New York City is affectionately known to all as the Big Apple, but the new administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio is demonstrating that the Big Apple may be rotten to its core.
The latest outrage from the ultraliberal de Blasio administration and his comrades on the city council would open the door for massive voter fraud in New York City elections. Under a plan being pushed by de Blasio and the council, noncitizens, including illegal immigrants, would be given city-issued identification cards.
De Blasio and his allies claim that this is nothing more than an effort to bring illegal immigrants "out of the shadows," but GOP State Senator Greg Ball, the chairman of the Senate's Veterans, Homeland Security, and Military Affairs Committee, uncovered something more sinister in this proposal. According to Ball, this would open the door to noncitizens, including illegal aliens, to vote illegally in New York State Elections. New York voters must provide their driver's license number of Social Security numbers when registering to vote. If they don't, they must provide some other proof of identity when voting for the first time. De Blasio's ID cards would give noncitizens the proof they need to cast ballots.
And while we're on the subject of the bizarre state of affairs in Gotham, let's not forget the aftermath of the NYC Department of Investigations' (NYCDOI) report on the New York City Board of Elections(NYCBOE). If you don't remember, the NYCDOI (at the request of the Bloomberg Administration) produced a report on the management of the NYCBOE as well as the conduct of elections in New York City. The report found, among other things, that it was relatively easy for people posing as dead voters and former city residents to vote.
You'd expect that the commissioners and staff of the NYCBOE would be embarrassed and apologetic after such a scathing report, right?
Wrong.
Instead of apologizing for their conduct and working on a plan to correct it, the commissioners of the NYCBOE accused DOI investigators of breaking New York State Election Law and requested that prosecutors bring charges against the investigators that uncovered the opportunities for fraud in NYC elections.
Sadly, there may be no hope for the Big Apple. We can only hope that other officials around America see what's happening there and work to make sure this kind of insanity doesn't come to their hometown.