The Vote Fraud Fraud: Potemkin Think Tank Edition
By Richard Hasen has a must-read article about the “American Center for Voting Rights,” which was ginned up to varnish bullshit Republican claims of widespread voter fraud and has completely disappeared. It’s a classic 21st century Republican story, featuring incompetence, junk science and abuse of the justice system in the service of vote suppression. Hasen makes another point I think is important, noting the source of registration (as opposed to voter) fraud the fruit of an Americna electoral system that is badly designed from A to Z:
Second, there’s no question that there’s a fair amount of registration fraud in this country, an artifact of the ability in many states to pay bounty hunters by the head for each new registrant. Some unscrupulous people being paid $3 to $5 for each card turned in will falsify registration information, registering pets or dead people or comic-book characters—none of whom will show up to vote on Election Day (with or without an ID). (I, for one, would turn the whole business of voter registration over to the government and couple a universal voter-registration program with a national voter-ID card paid for by the government—but that’s another story.
Many apologists for Republican vote-ID legislation point out that many other liberal democracies have such requirements. Which is true, but it’s all about context. I, like Hasen, would have no problem with a requirement to show state-provided IDs in a system in which the government actively and consistently ensured the enfranchisement of its citizens and facilitated their ability to vote. Have the government (rather than private individuals with the incentive to submit fraudulent names) be responsible for registration, provide funding to ensure that districts have enough voting machines for their population and don’t allow wealthier districts to have more reliable equipment, make Election Day a national holiday, etc. — the kind of actions taken by countries with much higher turnout — you’d get much broader participation and you’d have less possibility for fraud, disasters like 2000. Alas, such a comprise won’t work because these Republicans don’t care about vote fraud — they care about suppressing the votes of minorities and poor people. As Hasen notes, the lack of Republican concern with absentee ballots — which are considerably more prone to fraud and abuse, but whose users happen to skew to Republican demographics — gives away the show.