During this week of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we celebrate the accomplishments of Dr. King and his colleagues in the civil rights movement to secure voting rights for all Americans. We may also reflect how some today seek to subvert that legacy, even while cynically claiming to uphold it. All of us who value elections that are fair for everyone can and must reclaim the true spirit of the voting rights movement. A number of election reform bills are circulating in Olympia this session. Some would move us in the right direction towards fairness, others will only encourage unmitigable fraud and corruption. This is the time for those who value legitimate elections to take a stand --
Perhaps the best known victories of the voting rights movement were the elimination of devices, such as poll taxes and impossible-to-pass "literacy tests", that were used to prevent blacks from even casting ballots. Another victory of the civil rights movement that is perhaps less discussed today, but of enormous significance, is the principle that every vote must have equal strength. (I was surprised to learn only a few years ago, that the concept of "one man, one vote", which we now think of as a bedrock of American democracy, wasn't firmly established until the early 1960s). For example, in Reynolds v. Sims (1964), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a states' legislative districts had to be equally apportioned on the basis of population. From the majority opinion:
the right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen's vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise.Those words are especially important today. Those who administer our elections have done an admirable job of allowing everyone to cast a ballot. It's hard to find examples of eligible voters who are frustrated in their attempt to vote (with the exception of some military voters who didn't receive their ballots on time). However, unimpeded access to ballots has been our election administrators' sole objective. They do little, even willfully ignoring laws, to prevent legal votes from being debased and diluted by illegal votes. The King County canvassing board's reaction to the Sotelo voter challenges was a farce, upholding the votes and registrations of hundreds of individuals who everybody knows cannot possibly reside in the tiny mailboxes where they claim residence.
Now, the Democrats in the legislature, spurred on by the demagogues in King County who falsely cloak themselves in "civil rights" rhetoric are seeking to undermine the integrity of our elections even further. As discussed earlier (here and here), SB 6362 "Modifying voter registration provisions" would provide a green light for vote fraud by making it all but impossible to challenge a fraudulently registered voter.
Back in the pre-civil rights era, racist whites prevented blacks from voting by asking ridiculous, unanswerable "literacy test" questions such as "How many bubbles are in a bar of soap"? Some of today's Democrats want to use similarly ridiculous, unanswerable questions in order to prevent citizens from protecting their franchise from dilution by fraudulent votes. SB 6362 clarifies that one cannot challenge a fraudulent voter unless one can provide their actual address (such a provision would make it impossible for you to challenge a mystery voter who fraudulently registered claiming residence at your own home, even when you well know that no such person lives with you). The constituencies have changed, but it's the same old pre-civil rights era concept of unjust laws, applied unevenly by unscrupulous officials, in order to manipulate the results of an election. Those who care about fair and just elections should work together to defeat this abominable bill.
On the other hand, HB 2526 "Modifying voter challenge procedures", sponsored by House Republicans Nixon, Anderson and Talcott, only rationalizes the procedures for challenging a fraudulent voter, without compromising due process to prevent legitimate voters from losing their rights. This one deserves our support. The House is also considering HB 2752 at the request of Secretary of State Sam Reed, which would improve the challenge statute slightly and also improve the "non-traditional address" registration statute slightly. This bill is a step in the right direction, but doesn't go far enough and needs to be improved. HB 2526 and 2752 are on the agenda for the House State Government Operations & Accountability this Friday, Jan. 20 at 8am. This is a good opportunity to take a stand on behalf of fair elections, and support these bills and suggest ways to improve them even more. I'll have more later about these bills and the details for testifying at the committee hearings.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at January 17, 2006 11:26 AM | Email ThisStay on this portfolio. You are now the hub of all blog activity on this critical issue.
On that note: Gee, I wonder what Martin Luther King, Jr. would blog? Would foul-mouthed LBJ have one? Would the Deep South 1960s election systems have ones bragging about how they excluded legal voters either by directly denying them the right to vote or dilluting the votes they cast?
Had to pose the question. Besides, I believe the votes cast matter much, much more than the tally.
Posted by: A Watchdog on January 17, 2006 12:22 PMThe democrats know how to work the system and Gregoir remarkably won and so did Ron S!
Posted by: dcat on January 17, 2006 01:53 PMI can’t prove why the first time I called the election office one guy said there were two ballots already out! “I never got them!” The second time I went to call the woman told me I don’t see it on my system that two ballots were sent out! The third time I was told this is the third one. “Alleluia I did get that one!” Amazing! Just before I was to go on a trip out of the country for vacation! AMAZING! Needless to say I did not send it from my mail box!
I get movies in one day from net flicks in Tacoma but from Seattle it takes two days for the third ballot to come!
Posted by: dcat on January 17, 2006 02:03 PMDo you suppose we will get any rational calims form the Democrats about these issues?
So far all we seem to get is endless robotic repetitions of falsehoods about Sotelo.
BTW, why didn't anyone testify against SB 6362? Did I miss something here?
Posted by: Amused by liberals on January 17, 2006 03:18 PMWhat is the purpose of that requirement?
The state constitution requires residence in the precinct to be eligible to vote. The constitution also assigns to the legislature the duty to enact a registration law and require compliance with that law to be eligible to vote.
How does the legislature meet its obligation by making it impracticable, if not impossible, to challenge a voter based on a fraudulent claim of residence in the precinct?
It seems the legislature would be continuing to fail in its duty by keeping that requirement.
If it can be shown that the challenged voter does not live where the voter registration records say, then that ought to be enough to bar the voter from casting a ballot -- unless the voter can show that he lives at a new address in the precinct and simply hadn't got around to notifying the auditor.
Posted by: Micajah on January 17, 2006 03:28 PMHYPOCRITES and thieves!
Posted by: dan on January 17, 2006 03:46 PMHas anybody done this yet? Why the hell not?
Posted by: ERNurse on January 17, 2006 09:51 PMFile suit against King County and/or Washington State? Can't be done yet. Solutions? Action? What can be done? Initiatives, leadership and resolve to support the Republican Party are the only available tools at this point. When the time is right, we will change things.
While we may have the makings of a citizens initiative in this regard, I don't think one could be crafted to resolve this problem for constitutional reasons. I am also skeptical that we could get enough public support at this point given the rebuke to such efforts by I-912. Even of we changed things through an initiative, the Democrats will simply turn around and nullify it. Nevertheless, other initiatives regarding taxes are forthcoming and they will need our continued enthusiastic support.
What is needed is leadership in the conservative party and the leadership that exists is tied up fighting other battles (i.e. McGavick, Rossi). Obviously the question is how do we put a real leader into power. It is obvious that this "right to suffrage" is seriously threatened, but I don't think any court action can be taken at this point, especially on the state level. Even though SB 6362 has the potential to further corrupt our electoral system, it has yet to do so; thus there is no cause of action, and no one has any legal standing to sue.
It is vitally important that something be done. The question is . . . what?
Its vital that Stefan keeps shining a light on electoral issues and many of us continue to meet the discussion head on. God knows the left has absolutely no rational defense for any of these corrupt actions taken in their behalf. That is proven over and over again on every "elections oriented" thread at this website. Lori Sotelo did nothing illicit, but she is being hung out to dry by the corrupt liberal Democrat junta. Their rope is falsehood and sooner or later they will hang themselves with it. Consider, their rationale for SB 6362:
The challenge of 2000 voters in King County angered many voters, some of whom didn’t get notice of the challenge until the Thursday before the election. Some voters who received notice said they were not going to vote. The state must ensure that type of thing doesn’t happen again. Some voters don’t have an address or a home but are still entitled to vote. The bill establishes reasonable time periods for challenges and will help avoid the unreasonable time frame faced by the canvassing board that had 2000 challenges filed right before the election.The rationale supporting this measure is vapid and unsupportable if substantively contested. The core of it outweighs any citizen’s right to challenge fraudulent voting in favor of catering to the sensibilities of some fabled voters who “said they were not going to vote,” because a challenge “angered them.” In effect—it places the importance of anyone being “angered” above inhibiting fraudulent voting, and in fact, by pandering to phony liberal sentimentality, it directly encourages fraudulent voting.
What we can do is–continue to shine the light on this issue, look to the next election and VOTE IN FORCE!! I imagine a federal court will frown on this law, and our corrupt system in King County will once again be forced to prop itself up. Hopefully it will be replaced-if enough conservatives resolve to make it happen.
When the time is right, and the issues ripe, be ready to back legal challenges. These measures (including SB 6362) are legally challengeable under Federal law, and that is where I expect to see action, but only after someone's voting franchise has been affected, and a candidate for Federal office (McGavick) is in play.
Thanks for your comments.
Posted by: Amused by liberals on January 18, 2006 10:41 AMThe argument would be that, by ignoring the plain language in the RCW that a registrant must provide his actual address of residence, Reed is violating the civil rights of Washington voters by encouraging/permitting ineligible persons to vote, thereby diluting the franchise of all legitimate voters.
Posted by: ewaggin on January 18, 2006 12:15 PM