The Brunner decision broke along party lines among the judges. It took the full court en banc to overturn the earlier 3 panel decision.

Can you provide a reasonable explanation for why Brunner stopped complying with the procedures in her own manual?

Can you explain why the court is unreasonable for insisting she resume these procedures?

The Republican lawsuits brought in battleground states (and seemingly only in battleground states) over particular issues seeking changes that would benefit Republican candidates at the expense of Democratic candidates are viewed as illegal vote caging and illegal voter intimidation among Democrats. In turn, the GOP is suing over what it sees as voter fraud that would benefit Democrats unfairly in Republican eyes. Both parties are seeking to game the system to their benefit. Certainly former OH Sec. of State Blackwell gamed OH elections in 2004 for the benefit of Republicans with tactics whose legality continues to be questioned.

As for voters attending universities, conservative Christian Liberty University just urged all their students to register in VA and vote there. When a Republican elections official sent out letters to students telling them they could not legally vote in VA, the VA Sec. of State and courts quickly made him correct this error. Under VA law, you can be a student, register in VA, and vote. Each state has different rules regarding residency. Ideally of course students register their cars, register to vote, etc. all in the same state, but even some of our legislators vote in one state while having their cars and homes in the greater DC area.

As attorney friends say, you can always sue and claim something is illegal, but that doesn’t mean you will win. The Brunner decision broke along party lines among the judges. It took the full court en banc to overturn the earlier 3 panel decision. Would a circuit with more Democratic judges have voted otherwise?

My point is Republicans and Democrats alike seek advantages through laws, lawsuits, and legal advantages. Partisans on both sides are going to see the activities of the other as unfair and illegal. Casting Democrats or Republicans as all evil or all good does not help our country and certainly politicizes religion.

Yeah, this will be a term everyone will be very familiar with…but not soon enough to prevent Obama from being elected, I’m afraid.

What really amuses me, and I should have put it in the post, is that what Martin did in his dissent was acknowledge that a) the outcome of the election was at stake in whether or not fraudulent registrations were permitted and b) permitting it benefits Democrats, not Republicans.

That’s hilarious.

Laura you are dead wrong about Batchelder having any obligation to recuse herself. According to the Defendant, this plan won’t alter the election at all; it will merely cause the Defendant additional trouble (the extent of which is debatable). That idiot Democrat dissenting Judge Martin, on the other hand, just admitted that the Defendant’s corrupt mechanism will alter elections. If anything, Judge Martin should be impeached for overtly supporting corruption!

Republicans are not specifically trying to block a particular group, they are trying to block illegal voting. For example, in Virginia a lot of college students have registered illegally as Virginia voters. This benefits Democrats because Virginia is a battleground state this year, but the fact is that the legal way for those students to vote is to do so absentee in their home state, or to change their legal domicile to Virginia. They can’t have it both ways. You vote in the state where you are legally domiciled, so if they want to continue living with mom and dad, enjoying lower car insurance rates and being under mom and dad’s health insurance as a member of their household, then that’s where they have to vote. Democrats are trying to game the system. It’s illegal and unfair. Republicans are trying to get the Democrats to comply with existing law, as they used to do.

Peach’s comments about Sec. Brunner are sexist and inappropriate in any public forum and especially in one about Christian living. Thank you, Laura, for reining him/her in.