Holder's Chutzpah
Attorney General Eric Holder recently told a group of black clergymen that the right to vote was being threatened by people who are seeking to block access to the ballot box by blacks and other minorities.
This is truly world-class chutzpah, by an Attorney General who stopped attorneys in his own Department of Justice from completing the prosecution of black thugs who stationed themselves outside a Philadelphia voting site to harass and intimidate white voters.
This may have seemed like a small episode to some at the time, but it was only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. The U.S. Attorney who was prosecuting that case — J. Christian Adams — resigned from the Department of Justice in protest, and wrote a book about a whole array of similar race-based decisions on voting rights by Eric Holder and his subordinates at the Department of Justice.
The book is titled "Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department." It names names, dates and places around the country where the Department of Justice stopped its own attorneys from pursuing cases of voter fraud and intimidation, when it was blacks who were accused of these crimes.
If Mr. Adams is lying, he has taken a huge risk in citing individuals by name and quoting them directly. Yet, despite the fact that most of those he accuses are lawyers, apparently no one has sued him. Moreover, Adams has also testified under oath before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, on the racial double standard at the Department of Justice, when it comes to voting rights.
What Attorney General Holder has been complaining loudly about, and launching federal lawsuits about, are states that require photo identification to vote. Holder calls this blocking minority "access" to the voting booths.
Since millions of black Americans — like millions of white Americans — are confronted with demands for photo identification at airports, banks and innumerable other institutions, it is a little much to claim that requiring the same thing to vote is denying the right to vote. But Holder's chutzpah is up to the task.
Attorney General Holder claims that the states' requirement of photo identification for voting, in order to prevent voter fraud, is just a pretext for discriminating against blacks and other minorities. He apparently sees no voter fraud, hears no voter fraud and speaks no voter fraud.
Despite Holder's claim, a little experiment in his own home voting district showed how easy it is to commit voter fraud. An actor — a white actor, at that — went to a voting place where Eric Holder is registered to vote, and told them that he was Eric Holder.
The actor had no identification at all with him, either with or without a photo. He told the voting official that he had forgotten and left his identification in his car. Instead of telling him to go back to the car and get some identification, the official said that that was all right, and offered him the ballot.
The actor had the good sense not to actually take the ballot, which would have made him guilty of voter fraud — and, being white, he would undoubtedly have been prosecuted by Eric Holder's Department of Justice.
But the actor had made his point. When a white man with no identification can go to a voting site, impersonate a black man who lives in that district, and get his ballot offered to him, then it is far too easy to commit voter fraud.
Does not Attorney General Eric Holder understand that? Of course he understands it! The man is not stupid, despite his other failings.
Holder's pooh-poohing of voter fraud dangers, and hyping the "threat" of denying minorities "access" to the voting booth, are completely consistent with his drive to (1) maximize the number of votes by black Democrats and (2) spread as much fear as possible among minorities that they are under siege, and that the Democrats are their only protection and salvation.
It is a political protection racket, with payoffs in votes.
Nor can Holder's boss, Barack Obama, be unaware of voter fraud. After all, he comes from Chicago, where voting officials refuse to discriminate against dead people.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is www.tsowell.com. To find out more about Thomas Sowell and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM 
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14 Comments | Post Comment
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Interesting material can be found on media maters.org on the subject of this book. The authors do a good job shooting down the basic claims in the book. I do know know which is the truth, but some caution is warranted in accepting the rather extraordinary claims in this book. As they say in science, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
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The Bush administration made it the priority of their US Attorneys to find and prosecute voter fraud. In spite of this extraordinary effort at uncovering widespread voter fraud, there was little fraud to be found. US attorneys who had the temerity to point out the lack of voter fraud and to suggests that the witch hunt not be the focus of their office were fired. This leaves the evidence of voter fraud limited to manufactured evidence such as in the story above. Why the effort to uncover a problem that did not exist? The obvious answer is to justify the laws that Mr. Sowell is so fond of. For an interesting example of how obvious the attempt to tilt the votes to the right, we have Texas. The only exceptions to the stringent voter ID requirements are for the elderly and holders of concealed weapons permits. Gosh, which way do you suppose these folks tend to vote?
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The GOP's chutzpah in their attempt at manipulating the voter pols should shock and disgust all who love democracy. Okay, perhaps not shock..
Comment: #1
Posted by: Mark
Thu May 31, 2012 5:13 PM
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"Yet, despite the fact that most of those he accuses are lawyers, apparently no one has sued him."
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Mr. Sowell apparently takes the absence of legal action, as well as the author's belief in the veracity of his claims, as suficient evidence for the book's claims. (The only corroborating evidence for the books claims that Mr. Sowell mentions is that the author has testified under oath and that he hasn't been sued. Not exactly the level of supporting evidence one would expect for a researcher like Mr. Sowell to be willing to stand behind such extraordinary claims...)
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Would it not be equally reasonable to take the absence of any mention of actual voter fraud in Mr. Sowell's column as corroborating evidence of the non-existence, at least in so far as Mr. Sowell has been able to find, of any such evidence? If Mr. Sowell has evidence of any actual voter fraud, as opposed to manufactured evidence of the potential for fraud, perhaps he might share it in future columns. Absent such evidence, he should at least admit that the GOP voter ID laws are, at best, designed to address a potential problem which does not appear to actually happen to any significant degree.
Comment: #2
Posted by: Mark
Thu May 31, 2012 9:24 PM
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Re: Mark
"Would it not be equally reasonable to take the absence of any mention of actual voter fraud in Mr. Sowell's column as corroborating evidence of the non-existence, at least in so far as Mr. Sowell has been able to find, of any such evidence?"
It might, were it not for the fact that the very nature of the crime is what makes it so difficult to prosecute. When you have a system in many states where poll workers are not only not required, but in many cases, not allowed, to ask prospective voters for ID, how are you supposed to go in after the fact and prosecute anyone for voting under a false name?
By the way, using your own standard, there doesn't appear to be any evidence of any actual voters who can't provide proof of their identity. What does that tell you?
Comment: #3
Posted by: Jeff Gunn
Fri Jun 1, 2012 2:22 AM
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Since the justice department under the Bush administration was desperate to prove the existence of such fraud and, in spite of having diverted considerable resources to the effort, was unable to find any, it is a reasonably safe assumption that there isn't much to find.
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The standard in my comment was Mr. Sowell's, but lets look at your question. The problem is not with actual voters, desperate to vote but unable to do so because of lack of voter ID. The new laws do not effectively block such people. In fact, they probably block very few determined voters. (These laws are not equivalent to the "literacy" tests of the old south. That approach was clearly unconstitutional.) The laws are not designed to do that. They are a simple statistical game. If you put in the right hurdles, a certain percentage of the voters of the target group will not make the effort to get over the hurdle. You do not have drop the turnout of the target group by much to skew the election results.
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If the laws were changed to make the wait to vote an hour longer for some polling stations in the republican part of town as compared to the democratic part of town, it would not block anybody from voting, but it would skew the results by selectively nudging the least determined republican voters to say "This is not worth the effort". Poor, minority, and student voters are less likely to already have the required ID that are other groups, so the effect of these laws is to remove a percentage of those voters who will need to go to the effort, typically more than the hour in my hypothetical above, of getting the ID for the purpose of voting. There is little effort to hide the agenda: In Texas, a concealed weapons permit is acceptable voter ID, but a university issued photo student ID is not.
Comment: #4
Posted by: Mark
Fri Jun 1, 2012 8:05 AM
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Thanks for this article, needs to be read by all Americans but probably will not.
Comment: #5
Posted by: Bob Ammons
Sat Jun 2, 2012 7:29 AM
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Mark, why was ACORN defunded? It had something to do with multiple voter fraud registration schemes. Also please cite examples of this so-called zealous attempt by the Bush justice department in attempting to prosecute voter fraud cases. The lack of any lawsuit against Adams is an excellent indicator of the truthfulness of Adams claims as that would be the most lucrative and counetactive remedy to his claims. Mark, you appear to be a shill for the corrupt Democrat party.
Comment: #6
Posted by: Thetruth
Sat Jun 2, 2012 8:08 PM
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Dear The"Truth",
The citations you requested:
"In 5-Year Effort, Scant Evidence of Voter Fraud" NY Times, April 12, 1997
nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html?pagewanted=all
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"How US attorneys were used to spread voter-fraud fears" Salon March 21, 2007
Salon.com/2007/03/21/us_attorneys_2/
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The DoJ's Favorite Crime
What's the deal with voter fraud? Slate.com March 14, 2007
slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2007/03/the_dojs_favorite_crime.html
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ACORN Accusations: McCain makes exaggerated claims of 'voter fraud.' Obama soft-pedals his connections. FactCheck.org, Oct 18, 2008
factcheck.org/2008/10/acorn-accusations/
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Note that in the last one that the Acorn charges apparently revolved around employees who were submitting false voter registrations in order to get more money from Acorn. There was no evidence that anybody actually intended to try to vote from the false voter registrations, only to defraud their employer, ACORN.
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"Following the publication of the videos and withdrawal of funding, four different independent investigations by various state and city Attorneys General and the GAO released in 2009 and 2010 cleared ACORN, finding its employees had not engaged in criminal activities and that the organization had managed its federal funding appropriately, and calling the videos deceptively and selectively edited to present the workers in the worst possible light. Despite this, by March 2010, 15 of ACORN's 30 state chapters had already closed[11] and the group announced it was closing its remaining state chapters and disbanding." (Excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Acorn.)
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I understand your surprise. Fox "News" did not make much effort to cover the inconvenient details in the references above. Do you worry that you might have become a shill for the corrupt republican party? You should...
Comment: #7
Posted by: Mark
Sun Jun 3, 2012 2:14 PM
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Re: Mark
"There is little effort to hide the agenda: In Texas, a concealed weapons permit is acceptable voter ID, but a university issued photo student ID is not."
I'll give you a hint as to why a concealed weapons permit is acceptable ID and a student ID is not: One shows the place of residence of the holder, and the other doesn't, which is an important distinction when you're talking about voting.
All a student ID typically has is the person's name. It doesn't tell you where they live, or even if they're a resident of that jurisdiction at all. One of the scams the Dems made good use of in 2008 was registering college students twice (once at their home and again at their school).
And by the way, the ACORN crime syndicate didn't go anywhere. All its chapters did was change their names. They're mostly still in operation, in the same offices (often shared with SEIU), with the same people running them, and in many cases, even the same Employer ID numbers as before.
I'm sure they didn't mention that on MSNBC, though, so I guess you can be excused for not being aware of it.
Comment: #8
Posted by: Jeff Gunn
Mon Jun 4, 2012 5:17 AM
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Jeff,
I'll give you a hint as to why your point about the address on the ID is a red herring: The point of the ID is to IDENTIFY THE PERSON so that one can be sure that some white guy is not trying to vote for Eric Holder. Should we also require a police verification of the address on the driver's license? Typically, a license lasts a few years between renewals. What if the person moved after getting a driver's license? What is to stop your hypothetical student from getting a DMV issued ID card in two different states? Do you really believe that the GOP run government in Texas did not exclude gun permit holders and the elderly from the ID requirement without consideration that these two groups are among the most dependable GOP voters? Do you really believe, in spite of the Bush administration's failure to find the evidence of rampant voter fraud that they desperately sought, that this is all a pure love-of-democracy attempt to solve a terrible problem of rampant voter fraud? If so, you truly have drunk the FOX "news" kool-aid.
Comment: #9
Posted by: Mark
Mon Jun 4, 2012 8:39 AM
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Re: Mark
Yes, I actually do believe what I said. I also absolutely believe that the only reason Holder and company are challenging these perfectly reasonable actions by the states is to enable the Democrats to continue their tradition of ballot box-stuffing. My belief has nothing to do with Fox News, though.
Here's a fact you probably aren't aware of: These challenges by the Justice Department are absolutely without merit, because the Supreme Court has ALREADY RULED that requiring voters to show ID at the polls is not an unreasonable restriction. They can file all the court challenges they like, but they won't win.
Now, why would they file suits that they know up front are destined to fail? Because they know that they can get some left-wing judge to issue an order preventing the states from acting until sometime next year, after the election.
There are only two groups of people making the claim that there is some conspiracy by the GOP to keep minorities from voting: Obama supporters who are desperate to win at any cost, and those who are gullible enough to buy the absolute BS they're selling.
Which of those are you?
Comment: #10
Posted by: Jeff Gunn
Mon Jun 4, 2012 9:23 PM
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Jeff,
Just read an article on tomorrow's recall election in Wisconsin. Found this gem: "In 2008, amidst complaints of voter fraud in Milwaukee, Van Hollen, a Republican, and Democratic Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm conducted a comprehensive joint investigation and ended up charging 20 people.
To put that in context, that's 20 votes out of almost 3 million cast in Wisconsin in that election, or 0.0007 percent of all ballots."
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postcrescent.com/article/20120603/APC010405/306030086/Recall-Roundup-Election-monitors-police-polling-12-cities-including-Appleton?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|APC-News]
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I am aware that the activist supreme court has ruled in favor of the GOP. I did not argue that these laws are unconstitutional, just repugnant. (Many of the law suits that you refer to have been successful at challenging some of the most egregious provisions of the ID laws.) There are only two groups arguing for these laws to skew the election results: GOP supporters who are desperate to win at any cost, and those who are gullible enough to buy the absolute BS they're selling. Which one are you? (Don't answer that. The false dichotomy is fun, but silly.)
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Let me ask you a serious question that, I believe, gets to the heart of the matter. If you were convinced that 1. There was no significant voter fraud in the US. 2. That the new voter ID laws did place an unreasonable burden that resulted in suppressing the vote for some voters, who turn out to be minority, poor, immigrant, and student citizens. and that 3. The law's only significant effect was to skew the election results toward the GOP candidates, would you still support these laws? Would having GOP candidates win under such circumstances be worth sullying the voting process?
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I can say that I would support laws to require ID if 1. There was convincing evidence of significant voter fraud, 2. the laws made every reasonable effort to minimize their risk of skewing election results by making the path to obtain the required voter ID as simple as it could be, while remaining secure. My goal is to maintain the sanctity of the voting process. Significant voter fraud would violate that sanctity. But absent that, using make-believe wide-spread voter fraud to suppress the vote for certain groups is offensive to democracy.
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One final reference:
theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/03/how-voter-id-laws-are-being-used-to-disenfranchise-minorities-and-the-poor/254572/
It has excellent examples of how the laws make no attempt at minimizing the sometimes significant barriers they impose disproportionally on some members of the fore-mentioned groups. I would take your interest in preventing voter fraud more seriously if you were also repulsed by the lack of effort at minimizing the "collateral damage", but I'm left with the suspicion that you are not displeased with the voter suppression effect on certain democratic-leaning groups. Please tell me on wrong on that one.
Comment: #11
Posted by: Mark
Tue Jun 5, 2012 1:24 AM
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Mark,
An activist Supreme Court is apparently one who does not agree with your opinion. Since those voters must be citizens of the United States it goes to reason that providing proof of that citizenship is reasonable.
Your comments seem to indicate that you think some amount of voter fraud is OK. When some elections are determined by a few hundred votes do you really believe that it is OK for non-citizens or those not legally allowed to vote get to determine who is leading your country?
Comment: #12
Posted by: david
Tue Jun 5, 2012 9:04 AM
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David,
Yes, I did enjoy the use of the right wing's favorite pejorative, "activist court". You are, however, quite correct in your definition of "activist court". The irony was intentional.
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I do not think that any amount of voter fraud is okay. When suspected, it should be investigated. When found, it should be prosecuted appropriately. (The guy who is trying to vote several times, throw the book at him. The police chief (CA case) who mistakenly thought he could register at the office to keep his home address private, maybe not.) You properly point out that elections can be determined by a few hundred votes which is exactly why it is repugnant that the GOP is using "voter fraud" as a cover story for laws to push a significant number of likely democratic voters away from the pools. I think that it is significant that we do not hear about how we should increase the penalties for voter fraud as a way of addressing the problem. The typical conservative approach to illegal activities is to increase the penalties, sometimes to absurd levels, hoping to make the crime go away. Funny, it is almost as if they don't really want the problem solved by their favorite approach to crime...
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In the article I referenced about the Wisconsin voter fraud investigation, the number was 20 fraudulent votes out of 3 million. There could still be a few slip through the voter ID rules. We could eliminate these if we required the government to fully investigate a certain percentage of the voters, requiring them to bring in utility bills, affidavits from neighbors and employers, have surprise home inspections, and bla, bla, bla. The question is one of trade offs.
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We do not demand that all cars have breath testing devices to screen for drunk drivers before starting the car. Such a requirement would certainly reduce drunk driving. Does the fact that we do not require such devices mean that we think that some amount of drunk driving is okay? No, it means that the cost and intrusiveness of such a requirement would be inappropriate and that drunk driving can be dealt with through enforcement.
Comment: #13
Posted by: Mark
Tue Jun 5, 2012 9:48 AM
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Nice try Mark, you cite liberal media outlets that are really just an arm of the Democrat party. They promote their agenda with lies, omitting things that go against their outdated failed ideas, and by completely ignoring up stories unfavorable to their agenda, you amuse me by citing those sources as all you are really telling me that the liberal media is covering up voter fraud one of the oldest and most reliable crimes of the Democrat party. Please cite some of them, I can use the comedy.
Comment: #14
Posted by: Thetruth
Mon Jun 11, 2012 7:15 PM
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