Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Bopp: 1982 Federal Court Decree Prevents GOP From Stopping Election Day Vote Fraud

In 1982, the Democratic National Committee took the Republican National Committee to court in New Jersey, alleging that it was trying to prevent minority voters from casting votes on election day. The case ended quickly with a federal consent decree ordered by a Democratic judge appointed by President Jimmy Carter. Indiana elections lawyer Jim Bopp tells World Net Daily that the decree to this day prevents the RNC from stopping election day vote fraud being committed by the Democratic Party on a wide scale basis using minority voters. Under the decree, the RNC, but not the DNC, must “refrain from undertaking any ballot security activities in polling places or election districts where the racial or ethnic composition of such districts is a factor in the decision to conduct, or the actual conduct of, such activities there and where a purpose or significant effect of such activities is to deter qualified voters from voting; and the conduct of such activities disproportionately in or directed toward districts that have a substantial proportion of racial or ethnic populations shall be considered relevant evidence of the existence of such a factor and purpose.”

The decree has remained in effect for the past 30 years. Republican efforts to alter or dissolve the decree were blocked by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, a decision which is now on appeal to the Supreme Court. Bopp complains that under the decree the RNC's hands are tied when it comes to preventing election day vote fraud by the Democratic Party. “It is way too restrictive,” he said. “It prevents the RNC from working with state parties in conducting voter integrity activities. It has been used by the DNC to harass the leadership of the RNC with false allegations of violations of the consent decree.” Bopp tells WND the concerns reflected by the consent decree are "completely unjustified."

Concerns of vote fraud have heightened after Mitt Romney failed to get a single vote in thousands of Democratic precincts in urban areas across the country, particularly in the battleground states. Virtually the only other place in the world where you see those kinds of voting patterns is in totalitarian dictatorships where people fear for their lives if they don't support the ruling party. “Third-world, tin-horn dictators don’t get [these percentages]," radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh complained. "I mean, the last guy that got this percentage of the vote was Saddam Hussein, and the people that didn’t vote for him got shot. This just doesn’t happen. Even Hugo Chavez [of Venezuela] doesn’t get 100 percent or 99 percent of the vote.” At the same time, a video uploaded to the Internet by "Anonymous" claims credit for breaching computer servers which supported the Romney campaign's nationwide get out the vote effort on election day, virtually shutting it down. Tens of thousand of Romney election day workers were unable to access the system on election day, hampering its GOTV efforts in key battleground states. Anonymous claimed the system had to be blocked to prevent Karl Rove from stealing the election, even though the system had nothing to do with the operations of voting software that counts actual votes cast in the election.

In my own downtown Indianapolis precinct on election day, I was disturbed by the large number of African-American men who cast votes from a Wheeler Mission facility at 520 E. Market Street. I've worked as an election judge in the Lockerbie precinct for about six years. You could count on your hand the number of African-Americans who cast votes on election day at this downtown precinct in past elections. This year, large numbers of African-American men showed up to vote, all producing photo identification listing an address of 520 E. Market, which is owned by the Wheeler Mission. None of the men had the appearance of being homeless. After the election, I asked the Marion Co. Board of Registration for a list of all voters registered at that address. Much to my surprise, there were nearly 200 people, all men, registered at that address. The precinct in the past has had a total of about 1,000 registered voters. The precinct has a history of ticket-splitting. Mitch Daniels, for example, won the precint by a wide margin in 2008 at the same time Barack Obama was easily carrying it in the presidential election. In last year's municipal election, only a few votes separated Mayor Greg Ballard and Melina Kennedy in the mayor's race. This year, even the Republicans leading vote-getter in the county and statewide, Attorney General Greg Zoeller, failed to carry the precinct. Even Scott Keller, who had the support of several prominent Democrats in his state representative race, was trounced by his Democratic opponent. The influx of voters from the Wheeler Mission was enough to reverse entirely the precinct's historical voting patterns.

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