Department of Motor Vehicles Director Kevin Shwedo on Wednesday forcefully denied playing politics with a state agency regarding voter registration numbers the Election Commission gave to the U.S. Department of Justice. Shwedo addressed the Senate Transportation Committee just a day after two Democratic lawmakers publicly rebuked the DMV director for his role in the fight over South Carolina’s voter ID law.Shwedo acknowledged the “poor timing” of his announcement, telling senators he brought up the inaccurate numbers as soon as he was able. Though email records show Shwedo questioned the Election Commission’s numbers as early as September 29, he made no mention of the discrepancies until the Justice Department handed down their decision nearly three months later. Still, the DMV director denied ever discussing the department’s voter information or coordinating its release with Gov. Haley.
However, Shwedo did say Attorney General Alan Wilson asked him before Christmas to review whether anyone appeared to have voted while dead — and if Shwedo’s timing wasn’t political in nature, Wilson’s certainly was. Right as Shwedo told a House subcommittee in January that over 900 people appeared to have voted in recent elections, the attorney general’s office blasted out a press release touting the unsubstantiated claim as evidence of voter fraud. Wilson continued his publicity tour on Fox News, while voter ID proponent Alan Clemmons told local media even stricter measures were necessary to combat the “unspoken truth” of voter fraud in South Carolina.
On Wednesday, however, Shwedo walked back his earlier comments about voter fraud which set off the “zombie voters” firestorm. “I have not done the investigation [into the veracity of the numbers], nor am I qualified,” he said.
“This is a partisan issue, as partisan as they come,” responded Sen. Vincent Sheheen, cautioning Shwedo against making statements that could be interpreted as definitive by the press — or for that matter, by over-zealous Republicans such as the Alans.
A Clearer Picture on Voter ID
By Jimmy Carter and James A. Baker III
This Jimmy Carter and James Baker III op-ed was published in the Feb. 3, 2008, edition of The New York Times.
http://www.cartercenter.org/news/editorials_speeches/voter_id.html
In 2005, we led a bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform and concluded that both parties’ concerns were legitimate — a free and fair election requires both ballot security and full access to voting. We offered a proposal to bridge the partisan divide by suggesting a uniform voter photo ID, based on the federal Real ID Act of 2005, to be phased in over five years. To help with the transition, states would provide free voter photo ID cards for eligible citizens; mobile units would be sent out to provide the IDs and register voters. (Of the 21 members of the commission, only three dissented on the requirement for an ID.)
Two elections supervisors are taking action after an NBC2 investigation uncovers flawed record keeping and human error allowing people who are not citizens of the United States to vote.
No one knows how widespread this problem is, because county election supervisors have no way to track non-citizens who live here.
http://www.nbc-2.com/story/16662854/2012/02/02/nbc2-investigates-voter-fraud