A Court Gets It Wrong

Alabama’s legislature redrew its Federal House of Representative district lines, leaving the State with one black-majority district. The State’s courts objected and ordered the lines drawn, strongly encouraging a second black-majority district be created, since 27% of the State’s citizens are black. The State’s legislature sort of obliged, creating a second district with 40% of its voters being black.

A three-judge Federal panel (which The Wall Street Journal identified as a special three-judge district court) rejected the new districts. It’s on this point that I think the court got things badly wrong, and if the AP article is accurate, exposed the intrinsic racism in the way district lines are drawn.

Not So Massive

Georgia thinks it can’t update its Dominion voting machines in time for a major election in 17 months because the task is so massive. The State’s government men and women are aware that

Dominion voting machines had significant vulnerabilities, which led the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to issue a public advisory last year based on the findings.

But it’s too hard to fix in the time available, they claim. This is a copout.

It’s Ours By Right, Dammit!

No Labels is looking hard at running their own President/Vice President ticket for the 2024 election. The Progressive-Democratic Party is in fury over the possibility, to the extent that its Arizona arm is going to court to try to stop No Labels from registering its candidates in that State.

It [the Arizona chapter of the Progressive-Democratic Party] filed a lawsuit in state court against No Labels alleging that the signatures we collected and the petition approved by Arizona’s secretary of state should be thrown out.

Party’s rationale—and they’re absolutely serious:

A National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact wants to put together a coalition of States whose Electoral College votes aggregate to 270—the minimum majority required to elect the President and Vice President—and which coalition then would allocate their Electoral College votes to the national popular vote winner, instead of to the popular vote winner of the particular State.

This is a naked attempt to defeat the purpose of the Electoral College as it is constituted in our Constitution.

This is what Art II, Section 1, says about the Electoral College:

Cyber Voting

New York State Progressive-Democrat Congressmen want to allow absentee voters to return their ballots over the Internet.

Those Congressmen want absentee voters to be able to [emphasis added]

submit ballots for federal, state and local elections using “electronic absentee ballots” submitted by email.

“Government watchdogs” object.

…Reinvent Albany and Common Cause New York said they have “grave concerns” about the proposed legislation. They warned the move would “put the security of New York’s elections at high risk for cyber incidents, and undermine public confidence in election results.”

Opening up for Election Fraud

Washington’s Progressive-Democrat Governor Jay Inslee has signed into law yet another pathway to illegal voting. This new election law

allows people to register online to vote in the state by providing the last four digits of a Social Security Number and an electronic signature.

Never mind that those “last four” are broadly publicly available. Never mind that electronic signatures far too often don’t even remotely resemble a person’s actual signature: it’s done by clicking a link labeled with words to the effect of “by clicking this link, you’re certifying you are who you say you are and electronically signing,” or by presenting a signature field wherein you squiggle something with your finger or with your mouse.

I Have Questions

Recall that Maricopa County, AZ, has developed a hoary history of election ballot and counting irregularities, most recently in the 2022 election in which the county was unable to deliver sufficient ballots in sufficient numbers to accommodate the voters, many of whom were denied their right to vote by those ballot failures. Maricopa County investigators, led by Former Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Ruth McGregor, have released their report on causes of those…snafus.

One More “Be Like Europe” Plea

Expat (Paris) James Lieber and Temple University law teacher Peter Spiro want American expats to have their own quasi-State, to have territorial delegates in Congress á la DC, Puerto Rico, et al., and be directly represented in our Congress, albeit those delegates wouldn’t have any votes.

No. Expats already have direct representation, should they choose to exercise it by, you know, voting. They’re represented by their representatives and senators in their home district and State. Nor are expats’ votes any more diluted than are the votes of their fellow citizens still resident here at home.

A Couple of Questions

In an article centered on ballot paper shortages in the 2022 mid-term elections in Harris County, Texas (County Seat: Houston), and De Kalb County, Georgia (County Seat; Decatur), accepting $2 million of Zuckerbucks in the 2020 Presidential election, there was this bit from KHOU 11 regarding the Harris County shortage:

“After reviewing help desk logs and calling presiding and alternate election judges, the county estimated 46 to 68 voting centers ran out of their initial allotment of paper[.]” However, comparing ballot paper packets distributed to the total number of votes cast, KHOU 11 “discovered 121 voting centers did not initially receive enough ballot paper to cover voter turnout[.]”

Jim Crow 2.0, Deprecated

The Just the News lede tells the tale after President Joe Biden’s (D) widely spread conspiracy theory.

A full 0% of black voters in Georgia report having a “poor” experience voting in the 2022 midterms, a notable showing after several years of Democratic politicians arguing that the state is working to suppress black votes.

The University of Georgia’s School of Public & International Affairs ran a poll:

Among black voters, more than 72% said “excellent,” 23% said “good,” just under 9% said “fair,” and 0% said “poor.”

Will Biden or anyone in his syndicate apologize for his smear?