In many ways, the results from last week’s elections confirm what you already know as a supporter of Judicial Watch: voters are sick and tired of the Obama administration’s lawlessness. The newly elected Congress has a firm mandate to clean up Washington and put the Obama administration (and, frankly, itself) back under the rule of law.
But all the talk of policies and campaign ads is for naught if elections can be stolen. Assuming the leftists in the Obama administration cared about what voters think, they would see their war on voter ID has little support.
Contrary to what Obama, Eric Holder, and other leftist critics of voter identification requirements have said, a broad cross-section of Americans do not view the new state laws as unduly burdensome and discriminatory. In fact, a substantial majority of Americans ardently support new state laws that require voters to show some form of identification. That’s what the results of an election night survey of voters organized through The Polling Company Inc. shows. The poll, which was drawn from the responses of 806 actual 2014 voters, was released today by Judicial Watch and Breitbart.com.
Going inside the results, we found that 76 percent of respondents agreed that “laws that require voters to present a photo ID before casting a ballot” to be “mostly fair.” Just 21 percent said it was “mostly unfair.” A total of 69 percent of Americans consider it “not a burden at all.” The results for minorities were particularly revealing. We found 45 percent of blacks and 51 percent of Hispanics consider voter ID “not a burden at all.” The race card played by the Obama administration against voter ID is so ludicrous that even minorities reject it.
(To help promote election integrity, we started a major new pilot program in New Hampshire last week to monitor the polls there. We had a few concerns about what we saw, and I hope to give a report to you soon. In the meantime, you can see some details about it at Breitbart, which quoted our Election Integrity Project team leader Bob Popper at length about his preliminary analysis.)
Immigration is controversial in Washington because politicians of both parties want amnesty and don’t want to enforce the law. Immigration isn’t terribly controversial for voters – as this (and our previous polling) finds strong support for a rule of law approach to the illegal immigration crisis.
Most voters expressed support for the enforcement of immigration laws and opposed financial inducements that benefit illegal aliens. A majority of voters (58 percent) said they believe, “We should enforce current laws that require illegal immigrants to return to their home countries.” And half of all Americans (50 percent) believe the United States should change current immigration law to slow the rate of legal immigration. When asked whether illegal aliens should receive “discounted ‘in-state’ tuition rates, subsidized by taxpayers, for state-run colleges and universities,” 76 percent of voters disagree, 65 percent strongly. Even among minorities, 58 percent of blacks and 59 percent of Hispanics disagree (8 percent of Blacks and 31 percent of Hispanics strongly disagree).
With an eye toward the final two years of the Obama Administration, voters were asked: “Do you agree or disagree that President Obama should through executive action allow illegal immigrants to remain in the United States, 63 percent disagree (53 percent “strongly,” 10 percent “somewhat”). Only 30 percent agree. Among minorities, 52 percent of Blacks and 60 percent of Hispanics agree that Obama should allow illegal immigrants to remain through executive action. Again, amnesty proponents arrogantly believe Hispanics are a mass of automatons that uniformly want amnesty and unsecured borders. Who speaks for those millions of Hispanics who want the rule of law enforced? Not Obama. Not the Chamber of Commerce. And not Republican amnesty supporters.
Poll results pointed to more areas of intense voter concern that are our specialty.
Corruption in the federal government continues to be a serious concern among voters, with 92 percent saying they consider it a serious problem and 65 percent saying they consider it “very serious.” The poll also showed that an overwhelming majority of voters do not believe that President Obama kept his 2008 promise to have the “most transparent government in history.” This one is not a close call at all, as 80 percent of respondents said the federal government has become “less transparent” or “stayed about the same” over the past six years. Within this group, 46 percent said “less transparent” and 34 percent said “stayed about the same.” Only 16 percent said the government has become “more transparent” during the Obama administration.
The corrupt Obamacare takeover of our health care is also not popular. Obamacare did not fare well with Election Day voters, with 89 percent saying the health care law should be changed. 60 percent said that Obamacare should be repealed altogether, 18 percent said that “major fixes” needed to be made, and 29 percent called for “minor fixes.” Adding the politicized IRS to mix does not help – 66 percent disagreed that the IRS should be empowered to “collect information from taxpayers about their health insurance” under Obamacare.
Benghazi and the IRS dominated the news this year thanks to Judicial Watch’s work in exposing smoking gun documents in both scandals – work that left Congress and much of the other media looking feeble. JW’s work can change history. Our intent is to get the truth, and we spared neither party from criticism. But voters were outraged at our findings and the scandals were a major factor in the election.
Almost half, 49 percent, said the results of the 2012 presidential election would have been different if the public knew the facts then that it knows now about the Obama administration’s initial, misleading story about what happened in Benghazi and the targeting of conservative groups through the IRS.
In no small way, this new Congress is the Benghazi-IRS Congress. The expanded House majority, which has a historic number of Republican members, and the massive wave that led to the Republican takeover of the Senate were the result of voter concerns about Obama’s IRS abuse and the Benghazi deaths and cover-up. 48 percent of voters said the IRS scandal influenced their vote, and of those concerned Americans, 71 percent voted for Republicans to take over the Senate. The numbers are similar for Benghazi; 39 percent said the scandal influenced their vote and 64 percent who were concerned about the terrorist attack this president lied about to get reelected say they voted for Republicans in the Senate.
In sum, the Judicial Watch-Breitbart poll reflected an electorate strongly supportive of protecting both the integrity of the ballot box and our national sovereignty. By more than two-thirds they overwhelmingly disagree with the directions in which the Obama administration is taking our country. The fact that the percentage of Americans citing corruption in the federal government has risen by a full 7 percent in the past two years reflects a growing realization that President Obama’s wholesale disregard for constitutional restraints is taking a serious toll on our nation.
The new Congress has a strong mandate to pursue Obama’s abuse of power in the IRS scandal, hold him accountable for the Benghazi lies, protect our borders, close the door on amnesty, end Obamacare, confront government secrecy, and ensure the integrity of our elections. Judicial Watch has been happy to do the job of Congress, the establishment media, and the Justice Department for six years. Again, this election shows that Americans want Congress to follow our lead and get Washington back under the rule of law.
(The Polling Company Inc. interviewed 806 actual 2014 voters nationwide. The margin of error for the poll is +/- 3.5 percent. Topline results are available here. Crosstabs results and analysis are also available.)
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