Another Federal Fiasco

We are hearing all sorts of complaints now about ACORN, a left-wing group accused of voter registration fraud.

Once again, it is a typical federal mess. Foremost among the rights of citizens is the right to vote. In 2000 Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) because they wanted to avoid disenfranchising anyone.

The mandate
It is a typical unfunded mandate, placing the onus upon county clerks to register and verify and control and audit…but without the funds to do the job properly.

The lawyers and judges
But the feds DID supply plenty of funds to the Department of Justice (DOJ) to sue county clerks and force them to supply Spanish-speaking election judges, materials, etc.

The warning
In 2005 federal auditors (GAO) reported to Congress that the United States was having trouble with HAVA. They studied seven states and found all sorts of problems with dead people on the rolls, non-citizens voting, convicted felons voting, duplicate registrations…

Government Inaction
And here we are less than a month before the election with allegations of voter registration fraud at the hands of a group of community organizers.

Can an illegal alien vote? Here’s the official answer from a county clerk in Illinois:
"It's a very difficult thing to handle," said Kane County Clerk Jack Cunningham, who is in charge of elections and overseeing voter registration. "We never single out any group. There has to be a presumption that they are citizens unless it's proven otherwise. We, at this level, don't have much control over the issue."

And a state senator from the same county: "It's absolutely possible, and it's a problem," said Illinois Sen. Michael Noland, D-Elgin. "I'm not sure how to combat that. I'm open to suggestions." (from the Courier News, 1/24/2008)

This sounds like a typical case of federal failure, compounded by local paralysis. The same pattern of bad law, bad policy, the judicial system siding with the liberals, unheeded warnings, and local government being left to deal with the mess.

Does this sound anything like the immigration mess? Or health care? Or roads? Or the subprime loan mess?

The man in Waukesha was right about Americans being mad. But McCain paid lip service to him. He can’t fix the voter registration problem in four weeks. His turn was back in 2005 when he got the copy of the GAO report.

All McCain’s doing now is setting the stage for a challenge if he loses by a slim margin.