SC

SC Voter ID Costs: Seeing Triple

LEGAL BILL DRAMATICALLY EXCEEDS INITIAL COST ESTIMATES South Carolina spent $3.5 million to successfully defend its voter ID bill, S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson’s office announced this week.  That’s more than three times the original cost estimate, which was first reported by former (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier reporter Renee…

voter id

LEGAL BILL DRAMATICALLY EXCEEDS INITIAL COST ESTIMATES

South Carolina spent $3.5 million to successfully defend its voter ID bill, S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson’s office announced this week.  That’s more than three times the original cost estimate, which was first reported by former (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier reporter Renee Dudley last January.

In fact Dudley’s estimate was scoffed at as being too high at the time …

Last October, a three-judge panel upheld South Carolina’s law – which requires that voters present a valid photo ID prior to casting their ballots. Wilson referred to the ruling as “a major victory for South Carolina and its election process.”

South Carolina lawmakers have appropriated more than $1 million to pay for IDs (including a recurring cost of $100,000 each year) … but that appropriation won’t necessarily solve our state’s problem. Why not? Because to obtain a photo ID in South Carolina one must first obtain a copy of their birth certificate, which the S.C. Department of Vital Statistics won’t give you unless you show them … wait for it … your photo ID.

See how that works?

FITS opposed the voter ID law on the grounds that it addressed a nonexistent problem.  We also objected to the way certain politicians – led by S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley – fabricated information in an effort to support the law. Also, as far as we’re concerned the rigging of elections is a much bigger problem in our state …

Why were the costs associated with defending this law so high? That’s a good question …

Obviously the costs associated with defending this legislation fall most squarely on the U.S. Department of Justice (USDOJ) – which went out of its way to make political hay at South Carolina’s expense (even after its non-political staff recommended approving the legislation).

“Damn liberal bureaucrats in D.C. are responsible for this bill,” one source familiar with the case tells FITS.

More to the point, the fact that South Carolina is one of a handful of states which has to “pre-clear” election laws with Washington is ridiculous. Our state has a black U.S. Senator and an Indian-American governor – and while neither of them is the fiscal conservative champion they claim to be – their presence in such high offices would seem to indicate the Palmetto State’s history of disenfranchising minorities is a thing of the past.

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23 comments

tomstickler January 4, 2013 at 11:20 am

Why were the costs so high?

Let me guess that there was not enough brainpower in the AG’s office to defend the case, so outside counsel had to be given the job.

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jed January 4, 2013 at 11:23 am

Why were they so high? Because people who made up the problem had to come up with some way to pretend that it wasn’t about suppressing the vote – so they threw everything they could at the wall to see what stuck. Did you read the stories about the testimony in the federal trial? Hiring lawyers to help make that shit up can’t come cheap. I bet they had to pay extra to keep a straight face, too.

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BigT January 4, 2013 at 11:37 am

Liberals DO NOT CARE what they have to SPEND To Cheat us…

Also: $3 million is the Number I heard in the First place…so somebody (either FITS and the P&C) is a G^& D%^& LIAR….

I’ll GLADLY, w/ ZEST, pay more to Attack Leftwing Obnama’s THEFT of Democracy…

I THANK Gov. Haley and AG Wilson for defending my rights….and am glad to pay more ijn taxes to them to do it…

And I Lothe the LEFTWING P&C and FITS for acting as if Freedom has a price tag…

You NAZI, Freedom-Hating Son of a B!%^ches…

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Joe Blow January 4, 2013 at 11:45 am

“Bit T” lucky for you SC no longer requires a literacy test!

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BigT January 4, 2013 at 11:51 am

Thank you Gov. and AG for protecting us.

As long as you attack Obama, FITS, the P&C and the NAZI Federales….I will support you….

Again: Thanks. We are SC. We overwhelmingly voted AGAINST Obama.

Eric Holder, FITS and the P&C DO NOT Represent our values…

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Smirks January 4, 2013 at 12:25 pm

Thanks for fighting imaginary things, Haley! Now that you fought imaginary voter fraud, you can go back to fighting imaginary unions!

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notagain January 4, 2013 at 6:57 pm

You got the Don Quixote award last year. Now let’s make up some more bogeymen to fight with our millions. NOBODY treads on us and we are willing to go broke proving it. You know…some things just aren’t worth fighting for. This was one of them.

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Smirks January 4, 2013 at 12:23 pm

Voter ID laws, disenfranchising legitimate voters? Was it supposed to do something else?

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Tom January 4, 2013 at 12:30 pm

SC’s Voter ID law is a travesty of justice, and our state should be ashamed. As much as anything else, it was these types of antics that resulted in Obama winning Florida and Ohio. The Republican party made it clear to minorities that their intention was to prevent them from voting any way they could. They did this with these stupid Voter ID laws and by making them wait in lines hours long to vote, in the hopes they would go away. (That last method only worked with impatient white voters in Richland County.)

Instead, what they found out was the more you try to stop people from voting the more determined to vote they become; and they don’t forget who tried to stop them from voting in the first place.

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BigT January 4, 2013 at 1:27 pm

Don’t cheat, you Ignorant Mother%**#@r, and you won’t have to worry about it…

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Tom January 4, 2013 at 2:48 pm

The desire fo one group of citizens to suppress the vote of other groups of citizens coupled with the paranoid imaginings of bigots like you does not justify restricting the constitutional right of every citizens to vote.

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BigT January 4, 2013 at 1:11 pm

A man in Florence County was caught trying to register more than 1,000 people…

Yet the SC Election Commission said there is no such thing as Voter fraud…

Look at the MAJOR Democrat mess in Richland County w/ Democrat-Quota Queen Lillian McBride…

If you Leftwing idiots don’t think we need to Clean up Cheating..you some blind, Dumb@$$ MotherF^&*kers….

Of course when you are a party of Liars and Corrupt, why do you care???

Reply
Guero January 4, 2013 at 4:11 pm

You’re a lyin’ asshole t-bagger. And a dumbarse. Voter registration fraud has nothing to do with voter fraud. SC Election Commission is controlled by Repugnants from your party.

The only fraud is when you say you served your country. Bawk, bawk, ChickenHawk….

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Bemused January 4, 2013 at 1:40 pm

Attempted registration fraud and voting fraud are different things. The Florence situation was attempted registration fraud, and had nothing to do with photo ID. It was also easily caught, under existing laws.

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BigT January 4, 2013 at 1:44 pm

You’re a F^&*in Cheater…

You don’t want to abide by the law because if you did not cheat, you’d lose……So just STFU and admit it..

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Guero January 4, 2013 at 4:12 pm

Bawk bawk chickenhawk…

Don’t confuse the ChickenHawk T-bagger with facts…

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Ralph Hightower January 4, 2013 at 2:56 pm

SC Governot Nikki Haley and SC Attorney General, Alan Wilson, both confirmed that we have zombies in South Carolina and occasionally, they vote in elections.

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junior justice January 4, 2013 at 5:17 pm

Yes, zombies are in the state. I was set up on a blind date a few years ago to meet a “very nice lady”. Oh, yeh, you bet! She had so many facelifts when she sneezed she held her hanky on top of her head. Our dinner meeting turned into something like a job application. For some reason, she insisted on buying all of our dinners – it soothed my feelings somewhat.

Zombies in SC – BELIEVE IT!

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Joe Wilson Is A Very Smart Man January 4, 2013 at 3:02 pm

Whats funny is they didnt “win” anything.Sure they can “require” an ID,howeve,if a voter doesnt have one,the Court ruled they can sign an affdavit as to why they dont have one and vote?

Where is the “victory?”

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BigT January 4, 2013 at 5:57 pm

Most of the Dumb F^&*s you idiots use to cheat, cannot sign their own name…

So did they you Stupid Son of a B!*ches get where you can just draw an X????

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Guero January 4, 2013 at 9:50 pm

They used the same X you used to refuse to serve your country when you applied for your 4-F draft status for being a chickenhawk….

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The Colonel January 4, 2013 at 6:34 pm

The only voter suppression this last go around was due to the actions of an incompetent, Democrat appointed halfwit named McBride.

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hhuuhh?? January 5, 2013 at 9:45 am

You know, WaPo has a new blog feature so you can permanently “ignore” people whose idiocy you don’t want to ever read again.
I hope that it this site ever gets a “edit” feature, it will get “ignore”.
Of course, you can take care of trolls by ignoring them. But, it is hard to do.

Reply

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