The Voter Fraud Hoax

Voter fraud delirium is the latest in the Republicans attempt to suppress the vote of elderly and low-income constituents, whom usually vote Democratic. As Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt note, "At least 11 percent of voting-age Americans [approximately 21 million Americans], disproportionately elderly and minority voters, lack the necessary papers [for IDs]." Study after study in state after state has shown that voter fraud is a myth.

In Wisconsin a voter identification law would disenfranchise 13 percent of the population. Conversely, positively, same-day registration in Wisconsin is partially responsible for our 10 percent higher than the national average voter turnout. Richard G. Frohling, an assistant United States attorney in Milwaukee, asserts, "There was nothing that we uncovered that suggested some sort of concerted effort to tilt the election." Of the hundreds initially suspected in Milwaukee, 14 faced charges, only 5 were convicted.

The recent case of Indiana is one of the more perplexing. The law there purports to stop "voter impersonation," yet the number of prosecutions for such events ever in the state is zero. Due to the law, election officials recently turned away nuns at their polling place.

Jeffrey Toobin explains, "Nationwide despite an attempt by the Bush Justice Department to crack down on voter fraud, there were only a hundred and twenty federal prosecutions and eighty-six convictions between 2002 and 2006 -- a period in which close to four hundred million votes were cast." As Eric Lipton and Ian Urbina state, "Many of those charged by the Justice Department appear to have mistakenly filled out registration forms or misunderstood eligibility rules."

Karl Rove instituted this devious voter fraud scheme to curb those whom typically vote Democrat from doing such. As Harold Meyerson comments, "Five of the 12 federal prosecutors either sacked or considered for sacking last year had been singled out by Rove and other administration officials for nonperformance on voter fraud...all five came from states where Republicans were embroiled in tight election contests." David Iglesias (District of New Mexico), one of the eight U.S. Attorneys fired in 2006 for failing to find and prosecute voter fraud, after convening an election fraud task force in 2004 never found enough evidence to establish a single case.

With voter turnout abysmally low compared to other nations, the problem isn't that too many are voting, but too few.