Republicans in recent weeks have promoted the specter of widespread voter fraud, blaming the ACORN voter-registration group and implying a vast left-wing conspiracy.
Now, a well-done report exposes how hollow the charges are, with help from an experienced elections administrator and member of the McCain-Palin Honest and Open Election Committee, Ronald Michaelson.
“Do we have a documented instance of voting fraud that resulted from a phony registration form? No, I can’t cite one, chapter and verse,” he said.
. . .Michaelson could not cite a single real example of how registration fraud has led to voting fraud. He said that an election-rigging scheme starting with phony application forms would not make much sense.
OK that’s just one guy, even if he is an expert. Surely there must be some fire, given all the smoke blown by Sen. John McCain, the GOP cheerleaders at Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and so many others, right?
Actually, no . . .
A review of prosecutors’ statements and documents filed by Republicans in the most serious new cases alleging voter fraud shows that none offer an example in which a fraudulently registered person managed to cast a valid vote. While several cases argue that such frauds are possible, none sketched a scenario for how massive numbers of people could fake registrations and then vote.
The lack of substance to Republicans’ claims leads us to conclude this was all just an attempt to distract public attention. McCain and Republicans don’t want people dwelling on our imploding economy and hideously expensive bailout, a ballooning deficit, the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and how Bush & Co. is trying to sneak through 11th-hour executive orders designed to weaken consumer and environmental protections, among other things.
Plus, the gambit gave conservatives a chance to bash hell out of a group that hires low-income people to go out and help other low-income people register to vote. Well aware of how popular the GOP is with low-income people, Republicans want as few of them voting as possible.
Ah, traditional American values of democracy in action, as practiced by true super patriots of the right in the New Dark Age of Bush. Makes you want to sing a few choruses of “Of Thee I Sing,” doesn’t it?
The real crimes and dirty tricks are coming from Republican operatives. Robocalls; thousands of fliers in low-income neighborhoods warning people that anybody who has an outstanding warrant — even an unpaid parking ticket — will be arrested if they show up at the polls; other fliers “reminding” people that election day is Wednesday, November 5th.
There’s nothing these wingnuts won’t stoop to.
From this: [ACORN] staffers submitted thousands of faked applications. To this: A review…shows that none offer an example in which a fraudulently registered person managed to cast a valid vote.
Not very inspiring. It’s really hard to get any court action on voter fraud cases.
>>>>Voting rights advocates in recent years have worked to debunk assumptions that elections get stolen because individuals fake their eligibility. They have said that election fraud most commonly involves party operatives bribing legitimate voters or partisan poll workers manipulating ballots.
Word.
>>>>The modern antifraud movement, calling for scrutiny at the individual voter level, was spearheaded by Republicans after the hairline-close 2000 presidential election, as journalist Jeffrey Toobin has described at length. A five-year, nationwide voter-fraud investigation by the Bush Justice Department yielded 86 convictions as of 2006 — some for multiple voting or vote buying, and many of people who claimed not to have realized that their citizenship or criminal record mattered.
Notice how anti-fraud is pushed by Republicans. I guess Democrats don’t want to alienate some of their constituents
Those 86 convictions amount to a minute fraction of 1 percent of votes cast. Hardly a crime wave and not something Democrats see as a means of winning elections.
Voter fraud should be rooted out and the guilty should be penalized. Looking at the larger picture, Republicans come off lame carrying on about this minor problem as if it’s huge and wrecking our system. That’s especially so after Republlicans’ all-out, well-funded and coordinated assault on the Florida election in 2000, and Ken Blackwell’s dirty work in Ohio four years ago.
Careful please: “voting fraud” is not the same as “registration fraud”. Instances cited usually refer to “registration fraud”, which GOP operatives like to call “vote fraud” to confuse the issue. It’s not “voting fraud” and it isn’t demonstrated to lead to actual “voting fraud”, where fraudulent votes are actually cast. There are exceedingly few (maybe two) documented cases of actual voting fraud.
On the whole, it’s yet another GOP tactic to try to disenfranchise large swathes of legitimately registered voters.
Jeff, you’re right to make that important distinction, as I have in earlier posts and in comments elsewhere. I hold to my sentiment that crookedness in registering and/or voting, if and when found, should be rooted out and dealt with according to the law.
>>>>On the whole, it’s yet another GOP tactic to try to disenfranchise large swathes of legitimately registered voters.
I’ll note here that another attempt to enforce the law gets cast as voter disenfranchisement.
While we’re here I’ll mention the vast amount of money raised by the Obama campaign and the virtual silence on that metaphorical corruption. Along with the possible actual corruption from accepting credit card donations from overseas and other sundry practices. I recall not so long ago that Democrats would lecture about the inherent unfairness of unfettered fund raising and the possibility of buying elections.
Fred, you sound like a minority-party Republican already: “Money is corruption! Money is corruption!”
I am adjusting to minority status: the edginess of entering a room and everyone turns to look…the whispers…the knowing nods. I will expect a remediation program post haste.
I felt inclined to point out that Democrats had been predicting a falling sky if campaign dollars weren’t carefully managed from the usual Star Chamber. Now we get a big “never mind”, so I now know how seriously to take their other thespian attempts at hand wringing.