Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Judge blocks new rules for licenses, IDs in Texas
April 9, 2009, 7:53PM
AUSTIN — A state judge agreed Thursday to suspend new Department of Public Safety driver license rules touted as a crackdown on unauthorized immigrants.
The rules prevent thousands from getting standard-issue licenses even though they’re legally in the country, said the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which is suing over the policy.
District Judge Orlinda L. Naranjo said the rules — which specify that people who aren’t U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents must prove they’re legally here before getting a license — go beyond DPS authority.
“This case is not about illegal immigrants obtaining driver licenses, it is about legal residents who have been denied or have been threatened a denial of a driver license,” Naranjo wrote to lawyers, saying she was granting a temporary injunction. After a formal order, such an injunction would block the rules pending a trial.
When DPS adopted the policy last year, GOP Gov. Rick Perry applauded it as strengthening security, saying, “Texas is a great place to live and work, and while we welcome legally documented individuals to the Lone Star State, we must ensure that this privilege is not abused by those seeking to enter our country illegally.”
Thursday, Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle said, “The governor continues to believe that the recent rule changes by DPS are important to ensuring public safety and national security and he is confident the vast majority of Texans feel the same way.”
DPS spokesman Tom Vinger said by e-mail, “We have received the court’s letter and are reviewing it with the Attorney General’s Office to determine the next step.”
When the policy change was announced, Public Safety Commission Chairman Allan Polunsky of San Antonio said he had instigated it because of a taxi driver in Dallas who had brought in undocumented workers from other states to get Texas driver licenses.
Visa acceptance at issue
Some lawmakers have joined civil rights advocates in saying DPS overreached.
“DPS has created havoc by attempting to inject its political agenda into the lawmaking process and improperly giving second-class status to individuals who in every way have complied with the laws of the land regarding their presence in the United States and Texas,” said David Hinojosa, MALDEF lead attorney in the case. (Same MALDEF lawyer involved in the ECISD 30-year lawsuit.)(1), (2), (3), (4)
Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, D-San Antonio, said the rule changes “had no legislative backing. State agencies do not have the power to pass rules that contradict or fail to comply with state laws.”
Before the rules were changed, an unexpired visa was accepted as proof of identify for someone seeking a driver’s license, Naranjo noted. The change required the visa to have been issued for at least a year and have at least six months remaining on it when presented to DPS.
The new rules also provide for noncitizens’ licenses to differ in appearance from standard licenses, and to show when a person’s stay in the country expires.
Hinojosa said it “invites racial profiling.” If license-holders’ legal status expires and they don’t present documentation showing their status has changed or their stay has been extended, their licenses are canceled under the rules.
Naranjo wrote: “State agencies possess only those powers granted to them by the Legislature … The Court finds that the Legislature did not give DPS the authority to create a new category of ineligible persons to receive a driver license.”
Chronicle reporter James Pinkerton contributed to this story.
pfikac@express-news.net
Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6366630.html#ixzz1TytulV00
References:
(1) MALDEF files objections
http://www.oaoa.com/news/maldef-32771-issues-students.html
(2) District: MALDEF too far off subject
http://www.oaoa.com/articles/district-35028-desegregation-court.html
(3) MALDEF files objections
http://www.oaoa.com/news/maldef-32771-issues-students.html
(4) MALDEF will object to ECISD's request
http://www.oaoa.com/news/crucial-31338-district-ecisd.html
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
300,000 Registrations for non-citizens
David Simcox, former Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies released a study in early October 2008 that said an estimated 1.8 million to 2.7 million non-citizen immigrants in the United States may be illegally registered to vote and over 300,000 of them are from Texas, thereby potentially influencing the outcome of the upcoming presidential and congressional elections.[17]
The counties mentioned in the report were Bexar, Dallas, El Paso, Harris, Maverick, Presidio, Starr, Tarrant, Travis, Valverde, and Webb counties. The report found that, according to Mr. Simcox's calculations, Dallas, Harris, Presidio and Starr counties had a higher number of registered voters than legitimately eligible voters, a figure that excludes non-citizens and convicted felons.[17]
http://www.blogger.com/goog_280564234
This was what I was talking about...
Via e-mail ~ Dragonrider
So MALDEF is challenging the redistricting in South and West Texas according to their website. Novembeer is going to be interesting. I've watched NCLR, LULAC, SEIU, and ACORN for years do their registration drives. They turn out to look a lot like the ones Luis Gutierrez runs. ~ Faye
Why Is Mexico’s Voter Registration System Better Than Ours?
Mexico has a better voter registration system than the United States.
That may come as a shock to those who believe nothing in Mexico could be superior. Nevertheless, it is true.
My wife is a Mexican citizen. I’ve accompanied her when she votes. (Being a non-citizen here, I don’t, of course, vote.) Every registered Mexican voter has a Voter ID card, complete with photograph, fingerprint, and a holographic image to prevent counterfeiting.
At the Mexican polling station, there is a book containing the photograph of every voter in the precinct. This book is available to the poll workers and observers from various parties. If there’s a doubt as to someone’s identity, the poll workers can simply look up the person’s name and see if the photo matches up.
The Mexican voter’s thumb is smudged with ink. That way, if he shows up at another polling site to vote, they know he’s already voted elsewhere. (The ink wears off after a few days.)
It’s a good system. Sure, Mexico has many problems. But hey, they solved that one!
Mexico’s 2000 presidential election elected Vicente Fox with a plurality of the vote. Some were happy, others weren’t. But there was no significant dispute over who had won the election. And that was a great accomplishment.
In contrast, U.S. voter registration is a joke. Thanks to the “Motor Voter” regime, not only is it unnecessary for a voter to prove citizenship, it is also unnecessary to prove identity. Registrars have been instructed not to be inquisitive about applicants’ citizenship - or lack thereof. It should come as no surprise then, that the last few years have seen more and more examples of voter fraud coming to light, including the casting of ballots by non-citizen voters.
But now–help is on the way–or is it?
I refer to the “Help America Vote Act,” recently passed by Congress and signed by President Bush on October 29th, 2002, scheduled to take effect in 2003 and 2004 (if funds are appropriated). The Help America Vote Act was opposed by the Hispanic Caucus, MALDEF and Hillary Clinton (who voted against it). But it was supported by the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus.
(Some would argue that voter registration should be the responsibility of states and not the federal government anyway. It’s a valid point. I hope they are working in their own states to improve voter registration standards there.)
In the meantime, what is there about this new federal law that could possibly improve our voter registration system?
Well, it does authorize funds for computerized voter lists. And everyone registering is required to provide a driver’s license or social security number. And election officials are actually supposed to try to verify the numbers.
First-time voters registering by mail have to provide proof of identity (a photo ID, utility bill, paycheck, bank statement, or government document with name and address) when registering or voting.
That’s good as far as it goes. But what about everybody else? Why not, like Mexico, require a permament voter ID, with photo, for everybody, all the time?
Reason: Hispanic pressure groups like MALDEF and National Council of La Raza wouldn’t like it. Every time the suggestion of a photo ID comes up, some so-called Hispanic activist or defender attacks it as discriminatory. In Massachusetts, a federal judge struck down a municipal regulation requiring voters to show an ID before voting on the grounds that it “unfairly burdened Latino voters.”
Photo ID is inherently discriminatory against Hispanics? That’s funny - it works here in Mexico, where almost everybody is Hispanic!
As for “discrimination,” isn’t electoral law supposed to discriminate between citizens and non-citizens?
Well, you can’t expect MALDEF and NCLR to care more about common civic values than the advancement of their own agenda, now, can you?
Besides, there is a simple solution to the “ID Discrimination Problem.”
I suggest we follow Mexico’s example, where the government pays for the photo IDs. Why not? The government wastes money on so many things already. What’s better than spending money on improving our voter registration system? Then maybe someday we could bring it up to Mexican standards.
I hope the new Republican Congress proves me wrong, but so far, I don’t see the new law as a panacea. If the money is appropriated and IF the registration provisions are enforced, such provisions would be a step in the right direction.
But what will it really do to prevent non-citizen voting? Oh, it has a real tough provision for that! The Help America Vote Act requires the mail-in registration forms ask the question, “Are you a citizen of the United States of America?”
It even supplies handy boxes where the applicant can answer “yes” or “no.”
Don’t worry MALDEF! Senator Christopher Dodd, the Act’s principal Senate sponsor, reassures you with these words:
“The checkoff box is a tool for registrars to use to verify citizenship. Nothing in the legislation requires a checkoff or invalidates the form if the box is left blank.”
Yes, the U.S. has a long way to go to get up to Mexico’s standards.
American citizen Allan Wall lives in Mexico, but spends a total of about six weeks a year in the state of Texas, where he drills with the Texas Army National Guard. VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his FRONTPAGEMAG.COM articles are archived here. Readers can contact Allan Wall at allan39@prodigy.net.mx
January 04, 2003
http://www.vdare.com/awall/voter_registration.htm
Feel like a dumb gringo yet? ~Faye
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
E-SLATE VOTING
Critics dislike eSlate voting, but officials praise it
County clerk says the system has far fewer problems than ‘touch-screen’
By ALAN BERNSTEIN
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Oct. 29, 2008, 12:24AM
No county in America uses more eSlate voting machines than Harris County. And with early voting already setting record highs, probably more votes will be cast here by Nov. 4 than ever before.So the debate about whether eSlates are accurate, secure and easy to use is as passionate as ever.
Though voters may trust computer-based voting equipment no more than they trust a barrel of politicians, county elections officials and the Texas-based manufacturer say there is no evidence that anyone has ever tampered with election results recorded by the ``click wheel'' machines, or that eSlates have ever recorded votes incorrectly.
Critics, ranging from local computer scientists to election officials in other states, point to reports and studies that say eSlates are user-unfriendly, prone to errors and open to sabotage — and that the lack of evidence of tampering or balloting errors proves nothing either way.
The conflicting arguments leave some Houston-area voters with a smidgen of doubt, but not enough to keep them from casting their votes for president and other offices.
"It seems pretty user-friendly. As far as trusting the data, there's always room for error," financial analyst Tracy McGowen said Tuesday as he waited to vote early at a Fiesta supermarket near Reliant Stadium. "But hopefully they've taken care of that this year."
Also in line, flight attendant Paul Olney said eSlates are easy to use, "but it takes a little thought."
"I think when you get involved with computers and electronics there's a chance for error," he added.
Gladys Wallace, a retired former election worker waiting to vote, said the system is "very easy to use as far as I'm concerned" and "just as reliable as any human-made thing can be."
1 million voters
Harris County collects and counts votes with more than 8,200 eSlate machines and has spent $28 million on the equipment and related devices. Officials predict that more than 1 million Harris County voters will have used the machines by the end of Election Day.County Clerk Beverly Kaufman, a Republican who administers elections, pointed out that eSlates have had many fewer reported problems than "touch-screen" technology, which has led to isolated cases in Texas of machines recording votes that were the opposite of voters' intentions.
"In light of what has transpired since with other equipment, the county made the right choice," Kaufman said Tuesday. "The equipment is resilient."
About 40,000 eSlate machines are in use in the world, according to manufacturer Hart InterCivic. "Not one has ever lost a vote," operations director Peter Lichtenheld said Tuesday.
But such assurances were insufficient to prevent Ohio election officials from finding earlier this year that eSlates are unreliable and too vulnerable to interference by rogue computer experts.
When it comes to government standards and testing of electronic voting machines, even the Hart InterCivic official acknowledges a problem.
"The current regulatory environment is simply moving too slowly and seems ill-defined," Lichtenheld said.
Much of the talk among voters about the eSlate system has focused on the "straight ticket" option and voting for president — to the point that the local Democratic Party has published advisories about them.
Contrary to rampant rumors, pressing the eSlate button for a particular party's slate of candidates applies to the selection for president. Voters who press a straight ticket button and mark a vote for their presidential candidate effectively erase their vote for president and preserve their votes for candidates of that party in all other races.
However, if a voter picks a straight-ticket option and then votes for the presidential candidate in another party, it will register.
ESlate defenders point out that voters can review their selections on a "summary screen," and change any unintentional mistakes, before recording their by pressing the "cast ballot" button.
But some experts shake their heads at the fact that voting for a presidential candidate for emphasis after voting "straight ticket" negates the selection for the White House.
"The eSlate has a number of odd and unpredictable behaviors with respect to straight-ticket voting," said Mike Byrne, Rice University associate professor of psychology and computer science.
With 40 judicial races on the list along with federal and local races, the Harris County general election ballot is one of the longest in the nation. Dan Wallach, who founded Rice's Computer Security Lab, pointed out that, because of the length, voters must examine three summary screens to check the accuracy of their votes.
Worse, he wrote in an article last week, "our research shows that as many as 63 percent of voters fail to notice errors on the summary screen."
Voters can get help from election workers if they become confused.
Wallach recommended that voters with limited experience with computers request the use of eSlate earphones that provide audio prompts which he said can help prevent mistakes.
Seeking to assure voters electronic voter counts cannot be changed by computer tampering, some states require that voting machines produce ATM-style receipts that each voter can examine — but not keep — showing whether their votes were recorded accurately. Texas is not among them.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6083023.htmlMonday, October 13, 2008
VOTER FRAUD BEXAR COUNTY, TEXAS
This entry was posted on 9/13/2007 3:37 PM and is filed under Voting.
There will be a lot of this because La Raza , among many other pro-illegal organizations, is out there registering illegals. Get up and get active or you're going to come out living in Aztlan and being deported yourself. -- Faye
Voter fraud case takes a new twist
Web Posted: 09/12/2007 10:28 PM CDTGuillermo X. GarciaExpress-News Officials involved in a joint federal-state probe say that some of the dozens of people under investigation in a months-long Bexar County voter fraud case may be charged with both state and federal crimes.
Federal investigators are to meet this week with local prosecutors to coordinate the cases being developed and determine who'll face state felony charges for voting illegally and who will be deported for violating federal immigration law.
No arrests have yet been made.
Authorities said they are anticipating charging some of the undocumented people alleged to have voted in Bexar County with felony violation of state law before they are turned over to immigration agents and likely deported.
As the federal portion of the investigation begun in late May winds down, Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed will determine how she'll proceed in the case of the 41 people who allegedly voted, some repeatedly, despite being non-citizens.
Reed's office will determine who will be charged with felony offenses after a meeting between Homeland Security Department investigators from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Adriana Biggs, Reed's white-collar crime division chief.
"The joint federal-state strategy will likely be that (Bexar County) pursues felony voter fraud charges, while the parallel federal investigation will focus on violations related to identity theft, re-entry after deportation and other violations of (federal) immigration law," ICE spokeswoman Nina Pruneda said Tuesday.
She said it appears likely that some of the investigation's targets will be prosecuted in state court on voter fraud charges before facing an immigration law judge in deportation proceedings.
"They have not shown me what the results of their investigation reveals," Biggs said, referring to ICE's ongoing probe. "Once we have determined who is a citizen and who is not, then we'll proceed with looking at filing state charges."
The investigation was launched after Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacque Callanen apparently discovered that undocumented immigrants had voted, some several times, in more than a dozen local, state and federal elections between 2001 and early 2007.
She said it didn't appear the illegal voting influenced an election's outcome.
Callanen earlier this year was updating the county's list of eligible voters when she discovered some 330 people who should not have been on the rolls because they weren't citizens.
Callanen compiled the list of names after she determined that they had stated on juror summons cards that they should be excused because they weren't citizens.
Pruneda said her agency will process those found to be illegally in the country for deportation hearings, an administrative proceeding.
Saying the probe was ongoing, Pruneda would not comment on substantive issues in the investigation, such as how many people have been interviewed by federal agents or when the federal portion of the investigation would end.
"We are looking at a big pie," Biggs said. "We are going to be carving out state offenses and determining how to proceed, while the feds will carve out their portion of the pie related to immigration law."
Biggs said the DA's investigators also would seek to determine whether those people who said on the jury summons that they were not U.S. citizens were just seeking to duck jury duty. Citizens who attempt to mislead authorities by claiming they are non-citizens could face charges of lying on a government document, she said.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA091307.03B.Voter_Fraud.2f71d87.html
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Government Money Used to Support ACORN Fraud
www.marketwatch.com
JIM Forsyth1200 WOAI NEWS RADIO ON ILLEGALS VOTING
He says Harris County is the worst, with some 200,000 ineligible voters. "We ought to sit down and decide..do we want it to stay that way...do we want to sit down and blink at violations of voter registration laws," Simcox said.
But Bexar County Elections Administrator Jackie Callanan disputed Simcox's figures. She says the state has a new database where all voters are cross checked. "Using their drivers license or the last four digits of their Social Security Number," she said. "Our system is exceptional."
Simcox says the problem of illegal voters is not confined to Texas. He says there are up to 235,000 illegal voters in New York, up to 113,000 in New Jersey, 209,000 in Illinois, and as many as 700,000 illegal non citizen voters in California. He estimates that at least 1,830,000 non citizens voted in off year elections in 2006. Simcox says he consulted several sources in compiling his figures, and he says the real problem is that the votes of citizens are being diluted when non citizens vote.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
ASKED FOR PAPER, GETS PINK SLIP
Another Election Director with the temerity to speak out with concerns about E-voting has been done away with. This time in Texas.
As Early Voting starts today in the crucial Texas Primaries, it looks like we've got yet another new martyr --- from the rare ranks of Election Officials --- who has reportedly been taken out by "the powers that be" during a fight for the ideas of Election Integrity, which he even went so far as to mention on a Houston television news report, if you can imagine such a thing.
The following details come from today's FortBendNow...
The board accepted his resignation during a closed meeting that the commission had called in which, one participant said, it’s possible Perez would have been asked to resign had he not done so on his own.
...
At issue had been his dislike of the county’s Hart Intercivic eSlate [DRE] voting machines, and appeared to anger some commissioners a week ago, when he told the court he favored scrapping the county’s $4 million eSlate voting system in favor of a system that would make use of paper ballots.
...
Perez told FortBendNow he doesn’t believe the county will be able to handle anticipated high voter turnout during the March 4 primary. He made similar statements in KTRK-TV reports, which appeared to fuel some commissioners’ angst.
Now, Perez will not be in charge of the county’s elections during the primary.
...
A reporter was barred from attending the Election Commission’s meeting at 10 a.m. Tuesday, and was presented with a Texas Attorney General’s opinion – dating from a 2005 Titus County case – stating that “because a county election commission is not a county commissioners court, a committee thereof, or a deliberative body with rulemaking or quasi-judicial power,” it need not comply with the Texas Open Meetings Act.
Fort Bend County is part of metropolitan Houston and includes Sugarland. It has become reliably Republican over the years, at least until Tom Delay was forced to resign and a Democrat took the local Congressional seat. The county has also previously elected both Ron Paul and Phil Gramm to Congress.
The video report referenced above, from KTRK-TV, Houston's ABC affiliate, where Perez warned there may be lines from to two and a half to three hours at the polling places during Texas' big upcoming Primary, can be seen right here.
Friday, January 25, 2008
TEXAS HOUSE COMMITTEE EXPLORES NEW VOTING REQUIREMENTS
Reporter: Bettie Cross Email: bjcross@keyetv.com Last Update: 8:16 am |
Friday, the State House Elections Committee will host a public hearing on whether or not Texas needs stricter voter identification requirements.
This action comes about six weeks before the March 4th presidential primary.
With so much interest in the Democratic and Republican candidates, changing the rules about what it takes to be able to cast a ballot is getting a lot of attention.
Right now, Texas voters only have to show their voter registration card at their polling place. These changes could make voters show their ID along with their voter registration card.
Supporters of the stricter identification rules say they're needed to keep non-citizens from voting.
Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst says the changes would help prevent fraudulent use of someone else's registration to vote in someone else's place or vote multiple times.
But Democrats aren't happy with the proposal. They want Texas lawmakers to avoid placing more obstacles between people and the polls.
Opponents of the stricter voter ID requirements say if voters are asked to show various forms of ID at the polls, minorities, in particular, are less likely to cast ballots.
Republican House Speaker Tom Craddick says voter fraud has been increasing throughout the country. He says more has to be done to ensure that only U.S. citizens who are Texas residents are voting in Texas elections.
http://www.keyetv.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=d87e6901-2a38-4b70-b729-e6f6a49a6641
Here's a link if you want to e-mail your Texas Legislator:
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/
Video news report here:
http://www.keyetv.com/mediacenter/local.aspx
Saturday, January 19, 2008
NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTE FRAUD
CNN A.M. brought up a hint of election fraud only ONCE 1-9-8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcsdKBVt_Ew&feature=relate
(I watched this video. If I remember right, it was Wolf Blitzer and the Snyder guy. The overall impression was one of confusion and being astounded between these two men. The video has now been removed from You Tube.)
(Someone pulled it over - when you go to the prison planet video below, look over to the right. This video is coming up for me. But the address is the same so when I list it here, it goes right to the message that it's been pulled. It comes up fine if you click on it from the right of the prison planet video.)
Vote Fraud in New Hampshire Confirmed
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/23647
New Hampshire District Admits Ron Paul Votes Not Counted
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/january2008/010908_district_admits.htm
Rush Limbaugh Smells Voter Fraud in New Hampshire
(If the Rush video doesn't come up, go to You Tube, search the site for RUSH LIMBAUGH VOTER FRAUD and select the one with the appropriate title.)
HACKING DEMOCRACY
Hacking Democracy 1 of 9
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzPXer7946E&feature=related
Hacking Democracy 2 of 9
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eopnvw7mh_8&feature=related
Hacking Democracy 3 of 9
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxGSXYUkplA&feature=related
Hacking Democracy 4 of 9
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ9UuXF1hkA&feature=related
Hacking Democracy 5 of 9
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht7fqoGUfS0&feature=related
Hacking Democracy 6 of 9
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3zp80H3pN0&feature=related
Hacking Democracy 7 of 9
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VoEVvR60Sg&feature=related
Hacking Democracy 8 of 9
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSvhnXtogQ4&feature=related
Hacking Democracy 9 of 9