SorenDayton.com

Allyson Schwartz (D-PA-13) represents a district that John Kerry won 54-43. In 2008, she won 63-34. But she’s scared this year. How scared? Scared enough to put the screws into the leaders of the national and state firefighters union to get a firefighter and bar owner named Brian Haughton to not run:

Haughton described himself as aggressive and passionate and told the crowd that Schwartz called the heads of the national and local International Association of Fire Fighters to ask them to get him out of the race, saying, “I don’t want to run against a firefighter.”

He thinks she fears a blue-collar Philadelphian as an opponent.

Rachel Magnuson, Schwartz’s chief of staff, said the congresswoman spoke to the union leaders, but only to seek support, not to derail Haughton’s candidacy. Magnuson noted that Schwartz has been supported by the fire unions in the past and added that the office will not have a comment on the campaign until a Republican candidate emerges. She did indicate that the incumbent is focused on jobs as the primary issue.

Not only did Schwartz make the call, but her staff weren’t shy about it. In what would probably be a safe district — in 2002 the Republican did get 47%, but Schwartz beat her by outspending her almost 3-1 — she has to put on the screws to stop a blue collar firefighter.

Oh, and I have been told, but I have not been able to confirm, that the fire fighters have endorsed Haughton, one of their own. (this may just be in the Republican primary)

National Review’s Jim Geraghty has a tremendously important story. Jon Corzine is trying to build an absentee ballot slush fund to win a recount in the New Jersey Governor’s race. Basically, the Democratic Party has asked the Secretary of State to send provisional absentee ballots out to people whose signatures on their absentee ballot requests don’t match:

In a development that is depressingly predictable, the New Jersey Democratic party is asking the state to provide provisional ballots for all these voters. Those ballots could, presumably, be used to overcome any narrow lead by Republican Chris Christie over Democrat Jon Corzine on Election Day.

Now, let’s be clear how the absentee process works in New Jersey. Third parties can pick up and return absentee ballots.  A couple of weeks ago, a Democratic operative in Atlantic City plead guilty to a lesser charge of tampering with ballots. One practice mentioned in the indictment was the person picking up ballots from people and throwing them out if they weren’t for his candidate.  Another example was:

They allegedly solicited applications for messenger absentee ballots from individuals not qualified to receive them and had the voters not fill in the name of the messenger, so they could fraudulently designate themselves as the authorized messengers or bearers.

And:

They allegedly obtained messenger ballots from the county clerk and submitted them to the board of elections as vote s on behalf of voters who, in fact, never received or voted the ballots or, in some cases, were given only the security envelope for the ballot and were told to sign it. Those voters were not given the opportunity to vote in most instances.

So when ballots are getting into the hands of people who didn’t even ask fro them, you have to wonder what is going on.

Last year, we covered some of the problems in the counting of military absentee ballots in Virginia, as did others. This problem has not gone away. It has just moved. The day before election day 2008, the McCain campaign filed a complaint in the Eastern District of Virginia to force Virginia to count military absentee ballots that came in after election day. McCain lost Virginia by more than enough votes, but the case went on with the Department of Justice replacing the McCain campaign.There were filings last month and will likely be a hearing this month. So what?

The Virginia State Board of Elections argued in their most recent filing that they have no legal obligation to send out military absentee ballots in a timely manner. Restated, the State of Virginia has argued in a federal court filing that they can legally send out absentee ballots to active duty soldiers the day before an election. Restated again, theDemocratic Chairwoman of the Virginia State Board of Election (appointed by the Democratic National Committee Chair Tim Kaine, in his capacity as Virginia Governor) Jean Cunningham just claimed a legal basis for massively raising the barrier to voting for soldiers at war.

Really. Read on for details.

The details of the legal proceedings are at the invaluable Election Law@Moritz. Let’s start with the most recent filing on behalf of the defendant

There is no federal statute that requires States to mail absentee ballots to UOCAVA voters a minimum number of days before an election. The Complaint in Intervention is based entirely on a “determination” by the Federal Voting Assistance Program of the Department of Defense that such ballots be mailed at least 30 days before an election, and a “recommendation” that States allow 45 days for round-trip mailing of absentee ballots.

This is remarkable, and the implications of this should be understood. First of all, some counties in both Virginia and New Jersey haven’t sent out absentee ballots yet in violation of their own laws. Whether due to maliciousness or simply being overburdened and understaffed is always up for debate. If Virginia prevails, there would be a legal argument for putting the ballots of active duty military at the back of the bus, as it were.

Second, this whole debate concerns only federal elections. States have to pass laws that allow for military voting in non-federal elections. I do not believe that either state has done that. Virginia’s filing notes that many of these questions are irrelevant in many ways because of the Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot, but their flier on military voting notes “Virginia allows you use the FWAB as an absentee ballot for Federal Offices only”. In other words, not state and local elections. In fact, state laws have to do more to let active duty military vote in state elections.

Third, if ballots were even to be sent out in a reasonable time, a question is them getting back in time. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, Rep. Dan Boren, Sen. John Cornyn, and Sen. Mark Begich have a proposal to have DoD pay for ballots to be returned by express mail, but Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi are blocking consideration in the House, even though it passed the Senate last year.

In discussing last year’s issues, Marc Ambinder noted, “Democrats insist they’re biased towards access… so will they try to intervene on behalf of these voters?”

Good question.

(cross-posted from The Next Right)

Every once in a while Democrats and the media assert that there’s never any election fraud or that it rarely results in cast votes. This is false. My favorite example is the 2003 Democratic Mayoral primary in which 32 people were convicted of voter fraud, and the election was subsequently thrown out by the court.

It turns out that the Troy, NY municipal elections are highly contested this year. And when elections are close, and especially in primaries, the stakes get high. And the fraud starts. In this case, the fraud was over the Working Families line. And the ballots themselves explicitly link the fraud to Democratic Party officials and Working Family Party officials to that fraud. From the Albany Times Union:

Documents at the county Board of Elections show the fraudulent ballots were handled by or prepared on behalf of various elected officials and leaders and operatives for the Democratic and Working Families parties. A Troy housing authority employee, Anthony Defiglio, who sources said oversees vacant properties for the Troy Housing Authority, also handled many of the fraudulent ballots, according to public records and interviews with voters who said they were duped.

Victor Gonzalez, a resident of Griswold Heights, told the Times Union he was visited several weeks ago by Defiglio and another man who asked him to sign an absentee ballot application. Gonzalez is registered on the WFP line. But Gonzalez, like many other people interviewed, never saw, signed or submitted the absentee ballot later filed at the Board of Elections under his name.

Also, someone else wrote on the Gonzalez’s ballot application that he couldn’t vote in person because of a work conflict.

”I’ve been out of work for about six to eight months. I’ve been laid off and looking for work,” he said.

Now Erick has been on a tear about Bertha Lewis, the CEO of ACORN, the former head of NY ACORN, and the Co-chair of the New York Working Families Party. ACORN has regularly been accused of fraud and there seem to be significant convictions every year, but they just through the staff under the bus. In this case, it seems it goes up into WFP leadership. How do we know? Read on for the answer.

We know because the applications say so:

Some of the suspicious absentee ballots list Defiglio as the person who could pick it up for the voter. Residents of Griswold Heights said he is a familiar figure around those complexes. Other ballots were handled by, or returnable to, Democratic or WFP party officials, or candidates for citywide office, including: Troy Council President Clement Campana; City Clerk William McInerny; Councilman Gary Galuski; Rensselaer County WFP Chairman James Welch; council candidates Michael LoPorto and Kevin McGrath; and Tom Aldrich, a LoPorto campaign volunteer.

Next time a Democratic operative or a reporter tell you that there’s no such thing as voter fraud, send them this story too. Here at Redstate, we are looking forward to covering the trial and convictions.

And now for a little bit of European news on a day that may he packed with it due to President Obama abandoning our allies in Eastern Europe for the Russians. Yesterday, the European Parliament re-elected Manuel Barroso as President of the European Commission. Not a big deal right? Not exactly. You see, this is the first time that the leadership of the European Union has been elected without a “Grand Coalition” of the right and left. Instead, the center-right European Peoples’ Party joined forces with the right-leaning (aka econmic) Liberals and Euro-skeptics.

Here’s what Bloomberg reported:

Barroso’s victory in the EU Parliament stemmed from support by the Christian Democrats, the biggest faction, and the pro- business Liberals, the third-largest group. The vote was 382 to 219, with 117 abstentions.

Socialist and Green members, still unhappy that Barroso supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 when he was Portuguese government leader, refused to back his reappointment while failing to present a rival candidate. The Socialists, the second-biggest faction, said Barroso could pick up their support when putting together his next team of commissioners, who will need Parliament approval as a whole.

The leadership of the European Parliament has an option for the first time in history. They can decide to govern from the center-right. This vote was the first example of this coalition actually working. This follows after a crushing defeat of the left in the European elections and the right governing in the leading European countries: Italy, France, Germany, Poland, Sweden, and others, and David Cameron all but certain to be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. This gives the right the control of the European Council, in addition to the Commission and Parliament.

Let’s see if the leadership of the European Parliament learns this lesson.

In March, I wrote about the GOP opportunities that follow from the conviction of South Philly machine Democratic State Senator Vincent Fumo. The recent news of Democratic corruption out of New Jersey (mayors, rabbis, and body-parts, oh my!) and the emerging consensus that this fundamentally damages Jon Corzine’s already difficult re-election, when combined with outrage at farcically light sentencing creates real opportunities for Republicans.

Let’s go over the facts and see how much this helps Pennsylvania Republicans in 2010.

1. Pat Meehan, one of the Republican candidates for Governor got the initial indictments against Fumo. Tom Corbett, the other one, has his own story to tell about indicting Fumo and his operation. If Chris Christie ends up winning in New Jersey, there will be a ready-made media narrative comparing New Jersey to Pennsylvania.

2. That narrative will be a little emphasized because southern New Jersey is almost entirely in the Philadelphia media market. It will be non-national political news relevant to both parts of the the Philly media market.

3. Corruption is the sort of thing that suppresses Democrat-leaning independent turnout in formerly Republican suburbs in Bucks and Montgomery countes, and, to a lesser extent, in Chester and Delaware counties. And the South Philly turnout operation that Fumo was so effective at selling is probably somewhat reduced in effectiveness. Democrats can’t win statewide without huge margins out of southeast Pennsylvania. You couldn’t build a better script for reducing those margins.

Grab the popcorn. This will be fun to watch.

(Cross-posted from The Next Right)