More nuanced reporting on this issue: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/us/north-carolina-voting.html I suspect, to quote Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, on the last voter fraud commission: "They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi is a great State to launch from." Allison Riggs, a lawyer with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, wondered whether the subpoenas were part of the next chapter that Mr. Kobach had promised for the voter fraud effort. “This is clearly a fishing expedition that picks up where the Pence-Kobach Commission stopped,” said Ms. Riggs, referring to Vice President Mike Pence, who had been chairman of the commission. Ms. Riggs added that the administration “appears to be outsourcing the Commission’s discredited agenda” to federal prosecutors. “I thought it was a hoax when I got it,” said Kellie Hopkins, the director of the elections board in Beaufort County. “A subpoena for ballots? I’d think they’d understand you don’t give out ballots.” This is what happens when you outsource criminal investigations to your green shirts.
https://newrepublic.com/article/139442/accused-voter-fraud-north-carolina I Was Accused of Voter Fraud in North Carolina Here's what it taught me about belonging and exclusion in America. By Brooks Sterritt December 21, 2016 Just over three weeks after Election Day, I got a Google Alert. My name had appeared in the digital edition of my hometown’s daily newspaper. An article, the first of several on the subject in the following weeks, stated that the chairman of the Republican Party in Pasquotank County, where I had voted by mail-in absentee ballot, was attempting to invalidate my vote and 21 others by “challenging the residency of 22 voters who participated in last month’s election, claiming they are a ‘symptom of voter fraud’ that calls into question the outcome of the governor’s race.” The governor’s race in question was North Carolina’s, and at the time I learned of the challenge to my voter eligibility, Pat McCrory had not yet conceded defeat. In fact, after losing to Roy Cooper on November 8 by a margin that has since surpassed 10,000 votes, McCrory hung on, demanding recounts, filing protests across the state, and alleging fraud in the form of votes cast by felons, by people who voted in multiple states, or in the name of deceased persons. McCrory, of course, also signed a controversial 2013 voter-ID law that a federal appeals court struck down this year due to “racially discriminatory intent.” (A number of the 22 voters challenged gave their address as Elizabeth City State University, a historically black college in my home county, more on which shortly.) I initially found the challenge quite odd. I wasn’t a felon, hadn’t voted in another state, and hadn’t attempted to vote in someone else’s name. The GOP chairman behind the local challenge, Richard Gilbert, filed what is technically called an elections protest petition disputing my residency in the county. It’s true, I don’t reside in Pasquotank County. I voted by absentee ballot, something one does, by definition, when absent. It’s true, I don’t reside in Pasquotank County. I voted by absentee ballot, something one does, by definition, when absent. I’ve been a registered voter since 2002, and voted absentee while in college in North Carolina, in graduate school in Boston, while studying and teaching in a foreign country, and most recently while pursuing a doctorate in Chicago. I voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 primaries while teaching English in Rövershagen, Germany. I used the event for a unit on the American political process (the witnesses who signed my ballot weren’t even U.S. citizens). Indeed, the same principle allows members of the military to vote from overseas. Regardless of where one temporarily resides, a voter can legally cast a ballot using the address of their domicile, defined in part and somewhat poetically as the place “to which…that person has the intention of returning.” A hearing at the local board of elections the following Monday provided a bit more clarity. Gilbert had found the description of a literature course I taught last spring, as well as some student evaluations, which he used to claim that I was a full-time professor. By his account, I had established a permanent residence in Chicago, and was therefore voting illegally in North Carolina. But being referred to as “Professor Sterritt” by a student doesn’t make me a professor—if only that were the case. I’m actually a full-time student funded by a teaching assistantship, which carries a part-time appointment as an instructor. In fact, I’m far from the first student whose voter eligibility Gilbert has called into question. In his own words recorded on the filed protest, he states: Get the latest from TNR. Sign up for the newsletter. On election day 2012, I successfully challenged 4 voters on residency. In April 2013, I successfully challenged 58 voters who voted in the 2012 election illegally. And now in Nov 2016, we have another 21 people who either voted or attempted to vote in Pasquotank County illegally. It turns out the above voters were students at Elizabeth City State University, the historically black college at which Gilbert had also challenged 18 students in 2007, and failed. While it was claimed that certain students who lived in town couldn’t vote, it was also claimed that I couldn’t vote because I didn’t live in town. It’s important to note that Elizabeth City State University isn’t the only four-year school in Pasquotank County, though it is the only local school whose students’ voting rights have been subjected to legal challenges. Reporting in 2013, Rachel Maddow asked why: “Is it because one school is mostly black and the other one is mostly white? Is it because one school is bigger? Because one school is more conservative?” The upshot of my first hearing was the scheduling of another hearing; I was obliged to engage legal counsel. I learned that a number of factors can support a claim to a domicile, though not all are strictly determinative. For example, if you are a college student who still maintains a room at your parents’ house, including personal property, this fact could be used to argue you are domiciled there. If your mother tosses your comic books and turns your childhood room into an office, this doesn’t preclude a claim, but it would then require other evidence. Do you come home between terms and during all the major holidays? Do you have a bank account in your hometown? Do you own property there? Were you born there, raised there, and/or did you go to high school there? These are all positive indicators, though they do not in and of themselves guarantee you the right to vote. Holding a driver’s license issued by another state isn’t a deal breaker, but certainly doesn’t help. Registering to vote or actually voting in another county or state, however, forecloses the possibility of voting in your place of origin. In a way it’s akin to the reminder in U.S. passports that “you may lose your U.S. citizenship” by “serving in the armed forces of a foreign state.” Above all, a domicile rests on intent. Usually, your domicile remains the same until you’ve established a new one, even if you’ve moved. Establishing a new domicile involves an intention to remain somewhere indefinitely, in other words, that you’ve found a new home. The argument was that I had been gone long enough to become disconnected, that my ties were insufficient. Legal grounds aside, what is the basis for claiming Pasquotank County as my home? It’s difficult to describe without resorting to figurative, hyperbolic, even sentimental language. Why does someone kiss the ground after being lost at sea? It’s irrational, though most can understand the feeling, at least in theory. Just as no single factor generally suffices to prove your home to the state, I realized that a complicated set of mutually reinforcing criteria determined what I called home. It’s difficult to describe home without resorting to sentimental language. Why does someone kiss the ground after being lost at sea? Consider the weight of the combination “born and raised.” There’s an elemental edge to the phrase, as though it refers to something that came out of the ground. But merely being born somewhere, in and of itself, does little to change your lived experience going forward. Though my father was born in Canada, he never considered it his home. This is because his parents (U.S. citizens) returned with him to Upstate New York while he was still very young. Where I was born, where I grew up, where my parents live, where I lived for the longest period, where landmarks trigger the oldest memories: phrases that refer to the same place. If my parents moved to Big Arm, Montana, would I consider it my home? Doubtful. I wonder about other tipping points, however. I lived in one town for 18 years, and the latter 12 of those were in the same house. If I had instead lived in three towns for six years each, which would feel most like home? Taken to extremes, the emphasis on origin, nativeness, “those who belong” leads to the converse: an emphasis on outsiders, strangers, foreign bodies, infectious agents. It’s no coincidence that the language of this most recent challenge to voter eligibility in Pasquotank County contains phrases like “symptom of voter fraud” and again, however redundantly, “symptom of a systemic infection of voter fraud.” Compare the president-elect’s words on illegal immigration: “Infectious disease” is “pouring across the border.” Consider the words of Michael Flynn, Donald Trump’s pick for national security advisor: “Islam is a political ideology. … It’s like a malignant cancer.” Republicans, in their current form, are a party so desperate to win they are increasingly turning to voter suppression, partisan redistricting, and appeals to fear of the other. These and other efforts have only increased my desire to vote in North Carolina, and many share this view. The hard work of organizing as well as continuing demographic changes make it more likely North Carolina will be known as a progressive (though imperfect) southern state rather than the state that repealed the Racial Justice Act and introduced HB2. On December 15, the state board of elections, which had assumed jurisdiction over the challenge to my voter eligibility, voted unanimously to dismiss the challenge. I look forward to voting in North Carolina’s federally ordered special election in 2017.
It's ridiculous, a federal entity should take control of overseeing all voting, from municipal to the federal level. I find it ridiculous that you'd have to be in a "registered roll" to begin with. People looking to disenfranchise others should be tied to a stake and shot.
I agree, malicious intent like this need to be punished roundly. Voter suppression is as serious a act of subverting democracy. I'd expect there should be de minimus rules and some higher court judge will be pretty pissed.
DOJ delays subpoenas on voting data until 'well after' election https://www.wral.com/doj-delays-subpoenas-on-voting-data-until-well-after-election/17824074/ The U.S. Attorney's Office will delay subpoenas seeking massive amounts of state and local voter data, and it clarified Thursday that it doesn't want to know how North Carolinians voted. In fact, federal investigators may not need completed ballots at all as they delve North Carolina voting records as part of a grand jury investigation connected to U.S. immigration enforcement. U.S. Attorney Robert Higdon's office agreed Thursday to work with state and local elections officials to dial back a request that once seemed likely to pull 20 million voting records, saying concerns over voter privacy and election officials' ability to prepare for the November elections while also pulling documents had not fallen on deaf ears. Compliance with these subpoenas can wait until January, provided the desired records are preserved, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sebastian Kielmanovich told the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement in a letter Thursday. Then, production can be handled on a rolling basis to avoid burying elections officials in a massive request, the letter states. Any ballots that are pulled can be redacted to avoid revealing whom individuals voted for, Kielmanovich wrote. "We want to prevent disclosure of any voter's actual choice of candidates in any race," his letter states. "That specific information is not relevant to our inquiry." The letter followed a day-and-a-half of wide-eyed concern from state and local election officials in 44 targeted counties, as well as from others worried that the federal government was big-footing its way into an election. Congressmen David Price and G.K. Butterfield, both Democrats, called for official inquiries into the subpoenas, which were issued on behalf of a grand jury meeting in Wilmington and as part of an investigation involving at least one U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. The congressmen's call came before Higdon's office dialed back its request, but spokespeople for the congressmen said Thursday afternoon that there are still concerns and that congressional Democrats from the state were working together on an inquiry request to the inspectors general for the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE. Thursday's letter shone no new light on what investigators are looking for. Investigators whose names appear on the subpoenas, though, were also involved in a federal grand jury case last month that charged 19 foreign nationals with voting in the 2016 U.S. elections. State elections officials had said the subpoenas would cover some 20 million documents, including more than 2 million ballots that could be used to determine how people voted. Whether a person voted or not in North Carolina is a public record. How they voted is not, but with early votes and absentee ballots, records are kept that can be used to track that. State law requires those tracking numbers remain confidential. Allison Riggs, a voting rights attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, said she's been buried in email from concerned voters since word of the subpoenas broke late Tuesday. "People are afraid of what's going to happen retribution-wise when the Justice Department, when the federal government, finds out who I voted for," Riggs said. "Small-government conservatives should be screaming bloody murder right now." Other critics said the subpoenas are intended to suppress voter turnout in some of the counties with the highest numbers of black voters. The 44 counties are home to 39 percent of the state's voters and 46 percent of black voters. "Instead of spending our time and our money and our efforts making them feel like it's worthwhile to be part of this process, we're scaring the heck out of them," Riggs said. Even if the government doesn't want to know who voted for which candidates, she said, the state should fight the subpoenas. "Just try to wrap your head around how long it would to redact 15 million voter files," she said.
Yes, it is outrageous that Americans demand that we only allow U.S. Citizens to vote in U.S. elections. Maybe lefties are in favor of Russian's participating in the vote?
The fact that grand juries issued the subpoenas shows probable cause. Democrats should be concerned all right. If they are a party to this voter fraud, they can get prosecuted! It is about time they cracked down on voter fraud. Cannot wait till they do the same in California!