Texas Atty General Settles With Democrats
OMG! I've seen slanted news coverage, but there should be some kind of prize for this Dallas Blog post by Will Lutz. In case you missed it, the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, has been suppressing voting rights by harrassing volunteers who help senior citizens, the disabled and shut-ins obtain, fill out and mail in absentee ballots. Instead of praising these civic volunteers, Abbott has been prosecuting them using hypertechnical enforcement of election rules.
The Texas Democratic Party filed a lawsuit against Abbott. Just before the case was to go to trial, Abbott settled. As part of the settlement, he agreed to quit harassing volunteers and focus on actual cases of voter fraud, which he has so far been notably unable to identify. According to The Dallas Morning News, "In most cases, the voters were eligible and votes weren't changed, but the people who collected the ballots for mailing were prosecuted for failing to properly sign the mailing envelope as required by law."
So, how does Dallas Blog and Will Lutz present this news? With the headline: "Most of Democratic Voting Rights Lawsuit Dismissed." WTF? Yes, it was dismissed because Abbott settled. Lutz makes it sound like the judge threw the Democrats out of court! Unbelievable.
A Dallas Blog reader, HSH (one of the few non-wingnuts still allowed to post comments on that site), put it best:
"What spin! The suit was dismissed with prejudice -- due to a settlement between the parties. Your first paragraph is purposefully misleading at best, just flat wrong at worst. "The Texas Attorney General rolled over. He agreed to drop his two showcase prosecutions against Gloria Meeks and Rebecca Minneweather -- without even telling them first. He agreed to rewrite prosecution guidelines to reflect that voters who merely possess the ballot of another voter with that voter's consent will not be investigated or prosecuted unless there's evidence of actual fraud. He agreed that prosecutions will be limited to cases such as when a person illegally votes a ballot for another person or causes a person to vote for a different candidate than they wish. By agreeing to this settlement, the Texas Attorney General has essentially acknowledged that those who have been prosecuted to date for hypertechnical violations of failing to sign a mail ballot envelope did not commit any fraud, as he has falsely claimed for years. "Will, I know you shill for the Lone Star Report, but this post was ridiculous."
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