Yup. True the Vote re-filed its lawsuit against Secretary of State Eggbert Hosemann and the Mississippi Republican Party in U.S. District Court Court today in Jackson. True the Vote and several plaintiffs from Mississippi filed the lawsuit last week in U.S. District Court in Oxford. The plaintiffs withdrew the suit when Judge Mike Mills questioned whether it was filed in the right court.
The plaintiffs* filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief against the Secretary of State, Mississippi Republican Party, and the election commissions of Hinds, Rankin, Copiah, Lauderdale, Leake, Madison, Simpson, Yazoo, and Jefferson Davis Counties. Several of the plaintiffs are leaders of the Central Mississippi Tea Party. True the Vote is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit operating in Texas.
True the Vote claims the Republican Party denied access to "Mississippi's voter records (p.9)." True the Vote also claimed the defendant counties "impermissibly denied access to complete voter records" under the National Voter Registration Act Section 8(i)(l)**
The complaint alleges that "some individual plaintiffs were granted access to county voter rolls, but were advised that the records would not be produced in unredacted form" but would instead provide the records with the date of birth redacted*** The complaint claims the defendants charged a fee to the plaintiffs for the redaction. Such fees are permissible under Mississippi law. However, the plaintiffs argue they are barred under the NVRA and that the federal statute pre-empts the Mississippi Public Records Act. The plaintiffs also claim they found voters who voted in both the Democratic primary and the Republican primary run-off. They ask the court to order the defendants to produce the unredacted records. The complaint argues such illegal voting diluted the votes of the plaintiffs (and totally ignored the admonitions of Judge Mills in going down this path.).
The plaintiffs asked for an injunction allowing them to review the voter rolls "without any redaction (apart from Social Security numbers). The court it asked to declare that the NVRA pre-empts the Mississippi Public Records Act as well. The complaint does not ask for a temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction or emergency hearing. **** The plaintiffs also ask for attorney's fees.
However, Judge Mills said the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Voting for America v. Steen that"the NVRA did not apply to voting records until they were actually in the custody of the state, rather than in the hands of lower-level election officials." Thus NVRA may not apply to the county election commissions while the Mississippi Public Records act does do so. Indeed, Judge Mills wrote " Steen appears to be adverse authority for the plaintiffs in this case, since the complaint seeks relief as to records still in the custody of Mississippi counties, and not in the custody of the State itself.... "Still, the actual statutory language makes reference only to states, not counties, and the Fifth Circuit in Steen appears to have taken that language at face value..."
Mr. Hosemann issued the following statement that seemed to follow Judge Mill's jurisprudence:
“The State still does not have the records requested by the re-filed lawsuit and should be dismissed. The Mississippi Legislature enacted a law to protect your birth date and social security number from public dissemination. This out-of-state company wants your birth date or wants you, the taxpayer, to pay the redacting and copying for them. Your locally elected Circuit Clerks are following the law.”Stay tuned.
*Plaintiffs are True the Vote, Jane Coln, Brandie Correrro, Chad Higdon, Jennifer Higdon, Gene Hopkins, Frederick Lee Jenkins, Mary Jenkins, Tavish Kelly, Donna Knezevich, Joseph Knezevich, Doris Lee, Lauren Lynch, Norma Mackey, Roy Nicholson, Mark Patrick, Julie Patrick, Paul Patrick (no baby Patrick), David Philley, Grant Sowell, Sybil Tribble, Laura Van Over Schelde, and Elaine Vechorik
**42 U.S.C. 1973gg-6(i)
***John Pittman Hey argues this feature of the law effectively prevents credible detection of voter fraud.
****See this post from last fall. Kaufman of Brunini seeks to stop implementation of Governor Bryant's executive order against Blue Cross. Blue Cross-HMA post. He asked for a TRO and a preliminary injunction. True the Vote did not ask for any of those things.
43 comments:
Good Lord, so the McDaniels campaign representatives are looking at the ballots and these yahoos think they are qualified to look at the ballots?
KF, can we at least do criminal background checks on these names?
Who the hell are these people who want to know my birthday?
For all I know they just got out of Parchman and are looking for old folks to rob or run scams on.
It's not over. Kirk Sims, campaign manager for Cochran, has been fired and replaced and Cochran campaign has lawyered up with Butler Snow. Of course Haley is on the BS payroll. Lawyering up usually means someone is scared about something.
OR they may be looking to sue people. If I was innocent of vote buying and was accused by Fielder et al of doing it in as public a fashion as they did, I would sue the hell out of them.
who replaced little lord fauntleroy (aka kirk sims)?
listen up, these tactics by "The Cochran Campaign" were all about protecting their lobbying clients, not about any so-called "conservative republican principles" as the party apparatchik vomits out...and the sooner all these bastards are gone the better for Mississippi!
fwiw, thad forgot where he was in the capitol the other day and ended up at the democrat senate dining hall instead of the republican dining hall....then he said that he "oughta know better since he had been up there a long time, 30 years". (after all, what's 10 years, give or take?) you read it here first, he is in early stages of alzheimer's and the people of this state deserve a status report on the old man's health and cognition! how 'bout it, haley? you gonna let the old boy publish his medical records?
Hosemann does possess the entire "voter roll" for the state of MS - and his office redacts the DOB before conveying copies of it to requesters.
That will be a clear breach of the NVRA requirement, as the SEMS "Voter Roll" is in the State's possession.
The STEEN case is complete inapplicable in this instance. In that case, the applications that the plaintiffs sought to copy had not been delivered to the county registrar, but were in the hands of third parties, called VDRs. Anybody carefully reading STEEN would have picked up that crucial fact.
That is why the 5th Circuit said the applications weren't in the possession of 'the state' for purposes of enforcing the NVRA. They had not yet been filed with any government body whatsoever.
Most of STEEN doesn't even deal with NVRA issues.
For all I know they just got out of Parchman and are looking for old folks to rob or run scams on.
Or sneak into nursing homes to video the sleeping residents....
HTW-LRA... They drew Wingate. Good luck guys!
If the surge in absentee votes and record democratic turnout in the run-off is attributed in any way to the 50k disbursements re: walk around money, there may be major problems for the Cochran's future.
How many of the "paid" GOTV Cochran workers voted in the just run-off? Will this be reflected in the amended FEC filings as disbursements to those hard working paid volunteers? Compare the voter rolls in the run-off.
What implications will this have for all of the elected officials that endorsed Thad?
Just my opinion. Not pointing the finger at anyone.
When you file a complaint procedural defect (here the wrong district) and the judge not only points out your error, but takes the time to serve up a bench-slap regarding the relative merits of your complaint, it is a good idea to revise your complaint to address the court's concerns. Judge Mills even cited to the adverse case law: Voting for America v. Steen. I skimmed through the second complaint and it is pretty much the first complaint, just a little longer. I did not see a reference to Voting for America v. Steen. Again I only skimmed it; however, I would think that if True the Vote could distinguish the facts here from Steen, you would see a whole section devoted to overcoming Steen. Pretty much indicates that they can’t
I wonder how many of us really want the truth to be revealed, or just want the opposition to a fraudulent primary to go away quietly. This IS dirty and conservative voters have been disenfranchised. And it's not over. My father, an old country doctor, loved Thad and would have went to war for him. That Thad is long gone, just like my father. If Wingate caves it will not stop, the drums are pounding.
I may be dreaming, but, I wonder if it would be possible for Kingfish to post stuff like this without his silly parenthetical footnotes and opinion slants.
I know it would be difficult for him to resist the urge; however, would it not be more fair if he didn't interject his personal insults, slights and peremtory disdain for everything done by those who are challenging this election?
Of course we all know by now that the Cackrun campaign paid mightily for commercials and other coverage on this blog site, so I reckon he feels obligated to suck up to them and offer his up front negative opinion regarding everything the other side does. I guess McDaniel should have paid for commercial space on this blog.
John Pittman Hey, I just read the Steen opinion you linked. It says these "VDRs" are not "third parties" as you say but are volunteers acting pursuant to statute under a program supervised by the Texas Secretary of State.
In your desire to shill for McDaniel, you make it sound like they are some guys off the street. They are statutory agents of the Texas Secretary of State.
I could make a good argument that records in VDR hands are even more in possession of the state than if they had been in the hands of a county.
Guess you missed the pro-McDaniel Bill billingsley videos. Or the critical comments I made about the Cochran campaign in the Epigram posts. Or the story about the sign vandalism I broke.
Nope. Easier to attack me for accepting ads when in fact any candidate or pac can buy one. Sorry to deprive you of your template.
John Pittman Hey, I read the Steen opinion you linked. It says that these VDRs that you call "third parties" are actually volunteers acting pursuant to statute under a program supervised by the Texas Secretary of State.
In your desire to shill for McDaniel, you make it seem like they are guys off the street. They are agents of the state.
You could make a good argument that materials in the hands of statutory agents of the Sec. of State are even more in the hands of the State than if they were in the counties' hands.
Gotta go back to the language in NVRA, Section 8:
**(i) Public disclosure of voter registration activities
(1) Each State shall maintain for at least 2 years and shall make available for public inspection and, where available, photocopying at a reasonable cost, all records concerning the implementation of programs and activities conducted for the purpose of ensuring the accuracy and currency of official lists of eligible voters, except to the extent that such records relate to a declination to register to vote or to the identity of a voter registration agency through which any particular voter is registered.
(2) The records maintained pursuant to paragraph (1) shall include lists of the names and addresses of all persons to whom notices described in subsection (d)(2) of this section are sent, and information concerning whether or not each such person has responded to the notice as of the date that inspection of the records is made.**
Concerns itself with records of voter registration activities, not necessarily the activities on election day. ALSO says it's OK for officials to charge photocopying fees, AND only specifies individual address information when talking about people to whom the roll maintenance postcards were sent as part of regular roll purging. Does NOT specify date of birth.
42 USC 1974 mandates maintenance of all records requisite to voting -- registration, etc.:
**Every officer of election shall retain and preserve, for a period of twenty-two months from the date of any general, special, or primary election of which candidates for the office of President, Vice President, presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, or Resident Commissioner from the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico are voted for, all records and papers which come into his possession relating to any application, registration, payment of poll tax, or other act requisite to voting in such election, except that, when required by law, such records and papers may be delivered to another officer of election and except that, if a State or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico designates a custodian to retain and preserve these records and papers at a specified place, then such records and papers may be deposited with such custodian, and the duty to retain and preserve any record or paper so deposited shall devolve upon such custodian. Any officer of election or custodian who willfully fails to comply with this section shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.**
Says nothing about copying those records. Really only addresses maintaining those records, doesn't even get into access.
Are there cases that expand these laws to include election day records?
I really am trying to understand their point of view, outside of the crazy.
Sims was fired after the primary because of incompetence. No other way to say it. Its a miracle Thad made the run off in the first place, but once he did, the professionals took over. And it was obvious. McDaniel will never come to grips with it.
@7:37pm, KF attached the docs so u can review them in detail independent of any commentary or biased comments from the peanut gallery. If you disagree with the views expressed here, kf even provides a forum that is virtually uncensored to express your own views. But it appears that he's not spouting YOUR views and weighting his commentary to be completely aligned with the way that yhou want to hear it, you're going to bitch, whine and complain rather than saying thanks for the dox and the blog with open discussion.
Geez, man, that butt-hurt thing is making some adults here show themselves to have stunted emotional growth.
---LimitedIntel
Looks like some people are still drunk on tea.
Vote v. Steen is about applications being collected by VDRs that have not yet been filed with the county registrar.
Whether or not the VDRs are agents of the state isn't the issue. The issue is, at what point does "the state" possess the records AND maintain them.
The 5th Circuit said that doesn't happen until the VDRs file the apps with the county registrar.
Mills claim was flat wrong: he claimed that the issue was state vs. county possession. But the 5th Circuit opinion clearly states the consensus of the parties in the case: that once the apps were filed with the county registrar, they were OF COURSE subject to NVRA production, but not before that time, when they were still being collected by the VDRs.
You do understand, I hope, that the VDRs are the plaintiffs - they are arguing that they should be allowed to copy the applications that they have collected, before they are filed with the county registrar, but state law bars them from doing so.
Bottom line: Mills either didn't read the opinion carefully enough, or he was being dishonest in his misuse of the 5th Circuit opinion.
It really is that clear.
And no, I am not a McDaniel partisan. I didn't support him, didn't vote for him, and will not vote for him.
Nice try, though.
To understand the extent to which NVRA requires unredacted production of voting records to the public, see the 4th Circuit Court decision that explains it all in elaborate detail:
http://www.thetaxpayerschannel.org/pdfs/projectvote4thcircuitcourtopinion.pdf
Nothing in the Vote v. Steen 5th Circuit case contradicts the 4th Circuit case.
Steen is close enough and leaves room for interpretation both ways. Which means, if I was writing for True the Vote, I would have made sure to include an argument about why Steen does not apply. This whole thing is a circus and I wonder if Wingate will just dismiss the case based on his reading of Steen and let the 5th Circuit sort it out in 5 years after Cochran has retired and McDaniel has faded into obscurity.
Completely apart from McDaniel's interest in unredacted voter records, it is important to pry this material loose in the interests of enhancing the public's ability to discover election fraud.
A consent decree whereby the state agrees to abide by NVRA's relaxed record production standard will be a good long-term outcome, even if it comes a year or two down the road.
That's how the 4th Circuit case played out: the immediate concern wasn't addressed, but the matter was resolved for future elections.
Opening up the election process to more public scrutiny is a good thing.
John Pittman Hey, nice job trying to change the subject when your misrepresentation of what these VDRs are is exposed.
It makes a huge difference whether you're dealing with materials in the hands of true "third parties" like MTV's Rock the Vote and a state-run voter registration system that is supervised by the Secretary of State. You were acting like the VDRs had nothing to do with the state and got called on it.
The federal statute talks about "States." Last I checked, a county was not the same thing as a state.
FWIW, I see this as being an unsettled issue, and I don't read Steen as being nearly as clear as you seem to.
And unless I'm missing something, Mills' order just was a show cause order, right? Meaning that TTV had a chance to respond and point out their position, right? Their decision not to even try to do so speaks a lot louder to me than your posts, which at times seem deliberately misleading.
No, the issue is whether the state "possesses and maintains" the applications.
5th Circuit ruled the VDRs' transient possession didn't meet that requirement, even though possession by county registrars did.
Everbody agreed that the applications in the possession of the county registrar was subject to NVRA production.
County registrar possession is state possession. Read the opinion again and you can easily discern this.
Judge Mills should have picked up on this as well.
I agree with 10:22- Steen seems like a pretty bad opinion in that you can read almost anything into it. On the one hand, it clearly says the NVRA only applies to voter info in the possession of the "State." The Fifth Circuit should have said "including counties" if that's what they meant.
On the other hand, some of the context and dicta in the opinion seems to suggest that counties might qualify. But it's far from clear either way.
Not sure why it matters in this case- Wingate will rule on this in 2022.
The show cause order was meant to register a political hit against the True the vote suit.
That being said, the issue of improper venue was valid. I had previously criticized the filing of the complaint in the Northern District.
I also don't believe that the MS GOP is a legitimate party. Hosemann and the various offending Circuit Clerks should be the parties.
And no, Steen is not ambiguous. It's very clear that applications in the custody of the county registrars are "in the possession of the state" and subject to NVRA. Everybody agreed on that point in Steen.
7:08 pm, 10:16 pm, and 11:02 pm make great points.
John Pittman Hey, you are not an attorney so stop saturating the thread with you amateurish, layman's opinion on what the any legal opinion means.
I don't even have to check the bar role to know you are not an attorney, based on your amateur interpretation of Steen. Also, no attorney would be dumb enough to suggest that a federal court was purposely dishonest. Go back to programming computers or go to law school.
My apologies, I posted from my phone and missed typos.
7:08 pm, 10:16 pm, and 11:02 pm make great points.
John Pittman Hey, you are not an attorney so stop saturating the thread with your amateurish, layman's opinion on what any legal opinion means.
I don't even have to check the bar role to know you are not an attorney, based on your amateur interpretation of Steen. Also, no attorney would be dumb enough to suggest that a federal court was purposely dishonest. Go back to programming computers or go to law school.
John Pitman Hey said:
"And no, Steen is not ambiguous. It's very clear that applications in the custody of the county registrars are 'in the possession of the state' and subject to NVRA. Everybody agreed on that point in Steen."
-end quote -
If you're not a lawyer then that would explain why you would say that. Go to law school and learn the difference between an actual holding of a case and loose language in an opinion about a matter which wasn't even at issue in the case.
There is, in fact, an argument that the Fifth Circuit intended for its reference to "State" to include counties (even though they didn't say so in their holding). But it's far from clear, especially since the Court interpreted the term "state" so narrowly in deciding that the state agents under the supervision of the Sec. of State didn't qualify as the "State."
I see it as being a 50-50 issue, which means you have a coin flip's chance of confirming your genius in your own mind. But it's not clear from the 5th circuit's opinion, no matter how many times you insist otherwise.
8:19 makes a good point. Looks to me like the federal law is about voter registration, not election day activities.
610 kf--- that could go either way- look at the cochran campaign as they smeared McDaniel. Cochranites made it sound like Chris was totally responsible for the nursing home pics. implications! implications! both parties have played dirty and have slandered each other. this is not one sided. its sadly called politics and what a dirty game it is!
anyone knows if you have a business, nonprofit or not, you write checks so you can backup your documents to submit it to the IRS. now there are some people that run businesses that try to hide their money that pay in cash. and when they are audited its very difficult for them to explain. They usually get caught in the end. what goes around comes around. we have a farm and it is difficult to know when we will have workers or not. some show up to work some don't. some work 1 day & some work 4 days (due to their government benefits it's very difficult to find people to actually work). so that bullcrap that the young staffers at the cochran campaign office referred to about how difficult it was to write checks because of the different shifts, not knowing if people were going to show up , etc. is nothing but a load of crap and crap don't fly! they could have written a check just as easy as it was for them to take the check to the bank, cash the checks, and bring it back. that had to be just as time consuming! and what's wrong with writing a check after someone does the job? not one damn thing! I voted for cochran but my gosh this is getting embarrassing. I wish he would get some mature older adults to run the campaign for him. don't think these young guys know what they're doing. --just my little ole' 'pinion.....
1136 purposely dishonest? everyone is capable of being purposely dishonest. you can be a preacher, a physician, an attorney, or a judge, or the president. don't be so naive. it is not a perfect world and they are not on a pedestal living a sinless life. Wow, the wisdom of the culture of the world is lacking.......... and white collar crime does exist and anyone can be bought.
"I know it would be difficult for him to resist the urge; however, would it not be more fair if he didn't interject his personal insults, slights and peremtory disdain for everything done by those who are challenging this election?
Of course we all know by now that the Cackrun campaign paid mightily for commercials and other coverage on this blog site, so I reckon he feels obligated to suck up to them and offer his up front negative opinion regarding everything the other side does. I guess McDaniel should have paid for commercial space on this blog. "
Remember this quote?:
"I paid for this microphone"
Ronald Reagan
1980 primary debate
Once again showing how far from Ronald Reagan McDaniel is.
And yes, if McDaniel could campaign on the issues and answer specific questions about his vague proposals he could have placed ads where some of the most politically active people in the state would have seen them. More evidence he is unfit for higher office since he doesn't even know how to campaign (or even know much about Mississippi election laws, stunningly surprising for the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Elections).
I have a question....just a question so please don't attack me. If Cochran is going to use butler snow as his representative, would that be a conflict of interest since Butler snow does much business with the state agencies of Mississippi from what I hear. if Butler snow is on the side of the state how can he defend a Senator that is of accused of breaking a law that the state is supposed to uphold? can one of you attorneys help me understand that?
I've insulted both sides. Quit being a crybaby.
Bottom line is this: Vote v. Steen court stated the crucial distinction by which NVRA did not apply to VDRs:
"the NVRA only pertains to records “maintain[ed]” by the State, while the Photocopying Provision only applies to voter registration applications
in the hands of VDRs, before they are officially received or maintained by the
State."
So the Steen court clearly held that when voter apps were in the custody of the VDRs, they had not been "officially received or maintained by the state" and therefore NVRA didn't apply.
But Judge Mills used the case to argue that voter records in the custody of the counties aren't subject to NVRA which is not what Steen held at all.
We'll just have to wait and see whether the 5th Circuit tries to distinguish between the state of Mississippi and its political subdivisions as it relates to NVRA's applicability.
This much is clear: the state voter roll IS in the custody of the State, because the SOS maintains and controls the SEMS voter system and databases.
Therefore, NVRA disclosure requirements most definitely apply to records requests made to the Secretary of State.
910 it's called being conservative. Why post on a site where these bloggers' minds are of such tunnel vision? Our minds are pretty much made up and I don't think the mentality of these bloggers' minds can be changed. In addition, most of the bloggers are probably from each of the political staff or affiliated. Advertisements need to hit the media market voters that are indecisive at this point. Cochran staff probably placed ads so they could blog and cheer for themselves. - opinion based by a tax paying voter
921 kf kingfish I'm ashamed of you what an elementary response.
11:04 Thanks for proving my point about incompetent campaigning. According to you, McDaniel decided to keep advertising to those who already decided to vote for him. Cochran, as we all know, decided to cast an appeal to those who didn't vote for him in the primary. This included Republicans who didn't vote because they mistakenly thought he was a shoo-in in the primary. It also appealed to those Democrats who did not vote at all in the primary, but were alarmed at McDaniel's refusal to explain just what federal spending he would cut, and who it would affect. Between the two groups (both legal voters in the runoff) Cochran won the majority of voters in the runoff.
If McDaniel could have appealed to those beyond his original base he might have peeled off enough voters to win. The fact that he didn't try to reach beyond his base shows tremendously poor judgment in campaigning.
JPH, we must speak a different English language. You quote the Fifth Circuit saying ""the NVRA only pertains to records 'maintain[ed]' by the State" in support of your view that "State" means "state and counties."
To me, the word "State" means the State. Mississippi. If you want to hold that the NVRA applies to the state or counties, you say "the NVRA only pertains to records maintained by the state or counties." They could have said that. They didn't.
I don't even agree with your interpretation of those words, much less that it's "clear."
Regardless, this dead horse has been beaten enough- think what you will.
I still don't think that MS GOP is a proper party to this suit. Nobody can show how MS GOP has any of the records requested.
I suspect TTV will drop MS GOP as a party soon, or it may cost them later on.
I was quoting the opinion, so I didn't change the words at all.
Like I said: we will see if the 5th Circuit distinguishes between the state and the political subdivisions of the state as to NVRA applicability.
But that was not the issue in "Vote v. Steen" like Judge Mills claimed it was.
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