Dear Michael,
Today was not a high watermark for solid information. And I had such high hopes after having only one serious issue on Friday. I must point out that I am not taking the time here to disagree with you philosophically. Your show ostensibly exists to provide a forum for reasonable disagreement, and I don't need to battle it out with you here; I can call your show for that. I do feel compelled to point out intellectual dishonesty, misleading statements, and outright falsehoods. Your show would be a lot more useful to the country if you would stay factual, and disagree using facts, and not untruths.
On to Monday's corrections...
[After reading an AP story about an organization who sends out pre-filled voter registration forms, including forms with the names of deceased pets]
Michael Medved: Okay, what about the Democratic claims that there've never been any evidence of voter fraud? Here it is. You want to believe that no one who gets this stuff in the mail actually sends it back? Puts on a 44 cent stamp? And thereby cancels out the vote of some real voter? A US citizen who's entitled to vote?
Michael Medved: Here in the state of Washington we have basically all mail-in vote now.
Caller: Exactly! And no one would check! And they're certainly not going to check every vote of every random dog. So if I was inclined in that direction, I would create; I would be able to vote, another vote. And this is so wrong. The vote is absolutely in jeopardy.
Michael Medved: No doubt, because what's terrible about this is you're obviously a person of conscience. You told the story. You declined to get a double registration, but what this does is this kind of system and this kind of sloppiness, unregulated and fraudulent, and frankly disgusting, it gives an advantage to people who are unscrupulous. In other words, somebody else who isn't you, Brenda, who got a ballot in the mail or a registration form in the mail for a dead dog could easily just send it in. Boom, they've got two votes.
So there are some things you probably don't understand about the process, but it seems to me you should.
An organization that sends out voter registration forms is not evidence of voter fraud. If it was evidence of voter fraud, then there would be an arrest made and the fraudsters would be put into prison, along with the 86 people out of 300 million the Bush Administration convicted in 2007 which I cited in my earlier e-mail. Saying these mailers are evidence of voter fraud is simply untrue.
But let's say someone does register their dog, Snuffles, in Washington State. What happens then?
According to the Secretary of State, the following:
Following the 2004 General Election and the subsequent gubernatorial recounts, both political parties spent a combined total of $6.5 million contesting the election and attempting to prove that fraud occurred during the course of the election. Despite the numerous problems with the election cited by the judge, none were directly linked to voting by mail.
Contrary to allegations made by opponents to vote-by-mail, there have been no substantiated reports of voter coercion, such as a domineering spouse or a corrupt nursing home employee. Voters always have the option of coming to the county elections department to cast their ballots.
Implementation of the statewide voter registration database in 2006 has helped to ensure that only those people eligible to vote receive ballots. The voter registration database is screened daily for duplicate registrations, monthly for deceased voters, and quarterly for felons. The screenings for duplicate registrations are especially important since they contribute to the perception of voting fraud and the assumption that people are voting multiple ballots. In 2006:
- 39,814 duplicate voter registrations were identified and cancelled accordingly;
- 40,105 registrations of deceased voters were identified and cancelled accordingly;
- 4,500 registrations of convicted felons were identified and cancelled accordingly;
and
- 91,954 active and inactive voter registrations were cancelled for a variety of reasons, including:
- upon the voter’s request;
- the voter moved and failed to reregister;
- the voter moved out of state; or
- the voter had been on inactive status for more than two federal elections, a time period established in federal law.
Verification of Voter Registration Information Driver’s license or state ID numbers as identification are checked against the motor vehicle database for a match of the number, last name, and date of birth. If the number matches but not all of the other fields, election officials review the records to determine if they match. If the SSN4 is provided, the number is checked against the SSA database through AAMVA. If no match is found, the voter will be notified. If the information remains unverified, the applicant may need to provide identification before voting.
So, unfortunately for Snuffles, his ballot would be disqualified due to lack of state ID or lack of matching Social Security Number. This reporter did not do their homework, but that's another sad story.
Michael Medved: They [Democrats] get passionate about the idea that increasing numbers of states are requiring voter ID, an ID that would be limited to human beings, not dogs, and limited to people who are alive, and limited to people who are alive and are citizens of the United States and entitled to vote. What a concept. Democrats are angry about that idea.
Could you point me to a Democrat elected official who is angry that voting is limited to living citizens? How about a Liberal pundit? How about a Communist party member? You are maliciously misrepresenting their position. Knock it off.
Michael Medved: Take a look at any impartial investigation. Voter fraud is a problem. I spoke directly in this very hour to a lady who received a mailer from a Demcratic party organization, affiliated with the Democratic party urging her to register her long-dead dog to vote.
Caller: And you think if the dog showed up, they'd give it a ballot?
Michael Medved: It's mail-in ballots, Dan, that's the problem. In other words, no one checks the dog's ID. This is a deeper problem.
[Caller refers to this story about the Pennsylvania House Republican leader claiming voter ID will let Romney win Pennsylvania]
Michael Medved: And you know why? Because of the level, Dan, because of the level of voter fraud in Philadelphia. And if you don't believe there has been huge voter fraud in Philadelphia, and voter intimidation in Philadelphia, of Republicans, you don't know anything about the New Black Panther party case from 2008.
Caller: The one the Bush Justice Department didn't prosecute. There was no evidence.
Okay, that's not ent; because the case only came up at the very end, the Bush Justice Department ran out of time. The point about this, Dan, I think everybody in America who is qualified to vote should vote. No one should stand in his or her way. But I think the people who are not qualified to vote, including dead people, dogs, minors, and non-citizens should be kept from exercising the franchise and taking away my vote by canceling it out. This is not a radical thought.
I've already addressed the hypothetical about the dog. Now on to Philadelphia... In Pennsylvania, the state has no record of voter fraud, according to their Department of State. What it does have are six people suing because they cannot get a state ID. They cannot get a state ID because the state has lost their birth certificates. Guess they won't be running for President, either.
As for the "New Black Panther Party"; alleged voter intimidation has nothing to do with vote fraud, and voter ID will not solve that problem. The Justice Department did not drop the case because they "ran out of time." If that was the case, you would expect the crime rate to dramatically increase just before a new term, because the Justice Department would "run out of time" and drop whatever it was working on. They filed a suit, and a judge issued an injunction against some of the people involved. More to the point, the New Black Panther Party repudiated them on their web site, and suspended the Philadelphia chapter. Why doesn't anyone ever mention the fact that they policed their own members? More info here.
In the next post, we'll tackle taxes and President Obama! Stay tuned...
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