Friday, June 30, 2017

Myths and Sacred Cows

With no evidence at all--in fact, with plenty of evidence to the contrary--Democrats are willing to push the "the Russians got President Trump elected" meme--but they refuse to accept that American voter rolls are anything but lily white:
President Donald Trump’s voter fraud commission has asked every state to provide personal data on all registered voters going back to 2006— and some states are not happy about it.

California, New York and Virginia have said they will refuse to comply with the request, and Connecticut said it would withhold protected data. In a June 28 letter, Kris Kobach, vice chair of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, asked for names, addresses, birth dates, Social Security information, voting history and military status, among other information.

The letter did not explain what the commission will do with the information, but asked states to deliver the data by July 14 and said everything would be made available to the public.

California’s Secretary of State Alex Padilla called the election commission a “waste of taxpayer money.” Trump created the commission after claiming — with no evidence — that millions of people voted illegally during the 2016 presidential election...

“This entire commission is based on the specious and false notion that there was widespread voter fraud last November. At best this commission was set up as a pretext to validate Donald Trump’s alternative election facts, and at worst is a tool to commit large-scale voter suppression,” (Democratic Virginia Governor Terry) McAuliffe’s statement said.
Is McAuliffe suggesting that people will attempt to illegally keep legally-registered voters from voting?  Only Democrats do that.

It's well-known that Democrats wouldn't win outside of California and a couple other states if they didn't cheat--e.g., illegally register people to vote.  It's why they're so wary of voter ID laws.  This is why I'm in favor of the intent of this commission.  On the other hand, as a federalist, I don't like the federal government's telling states they must do something.  There might be legal ways of compelling states to comply with this commission (I don't know for sure), but just telling states to provide the information is obviously not sufficient to ensure compliance.  So while I think California and Virginia (where, recently, election shenanigans have recently come to light) and the other states are refusing to comply for nefarious reasons, their refusal is entirely legal.

Update:  Rhode Island, which only has 7 inhabitants,  found to have 150,000 erroneous voter registrations.  Ok, Rhode Island has over 7 inhabitants, but this 150K figure is almost 20% of the state's registered voters.

Update #2, 7/1/17:  Now more than half the states are refusing to complyThis is why we should elect only Republican presidents--they engender (especially in liberals) a respect for federalism.

Update #3, 7/8/17:  State governments won't give the information to the federal government, but they'll sell it to candidates and organizations:
In the past week election officials in dozens of states have rejected a request from the newly-formed Presidential Advisory Commission on Electoral Integrity to provide voter records for a study on the extent (if any) of election fraud. Some of those officials have expressed great indignation that the commission would even ask. Yet many of those same officials would gladly sell those very same records — to campaigns, to candidates, to political consultants, even to you. It's a situation that baffles some political veterans.
The states' refusal to comply doesn't seem to be morally based, but rather ideologically based.

4 comments:

Niels Henrik Abel said...

Perhaps the dead relocate to Rhode Island after they's crossed the river Styx. Or maybe Rhode Island, in the interest of renewability and sustainability, recycles its voter rolls. Seems to me that Connecticut has a similar program with its SSNs, seeing as how Obama reportedly had a SSN from some dead Connecticut guy.

Helen said...

I do agree that there is a possibility that there was election fraud. However, I am glad that the states are not fully complying with President Trump's request, especially when it violates state laws. Also, it is not just blue states that are refusing to comply. The state I live in (Mississippi) has made it clear that they will not give the federal government our social security numbers. Think about it - even if our current president wouldn't misuse the data, once you compile a list with such detailed information (last 4 digits of social security number, party affiliation, etc.) there is never a guarantee that it will not fall into the wrong hands. We need to get serious about protecting our privacy.

Darren said...

It's always a question of who watches the watchers, isn't it?

Ellen K said...

Democrats will never ever admit that:
1. Voter fraud exists and has occurred. (An ascertain of this was made by the Clinton campaign in 2008 against Obama voters in Gigi Gaston's documentary "We Will Not Be Silenced" https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL18D737662E5F5A24)
2. Campaigns to circumvent reasonable voter ID laws benefit only those who are voting illegally without documentation. There have been several cases as recently as last year working their ways through the courts.
3. Most Americans have valid ID's-you have to have it for everything from buying beer to picking up kids from school. If you someone is on Medicaid or Medicare they have a valid ID. The only unacceptable ID's are student ID's because they can be concurrent with a legal residence in another location.