The so-called “mainstream” media, including CNN, is apoplectic over former Vice President Mike Pence’s recent commentary in The Daily Signal in which he says that “election integrity is a national imperative.” Apparently, they disagree, and don’t like that he points out the serious problems with HR 1, which just passed the House of Representatives, that would “trample the First Amendment” and “increase opportunities for fraud.”
Pence is absolutely correct in that assessment. CNN published its supposed refutation by claiming that he got his facts wrong about what HR 1 does. But they are the ones who are wrong—and some of their claims border on the absurd.
For example, they assert that Pence is wrong when he said that HR 1 bans voter ID laws. But the bill requires states to allow individuals to vote who sign statements in which they claim they are who they say they are. This federal requirement eviscerates state voter ID laws and, in essence, ban them; states obviously can’t enforce their voter ID requirements if federal law say they have to allow anyone who just signs a form to vote.
CNN’s characterization of the vice president’s claim as “not true” is disingenuous and should earn them a Pinocchio award.
Next, CNN claims that Pence is wrong over his concern that imposing automatic voter registration requirements on the states will lead to noncitizens, i.e., illegal aliens (although CNN follows the politically correct rule of referring to them as “undocumented immigrants”) being registered to vote. But there seems little doubt that will happen, and has already happened in places like California that have implemented automatic voter registration.
The complex sections of HR 1 on automatic voter registration require numerous state and federal agencies to send information on individuals to state election officials so they can be registered. Many state and federal agencies don’t have citizenship data on the individuals they deal with. In fact, most “public secondary schools” and “institution[s] of higher learning” that are included in this automatic voter registration requirement studiously avoid getting citizenship information on their students, especially illegal aliens.
So it is highly likely that they will send information on all of the individuals they deal with, regardless of their citizenship status, to state election officials. Moreover, HR 1 specifically states that no alien can be “prosecuted under any Federal or State law” or “adversely affected in any civil adjudication concerning immigration status or naturalization” due to being automatically registered.
CNN does acknowledge that Pence is correct about felons voting. While admitting that HR 1 would require states to allow what CNN terms “formerly incarcerated persons” to vote “the moment they set foot out of prison,” as the former vice president said, CNN fails to add that this particular provision is blatantly unconstitutional.
The Fourteenth Amendment specifically gives states the right to decide if felons lose their ability to vote and if and when they can get it back. You can’t override a constitutional amendment with a bill passed by Congress.
CNN says that the accuracy of Pence’s assertion that HR 1 “would force states to adopt universal mail-in-ballots” depends on how you “define” that term. Wrong. By forcing states to allow anyone to vote using absentee ballots without an excuse—requiring states to mail an absentee ballot request form to every registered voter—and specifying that states must create a permanent absentee ballot list for any voter that wants to be sent an absentee ballot in all elections, HR 1, in essence, creates a nearly universal mail-in voting system.
CNN’s “fact check” on redistricting is also amusing in what it reveals about the network’s view of government. Pence said in his commentary that “congressional districts would be redrawn by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats.” CNN is forced to admit that HR 1 does take the power to redraw political boundaries away from state legislatures and forces states to set up so-called “independent” redistricting commissions. But CNN claims that what “constitutes” an unaccountable bureaucrat is “up for debate.”
Really? State legislators who redraw political boundaries after each census are accountable to the voters who put them in office—and voters can try to vote them out of office if they don’t like how those legislators conduct themselves, including the way they do redistricting. But the members of the commissions required by HR 1 would all be appointed. That means they would be unaccountable to voters who would have no recourse against commissioners whom they view as having drawn unfair, overly partisan, or inequitable political lines in the redistricting process.
That sounds like “unaccountable bureaucrats” to me—and any member of the public with common sense.
Finally, CNN admits that Pence was correct when he said that the bill requires that illegal aliens and citizens be given equal representation in Congress. But it tries to excuse that by saying “this is already the case,” and that President Joe Biden has ordered that the population used for reapportionment include aliens, legal and illegal. This “equal representation” may be true relative to apportionment, but Pence’s comment had nothing to do with apportionment.
What CNN fails to explain is that Pence is talking about redistricting, and it is not currently a requirement under federal law for state legislatures to draw new congressional district lines using total population data that includes aliens. Each state sets its own criteria.
In fact, in the interest of fundamental fairness and equal protection principles, states legislatures should all switch to using citizen population rather than total population when drawing new congressional districts lines. If HR 1 becomes law, they won’t have that option.
Contrary to CNN’s biased, partisan review, Pence assessed HR 1 accurately and succinctly. As he said, it “mandates the most questionable and abuse-prone election rules nationwide” and would “prevent states from implementing new, needed reforms.”
Pence added that we should be working to “restore public confidence in our elections.” He is absolutely right. If it becomes law, HR 1 will do the exact opposite of that.
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And while we are at it why don’t we allow dead people and dogs to vote! Oh wait, we already do through mail in ballots. This whole bill is so blatantly unconstitutional it is not funny. Pewlosi and Schemer want to do an end run around the 14th amendment and the states themselves. I am with Texas…..TEXIT! Along with any other same state that believes we need to leave this union and start a new one based on the ideas set forth by the real founding fathers of this country.
When one party to a contract breaks terms of that contract, they relieve all other parties of their contractual obligation to the one who broke it. In this case the contract is the constitution and more specifically the bill of rights therein.
Thus if the federal government continues pitting intolerable acts in place, no state is obligated to support the union.
It should not be just Texit, it should be all the central states who respect the human rights of their citizens. Heck if eastern california, the red and agricultural parts, want to go with us x more power to them.
Hail the new “Constitutional States of America.”
Lazy Americans have used the ballot box to vote away their freedoms in exchange for “free stuff”. Those freedoms will only be regained again with the bullet box by patriotic Americans in the future.
The democrats want and will find ways to steal an election. The democrats already have illegal criminals voting in every election. It’s time that the American people wake up and quit voting for these anti-America communist that calls themselves democrats or people like Sanders. Every democrats are communist and support criminal behavior. The democrats support terrorist like the BLM and ANTIFA.
JUST BE CLEAR!
70 Card Carrying Communists in Congress
The Socialist Party of America announced in their October 2009 newsletter that 70 Congressional democrats currently belong to their caucus.
(DSA: Democratic Socialists of America)
DSA members in congress – 70
Eleven DSA members sit on the Judiciary Committee.
John Conyers [Chairman of the Judiciary Committee], Tammy Baldwin, Jerrold Nadler, Luis Gutierrez,
Melvin Watt, Maxine Waters, Hank Johnson, Steve Cohen, Barbara Lee, Robert Wexler, Linda Sanchez [there are 23 Democrats on the Judiciary Committee of which eleven, almost half, are now members of the DSA].
DSA members of 111th Congress.
Co-Chairs
Dis-Hon. Raúl M. Grijalva (AZ-07)
Dis-Hon. Lynn Woolsey (CA-06)
Vice Chairs
Dis-Hon. Diane Watson (CA-33)
Dis-Hon. Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX-18)
Dis-Hon. Mazie Hirono (HI-02)
Dis-Hon. Dennis Kucinich (OH-10)
Senate Members
Not so Hon. Bernie Sanders (VT)
House Members,Hon. Neil Dis-Hon Abercrombie (HI-01)
Dis-Hon. Tammy Baldwin (WI-02)
Dis-Hon. Xavier Becerra (CA-31)
Dis-Hon. Madeleine Bordallo (GU-AL)
Dis-Hon. Robert Brady (PA-01),
Dis-Hon. Corrine Brown (FL-03)
Dis-Hon. Michael Capuano (MA-08)
Dis-Hon. André Carson (IN-07)
Dis-Hon. Donna Christensen (VI-AL),
Dis-Hon. Yvette Clarke (NY-11)
Dis-Hon. William “Lacy” Clay (MO-01),
Dis-Hon. Emanuel Cleaver (MO-05)
Dis-Hon. Steve Cohen (TN-09),
Dis-Hon. John Conyers (MI-14)
Dis-Hon. Elijah Cummings (MD-07)
Dis-Hon. Danny Davis (IL-07)
Dis-Hon. Peter DeFazio (OR-04) recently deposed
Dis-Hon. Rosa DeLauro (CT-03)
Dis-Rep. Donna F. Edwards (MD-04)
Dis-Hon. Keith Ellison (MN-05)
Dis-Hon. Sam Farr (CA-17)
Dis-Hon. Chaka Fattah (PA-02)
Dis-Hon. Bob Filner (CA-51)
Dis-Hon. Barney Frank (MA-04)
Dis-Hon. Marcia L. Fudge (OH-11)
Dis-Hon. Alan Grayson (FL-08)
Dis-Hon. Luis Gutierrez (IL-04)
Dis-Hon. John Hall (NY-19)
Dis-Hon. Phil Hare (IL-17)
Dis-Hon. Maurice Hinchey (NY-22)
Dis-Hon. Michael Honda (CA-15)
Dis-Hon. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (IL-02)
Dis-Hon. Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30)
Dis-Hon. Hank Johnson (GA-04)
Dis-Hon. Marcy Kaptur (OH-09)
Dis-Hon. Carolyn Kilpatrick (MI-13)
Dis-Hon. Barbara Lee (CA-09)
Dis-Hon. John Lewis (GA-05)
Dis-Hon. David Loebsack (IA-02)
Dis-Hon. Ben R. Lujan (NM-3)
Dis-Hon. Carolyn Maloney (NY-14)
Dis-Hon. Ed Markey (MA-07)
Dis-Hon. Jim McDermott (WA-07)
Dis-Hon. James McGovern (MA-03)
Dis-Hon. George Miller (CA-07)
Dis-Hon. Gwen Moore (WI-04)
Dis-Hon. Jerrold Nadler (NY-08)
Dis-Hon. Eleanor Holmes-Norton (DC-AL)
Dis-Hon. John Olver (MA-01)
Dis-Hon. Ed Pastor (AZ-04)
Dis-Hon. Donald Payne (NJ-10)
Dis-Hon. Chellie Pingree (ME-01)
Dis-Hon. Charles Rangel (NY-15)
Dis-Hon. Laura Richardson (CA-37)
Dis-Hon. Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34)
Dis-Hon. Bobby Rush (IL-01)
Dis-Hon. Linda Sánchez (CA-47)
Dis-Hon. Jan Schakowsky (IL-09)
Dis-Hon. José Serrano (NY-16)
Dis-Hon. Louise Slaughter (NY-28)
Dis-Hon. Pete Stark (CA-13)
Dis-Hon. Bennie Thompson (MS-02)
Dis-Hon. John Tierney (MA-06)
Dis-Hon. Nydia Velazquez (NY-12)
Dis-Hon. Maxine Waters (CA-35)
Dis-Hon. Mel Watt (NC-12)
Dis-Hon. Henry Waxman (CA-30)
Dis-Hon. Peter Welch (VT-AL)
Dis-Hon. Robert Wexler (FL-19)
THE 45 COMMUNIST GOALS AS READ INTO THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, 1963
I for one am willing to fight for our America.
This bill is taking everything that showed voter fraud in the last election, (as well as the past 12+ yrs), and is trying to make them legal. This most disruptive Bill, if passed, (Please God, NO,), it makes a total mockery of our entire voting system, and, goes a long way towards a true dictatorship. Most of The Democrats in congress have lost their purpose for being there, which is to serve the CITIZENS of our country. They are now on the road of revenge, and total power grabbing. Those who passed this bill in the House just because of their party leadership, instead of their conscience, need to rethink their purpose.
I pray for our children and hope they understand and forgive us for what is about to happen. Blood is about to be shed on every street of this country. Civil War is upon us. Its time to take back our country from the psychopaths in Washington that are hellbent on destroying it. For the life of me I cannot understand how most of the democratic are so blind that they can’t see what is happening. I used to think that no human can be that stupid. But I stand corrected. The dumbing down of America is almost complete. I pray for my brothers. Many will die. Maybe even me but I will die fighting for our children to have the same freedoms I grew up with. The treasonous bastards and bitches in Washington must be dealt with and the punishment must be swift and it must be severe. God help us all
Their IS no “Election Integrity” – nor will there ever be – again!! NO RULE OF LAW. NO ‘JUSTICE’. AT ANY LEVEL!!! COMMUNISTS OWN THE VOTE… OWN DC… OWN … “U”!
(What I jsut said will take the average DEM VOTER – a LIFETIME – to figure out!! DEM VOTERS: MOST IGNORANT HUMAN BEINGS – ON EARTH!! .. a TON a conservs: not too far behind, either!!)
Not the brightest lights over there at CNN. If you can’t get your electoral system working properly, how do you expect to get the rest of the country working properly?