Why is DOJ tanking on vote fraud activities?

The WSJ’s short answer: The Department of Justice are under pressure to ignore voting irregularities and DOJ lawyers who supervise voting rights are Obama donors.

WSJ's editorial today begins - - -

We've all read a lot about the "politicization" of the Justice Department in recent years, and that political pounding is having an ironic effect. The prosecutors who are supposed to guard against voter fraud don't seem very interested in running the political risk of doing their job.

If voter fraud would ever be ripe for investigation, this would seem to be the year with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn) having been caught filing thousands of bogus voter registrations in at least 14 states. Acorn's history of deceit and the national sweep of today's scandal demand a federal probe.

Safeguarding the integrity of the vote is every bit as important as protecting access to the polls, yet Democrats want Justice to pay attention only to the latter.

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers recently sent two letters to Attorney General Michael Mukasey deploring a news leak that the FBI is investigating Acorn, and warning Justice to focus instead on "voter suppression."

Barack Obama has also joined in this political intimidation, demanding in two letters that Mr. Mukasey appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Justice staff who he claims are engaged in "unlawful coordination" with John McCain's campaign to pursue "so-called 'election fraud.'"

There is zero evidence that such coordination exists, but it is remarkable that a Presidential nominee would dismiss election fraud as a myth. [But Obama’s from Chicago, remember? Dem pols there always dismiss vote fraud as a myth. - - JinC]

The lawyers at the Civil Rights Division are already falling into line. Justice recently decided to reverse a policy in place since 2002 to send criminal attorneys and other federal employees to monitor polling places. The decision came two weeks after a September meeting to which the Civil Rights Division invited dozens of left-wing activist groups to discuss voter "access" to the polls. …

It doesn't help Justice's credibility that attorneys charged with supervising voting issues are avowed Barack Obama supporters.

According to Federal Election Commission data, James Walsh, an attorney in the Civil Rights Division, has donated at least $300 to Mr. Obama. His boss, Mark Kappelhoff, has given $2,250 -- nearly the maximum. John Russ, also in Civil Rights, gave at least $600 to Mr. Obama.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to make these attorneys available to us, though she didn't deny that the contributions were made. She noted that the Hatch Act does not forbid federal employees from donating to candidates, and that Justice's internal "standards for recusal" on prosecutions depend on any "given situation." Apparently so.

Vote fraud is real and can affect elections. …

In 2003, the Indiana Supreme Court overturned the result of a mayor's race because of absentee ballot fraud -- a case that led to a stricter Indiana ID law recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. A 2005 Tennessee state Senate race was voided after evidence of voting by felons, nonresidents and the deceased.

A Washington State Superior Court judge found that the state's 2004 gubernatorial race, which Democrat Christine Gregoire won by 133 votes, had included at least 1,678 illegal votes.

Voter access does need to be protected, but Democrats are using that principle as a political weapon, suggesting that any serious look at fraud is intended to "disenfranchise" voters.

This is a naked attempt to protect their friends at Acorn, who have been registering thousands of phony voters. Congress put the voter fraud statutes on the books, and Justice is obliged to enforce them.

The entire editorial is here.

Comments:

I posted last week on the liberal/leftist Raleigh News & Observer’s editorial minimizing concerns about vote fraud while wailing about “voter suppression” targeting minorities.

Just what you’d expect from an Obama newspaper.