Heritage Foundation experts live-blogged President Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday evening. Below are excerpts from their reactions.

A ‘Balanced’ Approach to Deficit Reduction

President Obama called for more “balance” in reducing the deficit, though according to Heritage expert Patrick Knudsen this actually means higher taxes:

With the government drowning in red ink, Obama offers a life preserver made of lead: more spending. He has already pocketed a $618 billion tax increase in the fiscal cliff deal (in addition to $1 trillion in new Obamacare taxes). He needs to accept that true “balance” has two sides—and start cutting spending.

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Hans von Spakovsky

Liberal efforts to reduce waiting times at the polls are part of a partisan plan to advance their cause at the polls, The Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky explains in the Wall Street Journal this weekend.

Von Spakovsky, the subject of the Journal’s “Weekend Interview,” tells the Journal’s James Taranto that the so-called Voter Empowerment Act of 2013 is the latest push: Continue Reading »

The media plays a very important role in modern politics. The Heritage Foundation knows this and makes every effort to create videos to correct the facts liberal mainstream media dispels. Below is a list of Heritage’s most viewed videos of 2012.

1. The White House Disinformation Campaign on Libya
   October 27, 2012
   Evidence showed there were security threats in Benghazi, Libya, in the months prior to the deadly September 11, 2012, attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Despite these threats, the Obama Administration and State Department left its personnel there to fend for themselves.
2.  The Real Legacy of Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s Iron Lady
   January 13, 2012
   Like President Ronald Reagan, her political soulmate, Margaret Thatcher came to power at a desperate time in her country’s history, when real leadership and bold ideas were most needed. And by applying conservative principles to the challenges she faced, she was able to achieve real and lasting success. Then, as today, she faced an extraordinary set of challenges and a chorus of voices saying her country’s best days were behind it. Thatcher’s successes are a comforting reminder of the power of a bold, conservative vision at work. Continue Reading »

Voter fraud poses a real threat to the integrity of our elections, Heritage Foundation legal expert Hans von Spakovsky told a standing-room-only audience of Heritage members at the President’s Club meeting in Washington.

Two of von Spakovsky’s examples illustrated how election fraud affected everyone in the room:

1. In 2008, election officials in Minnesota determined that Democrat Al Franken had unseated the incumbent, Sen. Norm Coleman, by a margin of just 300 votes. Because of the very small margin, there was a mandatory recount which revealed that 1,100 felons had unlawfully cast ballots for Franken. His victory was sustained.
    
   Why was this Senate race so important? Because Franken was the critical 60th vote in favor of Obamacare. Continue Reading »

Voter fraud still occurs today in the United States. Yet there is still resistance to one very simple tool that could help stop it — voter ID.

Some, like The New York Times, even say that voting fraud is a myth, that “there is almost no voting fraud in America.”

But as Heritage Foundation expert Hans von Spakovsky explains, voter fraud is all too common in America today:

The fraud denialists also must have missed the recent news coverage of the double voters in North Carolina and the fraudster in Tunica County, Miss. — a member of the NAACP’s local executive committee — who was sentenced in April to five years in prison for voting in the names of ten voters, including four who were deceased.

And the story of the former deputy chief of staff for Washington mayor Vincent Gray, who was forced to resign after news broke that she had voted illegally in the District of Columbia even though she was a Maryland resident. Perhaps they would like a copy of an order from a federal immigration court in Florida on a Cuban immigrant who came to the U.S. in April 2004 and promptly registered and voted in the November election.

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Voter fraud continues to pose a risk to the legitimacy of our elections. Liberals continue to challenge common-sense measures like voter ID laws that aim to preserve election integrity.

But ensuring fair and honest elections isn’t just up to lawyers and lawmakers. Heritage Foundation expert Hans von Spakovsky suggests one thing you can do: “Work the polls in your city or county as an election officer.”

Von Spakovsky, who recently wrote a book with John Fund on voter fraud, explains: Continue Reading »

Liberal arguments against voter ID, like the claim that it suppresses voter turnount, simply aren’t true, Heritage Foundation legal scholar Hans von Spakovsky said this week on WSJ Live.

In fact, he pointed out, states that recently passed voter ID laws have seen increases in turnout.

Moreover, Attorney General Eric Holder “isn’t following the law” by fighting voter ID laws, he added, since there’s no evidence the practice is racially discriminatory.

Von Spakovsky recently coauthored a book on voter fraud, Who’s Counting?: How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk.

Why do you think liberals are so dead-set against voter ID?

Election fraud is a problem. With only 82 days remaining until the election, time is of the essence to ensure the integrity of the results.

Yesterday saw an important victory in the battle to require voters to present photo ID as a means to prevent fraud. A Pennsylvania district court judge denied an injunction to stop the state’s new voter ID law from going into effect.

The challengers claimed that mandating photo IDs at the voting booth would disenfranchise or severely burden voters. The judged called this claim bunk and, according to The Heritage Foundation’s Elizabeth Garvey ,“flatly rejected the challengers’ attempt to ‘inflate the numbers’ of disenfranchised voters.”

This is a major victory for election integrity. Similar laws were upheld in Indiana and Georgia, where “courts threw out the opinions of the alleged experts hired by the plaintiffs as ‘not credible.’”

Do you think this turn in the battle for election integrity is encouraging?

The Obama campaign and liberal groups are suing to block Ohio legislation that would allow military personnel to vote more easily using absentee and early ballots. Heritage Foundation election law expert Hans von Spakovsky explains:

Ohio still allows the relatively small number of voters qualified under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) to vote early through the end of the day before the election. The essence of the Obama campaign’s complaint is that providing any extra time to such a special class of voters is “arbitrary and capricious” and therefore a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

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