[EL] Massive vote fraud defined
Abigail Thernstrom
thernstr at fas.harvard.edu
Sun Jul 31 18:50:50 PDT 2011
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)
>
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> 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
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Law-election mailing list
>>> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
>>> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>>
>>
>>
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>>
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