This story is in tomorrow’s New York Times:
WASHINGTON, April 10 — A federal panel responsible for conducting election research played down the findings of experts who concluded last year that there was little voter fraud around the nation, according to a review of the original report obtained by The New York Times.
Instead, the panel, the Election Assistance Commission, issued a report that said the pervasiveness of fraud was open to debate.
Isn’t that somehow perverse? To imply in the lead of a news story on the degree to which voter fraud exists that a government panel is distorting the truth by reporting to the public that a case can be made either way? It’s a worthless conclusion in any event, but why is this news?
The revised version echoes complaints made by Republican politicians, who have long suggested that voter fraud is widespread and justifies the voter identification laws that have been passed in at least two dozen states.
Democrats say the threat is overstated and have opposed voter identification laws, which they say disenfranchise the poor, members of minority groups and the elderly, who are less likely to have photo IDs and are more likely to be Democrats.
So, basically, what makes this a news story is that a panel of probably conservative —although that is still open to debate!— government commissioners disagreed with a panel of probably liberal experts and decided to issue a report that said something that the New York Times finds to be yet another example of Bushitler’s crushing of dissent.
Never mind that it is a widely-shared perception in all phases of the political spectrum —from normal patriotic citizen to degenerate studbrow— that voter fraud is a problem. When I hear about voting early and often on campus up in Madison and a precinct chair buying the votes of the homeless with six-packs or some rock, I figure there’s a problem with voter fraud —and I’m not wrong to want to see it end.
The only sure way to stop fraud is for people to identify themselves as themselves. This crap about how it’s wrong to expect someone who’s come to vote to prove that he or she has the right to vote is a stupid and immoral position to take. Voting matters. It should matter to those who believe this to take seriously the process of voting. If you do not imbue the process with standards and regulations, you absolutely devalue the worth of voting.
Every state, county, city, and hamlet in this country needs to take care of the process. You’re not going to merely sample the public like some anonymous count of heads, you fucking enemies of the individual, and issue an edict on where things stand among The People; you are going to insist on accountability through these perfectly reasonable measures of identifying voters. That’s what is right and that is what is happening, whatever the so-called experts and the New York Fucking Times say about it.
