WSJ: "Lawyers who supervise voting rights are Obama donors"

The Wall Street Journal has serious questions about the validity of those who are supposed to oversee fairness in voting to prevent voter fraud. In Monday's editorial they seemed to think the fox was guarding the hen house when it came to guarding against voter fraud.

The WSJ wrote:

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.

Is voter fraud being ignored this year for political reasons? The WJS continued:

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.

Ending with examples of past voter fraud, the WSJ concluded:

Vote fraud is real and can affect elections. In 2001, the Palm Beach Post reported that more than 5,600 people who voted in Florida in the 2000 Presidential election had names and data that perfectly matched a statewide list of suspected felons who were barred from voting. Florida was decided by about 500 votes.

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.

I find this a disturbing situation after going through the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004.

McCain-Palin 2008