The Left Owns the Election Law Industry

[Geee]

Front Page Magazine:

Before the 2000 presidential election, most Americans assumed the mechanics of elections functioned smoothly. The thirty-six day battle for the presidency demonstrated otherwise. Today, most Americans still assume the institutions, firms and foundations that fight about election law disputes are equally matched and similarly funded as between left and right. That is a dangerously incorrect assumption, especially with the 2012 election fast approaching. From an election administration perspective, the 2012 presidential election is already upon us. And the Left is fully engaged.

Like so many other institutions, whether academia or the media, leftists dominate the field of election law, and the consequences are immediate and devastating. Worst of all, hardly anyone has noticed that these scores of leftist election experts enjoy a largely unopposed battlefield.

Leftist foundations, litigators and organizations have established permanent structures designed to alter election outcomes through policy advocacy and strategic litigation. Project Vote, DEMOS, the Asian American Legal Defense Fund (AALDF), the Brennan Center for Justice, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF), the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Advancement Project, National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), League of Women Voters, Asian Pacific American Legal Center and Common Cause are some of the groups that push election law in a direction hostile to conservatives, and the rule of law. Not surprisingly, money tainted by George Soros also flows downstream through various groups and institutes to the cause.

Literally hundreds of individuals man permanent stations, full time, at these groups. They benefit from tens of millions of dollars in funding. They bring lawsuits under federal and state statutes ranging from the Voting Rights Act, Motor Voter law and the Help America Vote Act. They station teams of election observers in polling places around the nation every election to fuel their litigation and their media efforts. Almost nobody opposes their efforts.

Their efforts pay off over and over again. Whether preventing Michigan or Colorado secretaries of state from purging the voting rolls of dead voters in 2008, or grandstanding about purported “voter intimidation” when law-abiding citizens in Houston, Texas deploy retirees to serve as poll watchers in 2010, these leftist groups are affecting the outcomes of elections.

Activists posing as nonpartisan academics, like Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center or Tova Wang of DEMOS, disingenuously claim voter fraud doesn’t exist. Wang is particularly dishonest. She released a report after the 2010 elections that there was no voter fraud. Wang’s conclusion came only two days after the election, hardly enough time for the careful study necessary for such a sweeping conclusion. Nevertheless, sycophants in the media lapped it up.