Can’t make registration more difficult

That was the crux of yesterday’s US Supreme Court decision that struck down Arizona’s law requiring voters to prove they’re eligible to vote. By a 7-2 margin, the Court ruled that any attempt by any state to make registering to vote more difficult is un-Constitutional. They explained their decision by insisting that the US Constitution gives the federal government the authority to preempt states in regard to the “times, places and manner of holding elections.”

The two dissenting Justices argued that setting up processes by which to verify voters’ eligibility was the state’s responsibility, as demanded by the US Constitution, because it charges the states with managing and facilitating all elections, including federal elections.

But the seven Justices who struck down the Arizona law, and the handful of others around the country like it, explained that the Clinton administration’s 1993 National Voter Registration Act made it extremely easy for non-US citizens to register to vote in US elections. And any attempt to make the process more difficult than the NVRA’s ‘honor system’ is un-Constitutional.

National Voter Registration Act of 1993, aka ‘Motor Voter’

Readers may remember that time, as it was extremely dysfunctional and led to millions of registered voters not being allowed to vote. The 1993 NVRA made it so easy to register to vote that all one had to do was list a mailing address inside the US, including PO Boxes. Even more, ‘Motor Voter’ as the law was called, allowed people to register to vote any time they applied for government services like welfare or their driver’s license. States were outraged at the elimination of any eligibility verification and refused to honor those voters’ registrations. The result was millions of people who were allowed to vote in federal elections but not in state or local elections. It was chaos.

The current law of the land, as the 1993 National Voter Registration Act is interpreted, “precludes Arizona from requiring a federal form applicant to submit information beyond that required by the form itself,” wrote Justice Scalia for the majority. The law was meant to create a uniform method by which Americans registered to vote regardless of which state they lived in.

Writing for the two dissenting Justices, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, “I would construe the law as only requiring Arizona to accept and use the form as part of its voter registration process, leaving the state free to request whatever additional information it determines is necessary to ensure that voters meet the qualifications it has the constitutional authority to establish.” The other Justice siding with Justice Thomas was Justice Samuel Alito.

America’s new election system

Its official, America’s voter registration process is now nothing more than the ‘honor system’. That’s been the complaint since the 1993 law was passed and that was the argument made by Arizona’s attorneys before the Supreme Court earlier this year. And for their part, the Justices never disagreed. They simply affirmed that Congress has the authority to set the rules. And even if those rules allow for rampant fraud and the entire world voting in America’s elections, it’s still the law of the land.

During arguments before the Court in March, Arizona attorney Thomas Horne described America’s current voter registration system saying, “It’s extremely inadequate. It’s essentially an honor system. It does not do the job.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor replied, “Well, that’s what the federal system decided was enough.”

During the same arguments, Justice Scalia appeared to side with Arizona when he criticized the current system as well, “Under oath is not proof at all. It’s just a statement.” But witnesses in favor of the current ‘honor system’ and testifying in hopes of striking down Arizona’s law insisted that an affirmation of citizenship under oath is more than enough. “Statements under oath in a criminal case are proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” attorney Patricia Millett argued.

Critics and supporters

Almost immediately, America’s conservative and liberal media outlets began trumpeting the decision. Fox News was the first to call the Court’s verdict an invitation for the whole world to vote here. On the left, Media Matters didn’t so much support the decision as much as condemn Fox Business for their on-air position.

‘Fox Business host Stuart Varney baselessly suggested non-citizens will now be compelled to vote as the “end result” of the Supreme Court’s decision that Arizona cannot trump federal election law and make it harder for its citizens to register to vote,’ Media Matters wrote, ‘Varney, however, responded to the breaking news that the Court had struck down yet another unconstitutional Arizona law by claiming the decision would not only allow non-citizens to vote, they will now go forth and do so.’

Media Matters however, then took the strange position of admitting that the current voter registration system could easily allow non-citizens to register and vote. But justifying their position, and the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday, they wrote, ‘As has been confirmed by multiple studies, non-citizen voting is not a systemic problem and in-person voter fraud is virtually non-existent.’

The liberal media outlet must have conveniently forgotten the run-up to the 2012 General Election where many towns and counties actually had more registered voters than actual citizens. But apparently it doesn’t become ‘systemic’ until it corrupts every single voter precinct in the nation. And thanks to the US Supreme Court ruling yesterday, that’s exactly what very well could happen.

Vision of tomorrow

As a final note, let’s recall the Supreme Court’s decision two years ago striking down all challenges to the eligibility of Barack Obama to hold the office of President. The Court never ruled whether Mr. Obama was or wasn’t eligible. They only verified once and for all that there is absolutely no system in place for verifying the eligibility of Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates. As the only two offices in the country not based in a particular state, there was no government body responsible for them and literally anyone could be elected President of the United States.

That means America could very well see a future Presidential election pitting Vladimir Putin vs. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Raul Castro vs. Benjamin Netanyahu. Or just as possible, millions of Chinese or Mexicans will simply flood America and elect their own foreign leaders here. After all, who can actually stop them? According to the US Supreme Court, nobody.

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