Republican Convicted Of Election Fraud

The Republicans have been talking a lot about election fraud for the last couple of years. They want people to believe that there is massive election fraud -- that there is a problem with people voting who should not be voting. To fix this "problem", they have passed Voter ID laws in several states (like Wisconsin and Texas). These laws mandate that a voter must have photo ID in addition to a voter registration card before they are allowed to vote.

What the Republicans have done is to pass a law to solve a problem that doesn't exist. It was revealed the other day that the incidence of this kind of voter fraud in Wisconsin is about 0.0002% (that's two ten-thousandths of one percent -- a less than negligible figure). The same is true of Texas, where this type of voter fraud is almost non-existent. Before passing the new laws in Texas, the Republicans tried to find and prosecute some people for fraud but were unable to do so. I imagine the same thing that is true of Wisconsin and Texas is true of the other states who have passed this kind of ridiculous law.

It was never about voter fraud. It was about voter suppression. The Republicans knew that the people most affected by the new law would be the elderly, the minorities, and the young. And they also knew those are the most likely groups to vote for Democrats instead of Republicans.

The real voter fraud, the most dangerous kind of voter fraud to our electoral system, is not illegal voters -- it is voter suppression, and the Republicans are masters of that kind of voter fraud. I guess they figure if you can't convince a majority to vote for you, then you can win by keeping your opponents supporters from voting.

This was proven in a court of law recently in Maryland. A jury found Paul Schurick, the campaign manager of former Republican governor Robert L. Erlich Jr., guilty of voter fraud. Schurick had arranged for a robocall that targeted likely Democratic voters, telling them that the election was won and inferring there was no need for them to bother with going to vote. The problem with the call is that the polls were still open and no votes had been counted.

Schurick could get a sentence of 12 years , but most pundits don't think he'll actually go to prison. It is more likely that he'll get probation. And that's a shame, because what he did is extremely serious and strikes at the heart of our democratic system. A democratic system must be able to trust those who work in it, and when they are caught violating the rules the punishment should be severe. It should include at least some jail time.

This is not the first time either, that Republicans have been found to have committed voter fraud. In Las Vegas they hired a company to register new voters. That company then tore up the registrations of Democratic voters, and only turned in the registrations of Republicans. And earlier this year the Indiana Secretary of State, a Republican, was indicted on seven counts of voter fraud.

It's easy to see why Republicans are so worried about voter fraud. They have done it so much they find it hard to believe everyone else isn't doing it also.