DOJ Sends Lawyers to Monitor South Carolina Election With 186 Voters
Last week was a bad one for the Eric Holder Justice Department. A federal court ruled that South Carolina was a prevailing party in the voter ID litigation the state was forced to bring after Holder blocked the state law under the Voting Rights Act. (PJ Media had previously reported that career lawyers at the DOJ Voting Section had found the law to be nondiscriminatory but were overruled by political appointee Tom Perez).
The response to the court’s ruling? Send DOJ lawyers from Washington D.C. to monitor a special election for a town council seat in Branchville, South Carolina (voting-age population: 800). A whopping 186 people voted in the special election while the DOJ probably spent thousands to send the lawyers.
Branchville Raylrode Daze Festivul
Because Holder is ideologically opposed to voter ID (he falsely called it a poll tax, a label even the leftist 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected), the jaunt to Branchville is a bit of sour grapes.
Branchville doesn’t have but a few polling places. But DOJ lawyers and federal employees monitored voting, and trolled for any voters that might have difficulty. They collected evidence which may eventually be used against South Carolina in future actions, or just as likely, for leaks by his press shop to sympathetic left-wing bloggers.
Would it be too crass to insist that all government entities be required to publish each day all expenditures made or committed on our behalf. If we’re paying for this stuff they do, we should be able to express our reservations or approval of each item. We all have to do a lot of belt tightening and to live within our means and maybe invest for retirement. I never seem to feel that government does that at any level. They’ll tell us that if we look hard enough, we can find the stuff and that they publish it. Maybe they could publish the data on the sports page or someplace easy to spot. For one thing, they might become a little more self-conscious once we start commenting on their wastefulness of our money and that of our children.
U.S. Attorney’s office protected Rezko friend Dr. Ronald Michael
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2013/01/09/u-s-attorneys-office-protected-rezko-friend-dr-ronald-michael/
This is simply too funny! From I-95 too Orangeburg on Hwy 21 you will find it to be a mixture of blacks and whites with most blacks living outside the small incorporated or unincorporated communities. This is an area for which whites and blacks have a great historic relationship in predominate, make that exclusively an agri basin. Everybody white and black knows each other and their familes etc. etc. TheDOJ certainly picked the wrong area if it was their intent to find voting irregularities on any merit of racial regards.
Branchville is the largest of the little communities from I-95 to Orangeburg and one of the most friendly places and people, black or white. A couple C-stores, an abundance of churches, three schools, one grocery store, little police department, two historic railroad stations, a great little ice cream parlor and the rest is residential.
I don’t know, there is some pretty strong de facto segregation there. Everybody may know everybody but they don’t live in the same area (blacks in town, whites out) nor do they vote the same (black Democrats, white Republicans).
I once lived in Ridge Spring (a similarly-sized town) and had a woman from California accuse us all of racism because of these differences. An Equadorian immigrant had to set her straight by pointing out that segregation is different from simply having different opinions and preferences. I highly doubt the DOJ will understand that concept. They’ll probably call us racist, because that is what they thought of us before they even came to SC.
For 55 miles along Hwy 21 it is a very old generational area with very, very small communities for which some of the smaller ones are mostly black but the rest are mixed. The greatest population are on working farms, large and small and are owned by both blacks and whites. The many very small cemeteries are mostly mixed dating back into the 1800s. The DOJ just picked one of the worst areas and especially Branchville to monitor for voter rights violations.
Isn’t this the same state that the Feds are now having to reimburse to the tune of $3,500,000? I thought the DOJ would have learned their lesson about contesting that voter ID law.
I imagine that they don’t care because it’s not like it’s their money and, besides, the cause of social justice is “worth any and all expenses”.
this would be funny if it weren’t so sad. don’t get your way so you waste taxpayer $$$ trying to kick the chit out of the closest little guy around. real ethical behavior there. not that a gun running accessory to mass murder (fast & furious) would have a clue about professional ethics.
this whole administration is a sad collection of socialism gone bad.
I think it’s about time that one or another (or all) of the states subject to the Voting Rights Act flat-out refuse to comply with it and force a judicial review of the law’s constitutionality. A straight-up nullification of the law by a state or states would also serve to put the Feds on notice that their inching toward totalitarianism isn’t going unnoticed.
In Australia it’s compulsory to vote. The only downside is the amount the politicians spend on tax payers money promoting themselves.
http://www.smithslawyers.com.au
What the heck do we do about all this? Most federal judges seem to rule in favor of this administration and we do not have any redress in our nations courts. I am very concerned with the bullying tactics on business’ and individual citizens who even try and take their grievances to the courts. Am I being a fatalist? I would really like to know exactly what can be done? No one seems to have an answer…