If a Fraudulent Vote Falls in the Woods . . .

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I admit, I squirmed a lot when I watched Bob Costa debate vote fraud on MSNBC last Friday. And it wasn’t because I was worried he was in danger of being lacerated by the jagged edges of one of Al Sharpton’s broken sentences.

It was uncomfortable watching the other lefty panelists try to out-smarm each other by beating Costa over the head with a new Brennan Center for Justice report that purportedly shows vote fraud to be nonexistent. The report points out that a minuscule 0.0002 percent of votes cast in Wisconsin in 2004 were “fraudulent,” each one resulting from an ineligible felon having voted.

The Brennan Center report has quickly gained traction among opponents of new state laws that require voters to show photo identification to vote. Stephen Colbert has routinely ridiculed those that believe vote fraud exists, warning that “our democracy is under siege from an enemy so small it could be hiding anywhere.” Liberals have used to the report to mock RNC chair Reince Priebus’ contention that Wisconsin is “riddled” with vote fraud, as he told MSNBC’s Martin Bashir.

The Brennan Center for Justice, of course, is funded by liberal billionaire George Soros. (As a bonus, the center boasts Words with Friends enthusiast Alec Baldwin as an advisory-board member.) And its report doesn’t withstand even the most cursory scrutiny.

I used to have a debate with one of my colleagues about which states were the most corrupt. He would show me a list of all the states with the most public corruption convictions and declare those states to be the worst in terms of ethics. I answered that he shouldn’t rely solely on arrest and conviction statistics. After all, wouldn’t it be a sign of corruption if all these ethical breaches were occurring and a state decided to look away and not arrest anyone? If that were the case, the most corrupt states would be the ones that didn’t enforce their corruption laws, where nobody was arrested. (As I recall, this particular argument ended with me dodging an airborne egg-salad sandwich.)

Similarly, mere statistics are a terrible way to determine whether vote fraud is occurring. Since the Brennan Center report deals with Wisconsin specifically, I’ll explain why in excruciating detail.

For one, under the previous Wisconsin law — which didn’t require voters to demonstrate who they were — vote fraud was virtually impossible to prove. If someone wanted to vote more than once, all they needed to do was know a name on the voter list, then use that name. That name could belong to a legitimate voter who didn’t show up to vote, or to a voter who doesn’t actually exist. Laws relaxing voter-registration requirements may have allowed groups like ACORN to stuff the rolls with names of fictitious people, which could then have been used to cast votes without any identification. Once that vote is cast, it is impossible to track down who came in and voted using that name.

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According to the article here:
http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/14/signatures-of-hitler-mickey-mouse-acceptable-on-scott-walker-recall-petitions/
A person only has to write any name, Mickey Mouse, Adolf Hitler, whatever, and a real address to be counted as a recall petitioner.
UNLESS the name is challenged.
That’s Wisconsin for you.

The bottom line? Republican state legislators are effectively disenfranchising several million legitimate voters in order to eliminate a statistically irrelevant level of fraudulent voting.

Not being entirely certain that this alone will be sufficient to steal a number of critical coming elections, they’ve also been busy changing election rules to diminish likely democratic voters’ access to their polling places.

Then there’s the gerrymandering: Documents Show Boehner Helped Gerrymander Ohio Map Giving GOP 12 of 16 Congressional Seats

You’ve really got to appreciate the resultant map showing Ohio’s congressional districts.

If a democrat dies, does that end their voting privileges?

@Greg: #2

You’ve really got to appreciate the resultant map showing Ohio’s congressional districts.

The democrats do the same thing when they get in office. I’m guessing the democratic states look just as bad. Will you agree that the process needs to be stopped, and PERMINANT districts set up?

Here’s my response to the original article at The Corner:

This is a ridiculous article, and the first comment pretty well spells it out. If the author doesn’t like the statistics regarding voter fraud—because they don’t agree with his opinion—then he should develop some ‘scientific’ evidence of his own. But, instead, he takes the position against statistics themselves, or uses figures by give by a police department as to how many people should have been found guilty, but weren’t. This is an example of the anti-scientific method common to the right-wing.

@ Greg:
I don’t expect you to answer this, but I’ve got to try. Voting is one of the most important, if not the most important thing we do as citizens. Why shouldn’t you have to show a photo id to vote when you must show a photo id to:
Get on an airplane
Buy sinus medication
Get married
Apply for a job
Pick up your kids from public school
Pick up a package from the post office
Get a library card
Buy beer….and the list goes on and on.
So why shouldn’t you have to show a photo id to vote? What are you afraid of?

I just don’t see where there is any fundamental right to vote…..without identifying yourself.
There is no right to commit fraud.

The last time I spent in an ER I saw many people who were poor and/or minorities.
Since I was asked to show photo ID every time a new form had to be filled out (photocopies were made each time) and I saw quite a few different specialists, so had to fill out a lot of forms I wondered whether others there got a pass or not.

NOPE.
According to the receptionist I finally asked about it.
Everybody has ID.
Everybody has valid photo ID.
Or they don’t get treatment.
No extra burden there.
Why is it an extra burden at the polling place?

@Smorgasbord, #4:

I agree that districts shouldn’t be reconfigured to any party’s political advantage every time that party is in a position to do so. Democrats do it, too.

I’m not sure permanent districts would work, owing to population shifts. Maybe some automated mapping formula could be worked up that results in the simplest divisions based entirely on population distribution. It would take a better mathematician than me.

@Greg:

I’m not sure permanent districts would work, owing to population shifts. Maybe some automated mapping formula could be worked up that results in the simplest divisions based entirely on population distribution.

This will likely be one of the few times I agree with Greg.

Aqua Believe voter fraud negligible and I’d agree on photo I.D. to vote.
‘Noles and Irish play the 29th. How cool is that!!

@Aqua: #6
QUESTION

What are you afraid of?

ANSWER
Losing the elections.

@Greg: #8
I don’t know much about setting up districts. Why can’t they use county boundaries and sort them out so each combination has about the same amount of people and have as close to the same shap as possible? At some point one county might be added or removed from a district to keep it balanced. The districts should be set up by people who have never belonged to a political party, or who have proven to be more concerned about doing the right thing.

@ Richard Wheeler:

‘Noles and Irish play the 29th. How cool is that!!

Prepare for a spanking my friend; we will soon be seeing the era of Jimbo Fisher! But it should be a great game.