Victory and Defeat for Open, Fair, and Honest Elections

While Republicans see the administration of elections as a non-partisan process to be performed in accordance with the rule of law, we have long contended that some far left Democrats see election administration as a way to race bait and fear monger in a desperate effort to scare the liberal base into voting.  The leaders in this effort include the Brennan Center which has recently been rebuked on the left by the likes of liberal law Professor Rick Hasen and the New York Times. 

The Brennan Center’s most visible spokesperson on election issues has been Myrna Perez.  Ms. Perez has made outlandish statements that such activities as cleaning up the voting lists are “vote purging” that  “happens every day”, that 1.2 million people don’t have ID in Texas, and much more. 

For her years of effort of carrying the Democrats water on these issues she was rewarded with a nomination to the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC).   RNLA and others interested in fair and honest elections vehemently and vociferously opposed her nomination. 

She has been proven factually wrong again and again but that never mattered.  That is until today.  She has withdrawn her nomination to the EAC. 

We hope this is not just a rejection of her but of the organization that gives her a platform, the Brennan Center. 

However, while we won the battle, we have not won the war.   Her replacement, Matt Butler, is even being questioned for partisanship by the left.  Like most liberal “experts” on voting, he has no experience in working in election administration. 

Today was a victory for open, fair and honest elections with the withdrawal of Ms. Perez.  However, the war is not over as President Obama has nominated another person who seemingly has little interest in election administration. There are literally dozens of current and former Democrat election administrators and experts who would be qualified to help lead a commission whose responsibility it is, at least in theory, to “assist” state and local election officials and voters. Is Butler really qualified for such a task? What are his qualifications other than being an activist progressive Democrat?  As Doug Chapin writes:

At this point, it would appear that the Democrats have made the decision to trade a potentially controversial (and therefore problematic) pick for on that is lower-profile, albeit just as partisan.

More on Butler later, however, his nomination at first blush seems to prove why it is time to end the EAC.