It Looks Like Voter Fraud Is Real

As you probably know, the Republicans around the country have been trying to pass Voter ID laws -- laws that would require a voter to show  a picture ID in addition to a voter registration card before they would be allowed to vote. Most people with a functioning brain know this is simply an effort to suppress the Democratic vote, but the Republicans still loudly proclaim it is an effort to stop widespread voter fraud. The problem with that is that Republicans have been unable to uncover any widespread voter fraud -- or small-scale fraud for that matter.

But it now looks like the Republicans may have been right -- at least on a small-scale basis. Courts have recently convicted a couple of people of voter fraud. Of course the most embarrassing thing for Republicans is that both of the recent convictions were of Republicans, and they weren't just rank-and-file voters either. The first conviction for voter fraud was in Maryland. Paul Schurick, chief of staff for former Maryland Republican Governor Robert L. Erlich, was convicted for arranging robo-calls to suppress the Democratic vote in that state.

The honor(?) of being the most recent person convicted of voter fraud goes to Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White (pictured above). White voted in a precinct he had already moved out of, and then lied about it while running for Secretary of State. He was convicted of both voter fraud and perjury. These are felony convictions, meaning he can no longer serve in that office.

But it gets even worse.  White went on Fox News a couple of days ago to try and defend his actions (which he knew he couldn't do on a real news station). He called his conviction a "miscarriage of justice" and claimed he hadn't done anything that Indiana's governor, Republican Mitch Daniels, hadn't been doing for "the last ten straight elections". He didn't elaborate, but we can only surmise that he's accusing Governor Daniels of committing voter fraud at least 10 times. Someone needs to check that out.

Now we know why the Republicans are so convinced that voter fraud is taking place -- because they are the ones doing it. Instead of imposing onerous voting restrictions on ordinary Americans, maybe they should just clean up their own party -- by instituting an ethical code of conduct for party officials.