AMERICAN THINKER: Voter Fraud for the Complete Idiot

A Doonesbury cartoon on a recent Sunday contained a distillation of a current talking point among progressives: "Question: What fraud? Voter fraud is close to non-existent!"


Progressives think that if they make the above claim as though it were an indisputable fact, it will become a fact. All they have to do is repeat the claim over and over again until it sticks. To wit:

An editorialist for The New York Times asserts: "There is almost no voting fraud in America."

At the Center for American Progress, Eric Alterman writes: "Members of the mainstream media often give too much credence to empty claims of 'voter fraud.'"

At the Brennan Center for Justice, we read: "Allegations of widespread fraud by malevolent voters are easy to make, but often prove to be inflated or inaccurate."

In The Nation, left-wing firebrand Katrina Vanden Heuvel alleges: "Voter fraud -- the impersonation of a voter by another person -- is extremely rare in the United States."

An uncouth gal for Daily Kos writes: "Some [Republicans] acknowledge that voter fraud is essentially non-existent." (Who are these Republicans?)

At Mother Jones, we read: "While Republicans have argued such rules are necessary to combat 'voter fraud,' examples of the kind of in-person voter fraud that might be curbed by such requirements are miniscule."

At Slate we read: "Large-scale, coordinated vote stealing doesn't happen."

A lady at Think Progress writes: "Like conservative state legislatures across the country, Maine Republicans have been pushing a Voter ID law, ostensibly to prevent non-existent voter fraud." (Italics added.)

A blogger at Media Matters writes: "Instances of actual voter fraud are very rare."

(There may be a subliminal message in there somewhere.)

The above claims are as absurd as a big-city mayor claiming that last night, no cases of wife-beating occurred in his fair city because, well, no one reported any to the police.

Question: how is a poll worker manning a voting station supposed to know that a voter checking in to vote is about to commit voter fraud -- if that voter is registered?

If the voter's name is on the signature roster, the poll worker must assume that the registrar has thoroughly vetted him and that he is properly registered. What's a poll worker supposed to do if a "suspicious-looking" voter shows his ID (if even required in the state) and is on the list? The poll worker hasn't the means to challenge a voter's registration, nor the time. Besides, that's not his job. To perform his job, the poll worker must depend on the voter registration system.

One way in which voter fraud (illegal voting) is made possible is by the registration of people who aren't eligible to vote. Such registrations are due to fraud (or to error) committed by registrants and even by registrars. But the most important factor contributing to corrupted voter registries is the voter registration system itself.

Voter registration in America is backward and not worthy of a great nation. And despite the fact that registration involves very little information, registrars do not verify the most important requirement for voting in America -- citizenship. The Brennan Center reports:


http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/12/voter_fraud_for_the_complete_idiot.html