Former first lady Michelle Obama speaks at a rally to encourage voter registration on Friday, Sept. 28, 2018, in Coral Gables, Fla. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
In January, I made a case for dead people being able to vote (see here).
Well, it appears it’s something Pennsylvania and I have in common.
In Allegheny — home to Pittsburgh — a lawsuit’s been filed over duplicate voting registrants and listing dead ones, too.
The organization behind the suit is the Public Interest Legal Foundation.
Last week, PILF aimed its legal launch at Allegheny County’s election manager as well as three Board of Elections members.
PILF contends the board broke federal and state law by not properly maintaining the county’s voter record.
As per the filing, the roll includes 7,500 records with beaucoup (a little Cajun for ya there) erroneous info and almost 1,600 dead folks.
The birthdate of one of the registrants is June of 1800 (not sure which day, but at the end of May, let’s all wish her Happy Birthday; and maybe chip in and buy her a Peloton).
Nevertheless, no offense to anyone 219 years old, but I’ve gotta believe that by that time, your mind is just gone. None of those bicentenarians have any business at the polls.
And all those votes matter — Allegheny, as indicated by The Washington Free Beacon, is a “heavily Democratic county in an important battleground state.”
Of the 5.9 million cast votes in 2016, Donald Trump won by only 44,000.
That’s less than 1 point.
There’s been a lot of talk from Dems in the last year about the suppression of voters set to go donkey rather than elephant.
But PILF reports tens of thousands of phony registrations in battleground states.
The organization wants two things for Allegheny citizens, as listed by Communications Director Logan Churchwell.
Lay it on us, Logan:
“First, the cited flaws within the voter registration list need to be addressed head-on.
“Second, we need the federal court to help establish guardrails so these types of problems do not arise again. If our intelligence services are correct, we must always be vigilant against outside intrusion and sabotage attacks in these systems. Energetic voter list maintenance efforts are frontline protections against that threat.”
To hear Logan tell it, it seems there are some people out there who are full of crap:
“Anyone who has a problem with cleaning up duplicated voter registrations is no longer allowed to proclaim they stand for the tenet of ‘one person, one vote.'”
Allegheny County Elections Division Manager responded to the lawsuit thusly:
“The first and foremost concern of Allegheny County is to protect the voting rights of all citizens. Each citizen registered to vote gets one vote should they choose to exercise that right. There are no allegations that anything to the contrary has occurred. The allegations in this lawsuit will be reviewed and addressed as necessary consistent with all applicable federal and state laws. As is always the case with voter registration list maintenance, the utmost care will be taken to ensure that no one is disenfranchised.”
I’m not sure what percentage of voters will be getting that message, as, according to PILF, 1,523 of them are over the age of 100, with 49 having been born in the 19th century. So I don’t imagine many of those people can see well enough to read this.
There’s also an issue of doubling up, plus more — some voters “managed to become registered to vote two and even up to seven times with matching or substantially similar names and other biographical information with the same addresses.”
The Pennsylvania suit comes on the heels of a similar filing by PILF in swing-state city Detroit.
There, 2,500 deceased voters are on the books.
And nearly 512,000 people are registered to vote, despite the voting-age populace numbering less than 480,000.
As we near 2020, one can only imagine there are gonna be tons of challenges to the electoral result.
When — as is likely — Trump wins, some Democrats may have to take off work again and stay home from school to deal with their emotions. Amid that will surely be cries of unfairness.
But fortunately, a lot of those questionable Americans who might’ve swung the election won’t be able to — at 200+ years old, they’ll be too decrepit to walk to the car in order to be taken to the polling center.
So I guess some of that will work itself out.
Still, there’s a lingering question: How many counties have this problem? In how many swing states? Before November, houses need to be gotten in order.
-ALEX
Relevant RedState links in this article: here.
See 3 more pieces from me:
One of the Biggest Rap Groups in History Breaks Up Over…Bernie?
Man’s Boyfriend Refuses to Buy Him Weed, So He Stabs Him With a Samurai Sword
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