Obama-connected group increases LA vote fraud chances

The political left continues to press its campaign to make elections in Louisiana turn out its way by legally questionable means. One prong of the strategy is to flood registrars in key areas with bogus registrations, hoping to overwhelm the system to allow the maximum number to seep through. Another is to rely upon “friendly” officials that wink at the practice and countenance the seepage. The final prong is to challenge and resist by every means possible efforts of diligent officials to prevent these activities from succeeding.

The later is exemplified by Project Vote’s recent complaint that Secretary of State Jay Dardenne is being too stringent is removing registrants that also are registered in other states, claiming the process is too inexact. This is nonsense: officials can drop from voting rolls the names of people who are registered in multiple states, but only after sending the voter two mailings: one giving voters 30 days to show by fax or letter that they are not registered in another state, and a second notice giving the individual 21 days to appear at a parish registrar of voters office to challenge their removal from the rolls. The process complies with federal voter registration laws and has been approved by the U.S. Justice Department under the Voting Rights Act.

Nonetheless, this is typical of Project Vote’s history of frivolous and annoyance lawsuits. By bringing these, at the back end of the process the group wishes to discourage vigilant enforcement of the law. The organization also has a colorful history of lawlessness with its operatives on many occasions at the receiving end of fraud complaints. On voter projects it affiliates with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a radical leftist organization with which Sen. Barack Obama began cutting his political eye teeth early in his career and who assisted him in his election campaigns, returning favors of Obama who trained ACORN leaders and assisted Project Vote in its early days.

The presumptive nominee for the Democrats for president will be unable to use the fruits of his past labor to win Louisiana for him as he trails badly in polls statewide. But the “crisis strategy” endorsed by the organization can produce votes for Sen. Mary Landrieu in her reelection bid and for Democrat congressional candidates. And, unfortunately, to a point this strategy has succeeded – the cleanup to the rolls will take effect only after the November elections.

This will make it difficult to counter fraud. Louisiana election law makes it difficult to successfully safeguard the process without a lot of resources applied to the task by interests outside of the government. Parties or candidates would have to have trained poll watchers with superior information at each precinct, also during early voting, in order to have any chance of spotting invalid voting (and the problems in success here are multiplied when absentee voting is involved).

Many believe Landrieu’s extremely close initial senatorial win came courtesy of fraud. It would be a shame if other contests this fall were influenced by illegal activities the prospects of which are enhanced by groups such as the former beneficiary of Obama’s political activity.