The CA GOP keeps misleading about "voter fraud"

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Since Dave Cogdill has taken over as Senate Minority Leader, the Senate Minority has been sending out missives on one policy area or another on a weekly (ish) basis.  Today's was another doozy, this time on the identification requirement for voting:

Those opposed to showing ID at the polls raise as their primary objection the fact that there is no empirical data to support the allegation of widespread voter fraud. Therefore, they argue that there is no justification for erecting what they call "a barrier to voting" that disproportionately affects minorities, the poor, and the elderly. Those in favor of ID at the polls argue that fraud is a real problem, though it is extremely hard to detect without a voter ID requirement. Nevertheless, they point out that there is plenty of documented anecdotal evidence to show that in-person voter fraud is a problem. They also point out that research and experience show that, contrary to the claims of opponents, voter ID requirements in other states have not impacted voter turnout.

These facts are important to consider and debate, but they fail to account for what voters believe about fraud and what effect this belief has on voter confidence in the electoral process. Voters are losing faith in the electoral process partly because of a belief that fraud is a problem in our elections. Polls show that voters increasingly distrust the integrity of the electoral process. A recent Rasmussen Reports survey found that 14% of voters believe there is "a lot" of fraud in American elections, while 50% believed there was some fraud. Only 33% believed there was hardly any fraud.

There's really just so much in the ways of deception here, it's hard to even know where to start. But I'll go with the whole "voter fraud" angle. The Bush Administration really wanted this BS to be true, because they believe ID requirements scare Democratic-leaning voters away from the polls. So, they dug, and they dug, but nothing came up, other than politically motivated garbage cases where the prosecution of the cases boggled the mind of even some federal judges:

Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews.

***

"I find this whole prosecution mysterious," Judge Diane P. Wood of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, said at a hearing in Ms. Prude's case. "I don't know whether the Eastern District of Wisconsin goes after every felon who accidentally votes. It is not like she voted five times. She cast one vote."(NYT 4/12/07)

So, now that we have the first talking point cleared up, let's look at the other: voter confidence. If we want to improve voter confidence, well we need look no further than our own Profile in Courage winner, Debra Bowen. Bowen is working incredibly hard to restore confidence in our voting system. The greater issue is confidence in our voting system, rather than these supposed instances of voter fraud.

And if Sen. Cogdill wants to decrease the level of voter anxiety about the so-called fraud? Well, he could start by not sending out missives exaggerating the instance of fraud. The Republican DoJ couldn't even find any evidence of any systemic issues of fraud. Enough of the politically-inspired concern for voter confidence, while objecting to doing anything about Diebold, Sequoia and the lack of paper trails. It is naked, and transparent, political posturing that is unbecoming of an elected official and unhelpful to our small-d democracy.