Tuesday, April 03, 2012

A Rare Kudos

A rare kudos goes to a Democrat here --- Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney Michael N. Herring --- for obtaining indictments on ten convicted felons who unlawfully voted in the 2008 election, as reported in today's Richmond Times-Dispatch.

I'll leave further commentary on the matter to my state Delegate, Scott Lingamfelter (R-31):

For several years, Republicans in the General Assembly ... have advanced efforts to address voter fraud. It's hardly deniable given recent history. 
Take the 2008 General Election that put former "Saturday Night Live" comedic clown Al Franken of Minnesota in the US Senate. A study by Minnesota Majority, a conservative watchdog group, found that at least 341 convicted felons in largely Democratic Minneapolis-St. Paul voted illegally in the 2008 Senate race between Franken, a Democrat, and then-incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman.  The final recount showed Franken beat Coleman by 312 votes, less than the number of felons who voted.
Meanwhile, prosecutors in South Bend, Indiana have filed charges against four Democratic officials and deputies in a multiple-felony case alleging the forging of Democratic presidential primary petitions in the 2008 election for then-candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. These officials are accused of faking signatures and names on the primary petitions needed to run for President. Court papers say the plan was conceived by local Democratic Party officials inside the local party headquarters. Here's the link:
Incidents like this one can be found around the nation so legislatures across America have moved to bring greater integrity to both registration and voting. This is why Republicans in the House of Delegates are taking action. Here are a few examples.
  • HB 9 says a voter without identification will be offered a provisional ballot that will be reviewed by the electoral board at its meeting on the day following the election if he presents proper identification.
  • HB 57 provides that the general registrar will process the State Board's most recent list of convicted felons within 21 to 14 days before an election, cancel the registration of any registered voter shown to be a felon, and notify the registered voter of the cancellation.
  • HB 63 provides that the meeting of the electoral board on the day or days following an election is open only to authorized party and candidate representatives and the persons who cast the provisional ballots with their representatives or legal counsel.
All of these bills make sense. HB 9 gets rid of the current system that lets a voter simply sign a statement saying they are the person they claim to be. Now they need to show identification. HB 57 makes it tougher for felons to slip through the cracks and vote. And HB 63 basically keeps organizations like the corrupt ACORN group from influencing vote counting of provisional ballots. 
While these bill are not perfect ..., they do improve the system. But that did not stop liberal Democrats in the House of Delegates from opposing all of them this year. And in each case, House Democrats argued "where is the evidence of voter fraud in Virginia?" Well we now have that answer, as if we didn't know.
Virginia Democrats and their apologists in the moonbatosphere have consistently asked for evidence of voter fraud in the Commonwealth to evade sensible protections against its perpetration.  Now that they have it, they have two choices: (1) support these reasonable regulations; or (2) explain why they won't/come up with another reason for not doing so.

Of course, if Virginia Democrats take the former course, I look forward to the apologies and mea culpas from them.

I won't hold my breath.

If, however, they choose the latter course, they'll have to come up with another reason why they won't support efforts to root out voter fraud.  Might it be that the real reason for doing so is because Democrats are its most frequent --- though not exclusive --- practitioners, and they expect to benefit from it?

The proof will be in their response.