There are some things that I honestly think I will never understand: the Dr. Phil Show, people who like Brussels sprouts, and how investigating possible voter registration fraud is the equivalent of racially based disenfranchisement.
As you may have heard, Indiana State Police is investigating the possibility that thousands of recent voter registrations may have been forged or fraudulently altered. The group at the center of the investigation is the Indiana Voter Registration Project (IVRP), an arm of Patriot Majority USA, a super PAC that reportedly has ties to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.
Earlier this summer, word started to creep out that thousands of voter registration forms had been altered across Indiana. Word got from county clerks to Secretary of State Connie Lawson, who referred the matter to Indiana State Police. A raid was launched, and the matter is under review. IVRP accused ISP of Gestapo-like tactics and said the state, under the direction of Gov. Mike Pence, was trying to disenfranchise African-American voters.
If I may be so bold as to use a term that is not uncommon in the African-American community, “Negro, please!!!” I’ve heard some pretty ridiculous accusations involving race in my day, but this takes the chocolate cake with the white icing.
First of all, nowhere on the State of Indiana voter registration form does it ask for your race. It asks for gender, but not race. So how could the state disenfranchise Black voters if the form doesn’t ask if you’re Black? I asked IVRP that question and have yet to get an answer. Last week, the group told the Associated Press it reached that conclusion based on the fact they had registered predominantly Black voters. But once again, how would law enforcement know that unless they’re told? I guess you could try and do this by the names, but it might be difficult to tell if Jonathan Wallace or Jacqueline Price are Black or white people, as opposed to Leroy Washington or Raineesha Williams. And please keep in mind, the questionable voter registration forms ended up in 56 counties. We also know there ain’t a whole lot of Black folks in some areas, so law enforcement must have really gone out of its way to target colored people, oops, people of color.
Secondly, if anyone has been disenfranchised, it’s the person whose voter registration was changed, and they now have to cast a provisional ballot and go jump through hoops in order to exercise their constitutional rights, because of either malfeasance or misfeasance. And to make matters more interesting, while voter ID can help prevent most fraud, ID is not needed if someone is going to vote absentee, and a fraudulent registration can lead to a fraudulent ballot being cast. And while this could all be a giant exercise in incompetence, my spidey-sense tells me there’s something more here.
And while we’re at it, let’s take a look at a couple of other interesting facts. If Patriot Majority USA was so concerned about disenfranchisement, then why after the voter registration deadline were people the group hired going to the state to complain that they weren’t getting paid? (By the way, the group has found the money to hire two national public relations firms to attack the secretary of state and state police.)
And speaking of state police, or at least the state police troopers union, there’s a growing chorus of membership that wants Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Gregg to speak out against Patriot Majority for accusing their fellow troopers and investigators of being racist.
Are we having fun yet?
No matter how you slice it, if the folks at the IVRP want to blame someone for being disenfranchisement, instead of pointing the finger at Mike Pence, Connie Lawson or Indiana State Police Chief Doug Carter and Indiana State Police, I suggest they get a mirror and find out who the true culprits are.
Abdul-Hakim Shabazz is an attorney, political commentator and publisher of IndyPolitics.org. You can email comments to him at abdul@indypolitics.org.
