[EL] Massive vote fraud defined

[Joe La Rue]

Thank you, Abby. I appreciate your perspective.

Joe
___________________
Joseph E. La Rue, Esq.
812-232-2434, ext. 25 (Office)

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On Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 9:50 PM, Abigail Thernstrom <
thernstr at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:

>
> Joe --
>
> Good questions.  Here is my response.
>
> 1.  The KKK was part of a massive criminal conspiracy in the Jim Crow South
> to keep black voters from exercising their Fifteenth Amendment rights. It
> terrorized millions of black Americans, and only unprecedented intervention
> by the federal government could stamp it out.  Whites in the South prior to
> 1965 did not have to stand around polling places looking menacing to keep
> blacks at home on election day.  Would-be black voters knew they were
> putting their lives, their homes, and their jobs on the line if they
> approached a polling place.  The New Black Panther Party, on the other hand,
> is a tiny marginal group of racist nuts with no power and no organization.
> Not even the head of the Party supported the visit the two guys made to that
> one polling place.  The incident was a one-off.
>
> One of the witnesses at the US Comm'n on Civil Rights hearings stated that
> the actions of two Panthers in one little corner of Philadelphia were more
> blatant than what went on in Mississippi in the 1960s. It's a ludicrous,
> breathtakingly ignorant assertion, which has been repeated many times. In
> the pre-1965 Mississippi, fewer than 7 percent of eligible black voters had
> been allowed to register to vote. They were disfranchised by fraudulent
> literacy tests, as well as widespread (and often lethal) violence, and
> intimidation, as mentioned above.
>
> 2.  Sure it's possible that was the agenda of those two guys -- one of them
> carrying a nightstick.  But it's pretty speculative.  What could they have
> hoped to accomplish in that solidly pro-Obama neighborhood -- as all black
> neighborhoods were?  It's also unlikely they were the most intimidating
> people around; it's an area of the city in which guns and drug dealers are
> familiar figures.
>
> 3.  As I said before, my own sense is that they were into racial theater of
> minor importance. The party may dream of a large-scale effort to suppress
> voting -- like the Social Workers Party dreams of a national campaign to
> demonstrate its position as the vanguard of the proletariat.  But the
> Panthers have almost no members, showed up nowhere else, and have no hope of
> realizing their dream even on the tiniest scale.
>
> 4.  I might note, btw, that in the decades since the 1965 VRA was passed,
> there have been only three successful prosecutions of voter intimidation
> under section 11 (b).  So, almost no cases, no clear legal standards, no
> substantial body precedent to define precisely what is needed to prove a
> violation.
>
> thanks for writing,
>
> Abby
>
>
> On Jul 31, 2011, at 8:03 PM, Joe La Rue wrote:
>
> Abby,
>
> I'm admittedly a bit out of my league because I've not done much work in
> the VRA. Still, I can't help but wonder a few things. Recognizing that you
> have some expertise in this area, I'm curious as to your thoughts on these
> three questions:
>
> 1. If two uniformed members of the KKK went to a polling place in a
> precinct with few black voters, should we assume that it was not with the
> intent to intimidate the few black people in the precinct the way you seem
> to be assuming the NBPs were not trying to intimidate the few white people?
>
> 2. Is it possible that the NBPs' agenda was to intimidate *voters*,
> regardless of race? I have many black friends, some of whom are politically
> conservative. I imagine they would have found the spectacle presented by the
> NBPs intimidating had they voted in that district, even though they are
> black. If the NBPs were there in full regalia to intimidate *voters*,
> regardless of race, shouldn't that be a concern to us?
>
> 3. What purpose could wearing the uniform of a quasi-para-military
> organization and carrying nightsticks serve other than voter intimidation?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Joe La Rue
> ___________________
> Joseph E. La Rue, Esq.
> 812-232-2434, ext. 25 (Office)
>
> CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE:  This e-mail message, including any attachments, is
> for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential
> and privileged information or otherwise be protected by law. Any
> unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you
> are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail
> and destroy all copies of the original message.
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 7:38 PM, Abigail Thernstrom <
> thernstr at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> You are right to raise the question, and the answer is, no. It was sloppy
>> of me to suggest otherwise; I'm just overdosed on tip-of-the-iceberg
>> arguments that make more of that incident than it deserved. There was a
>> serious imbalance between the gravity of the allegations and the strength of
>> the evidence available to support the charges.
>>
>>   It's a violation of section 11 (b) of the Voting Rights Act. if the two
>> Panthers intended voter intimidation.   But, it was an odd polling place to
>> pick if they, in fact, wanted to scare voters -- presumably white voters,
>> since the precinct contained almost no whites.
>>
>> And, btw, I did not mean to express an opinion on the extent of voter
>> fraud -- a different issue. I have no expertise on that topic.
>>
>>  Abby
>>
>> Abigail Thernstrom
>> Vice-chair, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
>> Adjunct Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
>> www.thernstrom.com
>>
>>
>> On Jul 31, 2011, at 3:40 PM, James Woodruff wrote:
>>
>> Do voter intimidation cases actually require that a voter be intimidated?
>>
>> James J. Woodruff II, Esq.
>> Associate Professor of Lawyering Process
>> Florida Coastal School of Law
>> 8787 Baypine Road
>> Jacksonville, FL  32256
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [
>> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] on behalf of Abigail
>> Thernstrom [thernstr at fas.harvard.edu]
>> *Sent:* Sunday, July 31, 2011 3:36 PM
>> *To:* Chandler Davidson
>> *Cc:* law-election at uci.edu
>> *Subject:* Re: [EL] Massive vote fraud defined
>>
>>
>> And when two unappealing members of the New Black Panther Party showed up
>> at a single Philadelphia polling place in November 2008, one of them
>> slapping a night stick against his palm, there was "massive" voter
>> intimidation, although no voters who had actually felt intimidated in that
>> heavily black neighborhood could be found.
>>
>> Abby
>>
>> Abigail Thernstrom
>> Vice-chair, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
>> Adjunct Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
>> www.thernstrom.com
>>
>>
>> On Jul 31, 2011, at 1:32 PM, Chandler Davidson wrote:
>>
>> The adjective I see most often applied by those making a fuss about the
>> existence of vote fraud is "massive."  In such descriptions, it's difficult
>> to get a sense of what massive fraud consists in, as distinct from mere
>>  "significant" fraud.
>>
>> I now have a pretty good implicit definition of "massive," thanks to the
>> article cited in the Daily Caller.  The author is Matthew Vadum, described
>> as " a senior editor at Capital Research Center, a Washington, D.C. think
>> tank that studies the politics of philanthropy with a special focus on
>> left-wing advocacy groups".    The article begins:
>>
>> While NAACP President Benjamin Jealous lashed out at new state laws
>> requiring photo ID for voting, an NAACP executive sits in prison, sentenced
>> for carrying  out a massive voter fraud scheme.
>>
>> In a story ignored by the national media, in April a Tunica County, Miss.,
>> jury convicted NAACP official Lessadolla Sowers on 10 counts of fraudulently
>> casting  absentee ballots. Sowers is identified on an NAACP website as a
>> member of the Tunica County NAACP Executive Committee. . . .
>>
>> Sowers was found guilty of voting in the names of Carrie Collins, Walter
>> Howard, Sheena Shelton, Alberta Pickett, Draper Cotton and Eddie Davis. She
>> was also  convicted of voting in the names of four dead persons: James L.
>> Young, Dora Price, Dorothy Harris, and David Ross.
>> Read more:
>> http://dailycaller.com/2011/07/29/mississippi-naacp-leader-sent-to-prison-for-10-counts-of-voter-fraud/#ixzz1Th32w9za
>>
>> If ten instances of  fraud by one person constitute massive fraud, one  is
>> entitled to ask what adjective would apply in the event that the perpetrator
>> voted the names of twenty people rather than ten:  Humongous?
>>  Mind-boggling?  Overwhelming?  Of biblical proportions?  Apocalyptic?
>>
>> I suppose those who believe the national photo ID movement is essentially
>> a disfranchisement movement should feel free to adopt similar terms to
>> describe its effects, assuming as many as ten people are unfairly kept from
>> voting.
>>
>> Chandler Davidson
>>
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