They have tried as hard as they could to find evidence of this widespread voter fraud, but it just doesn't exist. In the end, they just gave up and continued to tell the lie anyway (evidently subscribing to the theory that a lie repeated often enough will be believed). The following facts, from Mother Jones magazine, illustrates this point:
Between 2000 and 2010, there were:
649 million votes cast in general elections
47,000 UFO sightings
441 Americans killed by lightning
13 credible cases of in-person voter impersonation
Here in Texas, the Republicans the Republicans thought they had found some fraud after the last election (less than 10 out of millions of votes), but all charges had to be dropped when it was discovered no fraud was involved. We had a similar case here in the Panhandle, where a woman was arrested for voter fraud. But it turned out she had recently moved and was voting in the right precinct after all, so the charges were dropped.
The Republicans have come up with a solution for a problem that doesn't exist -- but they know that. They were never really out to prevent voter fraud anyway. They were out to suppress the votes of those least likely to vote Republican. Note the chart above. All of the groups least likely to have some form of photo ID are the groups most likely to vote Democratic.
A recent state legislator in Pennsylvania bragged that the voter ID laws would allow Republicans to win the coming election. I don't think he meant for his statement to get out to the general public, but he might actually be right about his assessment. It turns out that the voter suppression law in that state could deny the vote to as many as 10% of registered voters (or about 750,000 voters). If it turns out that the election is close in Pennsylvania, losing 750,000 votes could be disastrous for Democrats.
And the situation is the same in many other states. Florida is a prime example. It is generally considered to be a toss-up state, but the Republican governor is trying to give his party an edge by purging many voters from the voter registration rolls. Here in Texas, the Republicans will probably win anyway, but the Republicans are afraid of the very fast growing minority population so their Voter ID law is a hedge against them losing power in the future.
Voter ID is not protecting American elections from fraud (which basically doesn't exist). It is a naked attempt to hold on to power at all costs -- even if they have to cheat to do it. The Republicans preach a lot about "values", but those values don't seem to include ethics.
The (publicly stated) rationale for all of these restrictive voter ID laws emanating from Republican-controlled state legislatures -- "voter fraud".
ReplyDeleteThere is a world of difference between voting fraud (i.e., fraud perpetrated by the voter at the precincts on election day) and voter registration fraud. There is very little evidence for the former in the U.S. (other than that being perpetrated by O'Keefe's not-ready-for-prime-time players), yet conservatives are hell bent on enacting legislation to combat it, suggesting an ulterior motive is at play.
If Republicans sincerely want to tackle real election fraud, then they should focus their efforts on deceptive practices used to prevent some citizens from voting, as well as what happens to the votes after they are cast.
In other words, election fraud DOES exist ... except that the fraudulent party is not the voter -- it is the political party tactician who attempts to mislead a subset of the public with respect to date and/or location of the voting process, or the hired thug who attempts to intimidate selected citizens who show up to vote, it is the opposition party's tactical team which fronts faux candidates to run against an authentic party candidate in state primary elections, and it is the local election official who conveniently misplaces ballots or runs out of ballots at precincts that traditionally vote Democrat.
With respect to the voter ID legislation being pushed forth by Republican-controlled state legislatures, GOP legislators should simply cut to the chase and proclaim that the only Americans who have a legitimate right to vote are those who are registered members of the Republican Party.