In my opinion, he is nothing but a crooked old Nazi that made his money through manipulation. Why wasn't he tried as a war criminal for turning in Jews in Germany and then looting their homes for profit? This bottom feeder is what the politicians kiss up to - it not very hard to figure out what they are....Two countries kick his old sorryness out, how did we wind up with him, is a naturalized citizen?

B
ankroller of Democratic Voting Rights Cases? George Soros


Photo
George Soros in New York last year.Credit Joshua Bright for The New York Times

The billionaire philanthropist George Soros, whose first major involvement in politics was with a large-scale voter mobilization effort in the 2004 presidential race, is funding a Democratic legal fight against restrictive voting laws.

Mr. Soros became involved last year when Marc Elias, one of the top Democratic lawyers specializing in voter protection issues, began exploring a series of federal suits in advance of the 2016 election, according to Mr. Soros’s political adviser, Michael Vachon.

Their goal is to try to influence voting rules in states where Republican governors and Republican-led legislatures have enacted new election laws since 2010, and to be ready to intervene when additional measures may be passed over the next 17 months.
Mr. Soros is prepared to spend $5 million or more on the effort, Mr. Vachon said. Two suits that he is supporting were filed in Ohio and in Wisconsin last month, and he is also funding a case Mr. Elias is involved with in North Carolina.

Mr. Vachon described the Democratic legal effort as an attempt to push back at Republicans who he said were “using the legislative process” for partisan purposes.

“It is disingenuous to suggest that these laws are meant to protect against voter fraud, which is nearly nonexistent,” he said. “Clearly they are meant to give Republicans a political advantage on Election Day.”

Mr. Elias’s clients include four major Democratic party committees as well as Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign.
“Clearly, fighting the Republican efforts to limit who can vote and when they can vote will benefit Democrats, and it will benefit whomever runs for president,” Mr. Vachon said. “But it also primarily benefits democracy with a small ‘d.’”

In 2004, Mr. Soros invested millions of dollars into efforts to unseat President George W. Bush, including through a voter mobilization drive called America Coming Together.

He has not yet taken up the question of whether he will give money to the “super PAC” supporting Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Vachon said. But the legal actions filed by Mr. Elias are in keeping with the type of advocacy that Mr. Soros has favored: the nexus of policy, politics and movement-building.

Republicans have argued that the new laws are much-needed protections against election fraud and that the new round of lawsuits is little more than a publicity-seeking exercise intended to mobilize Democratic voters.

But Democrats say the new laws disproportionately affect the poorest voters, minorities and young people. A Government Accountability Office study last October found that states with more stringent voter identification laws had a larger decline in voter turnout than states that did not have such new restrictions.

Mr. Vachon said he was approached by Mr. Elias in January 2014 about supporting a voting rights lawsuit in North Carolina, where student identification cards are not considered acceptable forms of photo ID. The restrictions in North Carolina ended a program in which teenagers filled out a form and were then registered automatically to vote on their 18th birthday. Joining with the N.A.A.C.P., the Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union, Mr. Elias argued that the law was onerous for younger voters in violation of the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18 from 21.

The North Carolina case is still pending. But Mr. Elias and Mr. Vachon have discussed filing others in some of the 21 states that have added voting restrictions since the 2010 Republican electoral wave, if those states seek to tighten voting access any further.

“I expect there will be more,” Mr. Vachon said.

An earlier version of this post incorrectly described one on the groups joining in the voting rights lawsuit in North Carolina. It is the N.A.A.C.P., not the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense Fund.

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/firs...-george-soros/