dallas on Wednesday.

These boy are just skinning the pig so Leticia Van De Putte can barbecue it.

Dan Patrick is both crazy and a racist. Hispanic republican voters are scared of Patrick. This could a fun run off to watch because Dewhurst has the money to run some more attack ads.

One federal court ruled that Abbott and the State of Texas had to turn over documents that Greg claimed were privileged in the voter id lawsuit and now Greg is fighting some subpoenas. http://txredistricting.org/post/84271215651/texas-voter-id-plaintiffs-respond-to-attempt-by-abbott There was a hearing last week on the subpoenas.

Yesterday, the three judge panel ordered Greg Abbott and the State of Texas to release e-mails and documents in the possession of the State of Texas in the redistricting case. http://www.nationallawjournal.com/legaltimes/id=1202654305167/Texas-Ordered-to-Disclose-Legislative-Docs-in-Voting-Case?slreturn=20140407110311

Calling part of Texas' litigation position "inconsistent," a federal trial judge has ordered the state to turn over certain legislative records to the U.S. Department of Justice in a closely watched Voting Rights Act case.

The Justice Department is seeking information from more than three dozen Texas state lawmakers that could illuminate the Legislature’s motivation in 2011 to enact congressional redistricting plans.

U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia’s ruling on Tuesday gives the federal government some access to documents that lawyers for Texas argued were off limits. Read more: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/legaltimes/id=1202654305167/Texas-Ordered-to-Disclose-Legislative-Docs-in-Voting-Case#ixzz3138v9H2g

Included in such documents are the opinions and materials from the Texas Legislative Council. The TLC is the legal arm that does the maps and the hard numbers work in redistricting. http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/texas-subpoena-VRA.pdf Last year, I testified before the House Committee on redistricting and watched Trey Martinez Fischer question the top lawyer for the TLC. Basically, the top lawyer for the TLC agreed that the maps being proposed were not constitutional and that the approval of these maps in 2013 would not cure the racism inherent in the redistricting maps. The TLC materials in particular could be very interesting.

The fact that Greg Abbott is fighting so hard to hide these materials is very interesting. The fact that Greg lost again is not surprising in that Greg is a really bad attorney