Monday, October 22, 2012
Elections Inspecting the architect of the Voter ID scam
Posted by Max Brantley on Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 9:50 AM
- Mother Jones
- MESSAGING: Despite scant evidence of voter fraud, messaging such as this sells another story. And also discourages voting by people fearing persecution.
Jane Mayer of The New Yorker writes about Hans von Spakovsky, the Republican architect of the Voter ID scam to suppress vote by Democratic-leaning constituencies. I'm afraid they've won this battle with the public, with the help of rank dishonesty by the likes of Arkansas Republicans who claim the laws would prevent absentee vote fraud. They wouldn't.
The Mayer piece starts with the challenge of an Ohio household of black voters based on an erroneous computer identification of their home as a vacant lot. This happens repeatedly. Such "mistakes" were at the core of the voter caging project in Florida in which Republican U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin was implicated.
In the faith-based world, facts don't matter.
Mainstream election experts say that Spakovsky has had an improbably large impact. Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California at Irvine, and the author of a recent book, “The Voting Wars,” says, “Before 2000, there were some rumblings about Democratic voter fraud, but it really wasn’t part of the main discourse. But thanks to von Spakovsky and the flame-fanning of a few others, the myth that Democratic voter fraud is common, and that it helps Democrats win elections, has become part of the Republican orthodoxy.” In December, Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, wrote, “Election fraud is a real and persistent threat to our electoral system.” He accused Democrats of “standing up for potential fraud—presumably because ending it would disenfranchise at least two of its core constituencies: the deceased and double-voters.” Hasen believes that Democrats, for their part, have made exaggerated claims about the number of voters who may be disenfranchised by Republican election-security measures. But he regards the conservative alarmists as more successful. “Their job is really done,” Hasen says. “It’s common now to assert that there is a need for voter I.D.s, even without any evidence.”
A single vote does count and the Republicans are disqualifying hundreds of voters.
In Hamilton County alone, the new citizens’ groups have challenged more than a thousand names since March. Some challenges, such as those aiming to disqualify college students who failed to include their dorm-room numbers on their registration forms, were tossed out immediately. But the board accepted nearly two hundred challenges, including those to twenty-six voters registered at a trailer park that no longer existed.
In Ohio, if voters whose eligibility has been challenged come to the polls in November, they may be forced to use a provisional ballot, which will be counted only if officials sanction it—after Election Day. Some experts worry that voters who have been needlessly challenged will feel too intimidated even to show up. “People have other things to do with their lives than respond to inaccurate complaints accusing them of being criminals,” Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said.
Every Republican spouting "vote fraud" should be required to read this article, in which Spakovsky fails to produce evidence of voter impersonation or an expert who thinks it's a problem. It does present people of color wrongfully targeted for exclusion from the ballot. But, of course, that IS the point.
Lorraine Minnite, a public-policy professor at Rutgers, collated decades of electoral data for her 2010 book, “The Myth of Voter Fraud,” and came up with some striking statistics. In 2005, for example, the federal government charged many more Americans with violating migratory-bird statutes than with perpetrating election fraud, which has long been a felony. She told me, “It makes no sense for individual voters to impersonate someone. It’s like committing a felony at the police station, with virtually no chance of affecting the election outcome.” A report by the Times in 2007 also found election fraud to be rare. During the Bush Administration, the Justice Department initiated a five-year crackdown on voter fraud, but only eighty-six people were convicted of any kind of election crime.
Hasen, who calls von Spakovsky a leading member of “the Fraudulent Fraud Squad,” told me that he respects many other conservative advocates in his area of expertise, but dismisses scholars who allege widespread voter-impersonation fraud. “I see them as foot soldiers in the Republican army,” he says. “It’s just a way to excite the base. They are hucksters. They’re providing fake scholarly support. They’re not playing fairly with the facts. And I think they know it.”
Speaking of Voter ID, Hans Von Spakovsky
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Vote fraud: Myth-busting in Ohio
May 24, 2013This is really important, since the Republican-majority legislature in Arkansas just joined the "vote fraud" brigade with Voter ID legislation designed to depress turnout among traditional Democratic constituencies. /more/
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Republicans mount PR effort on Voter ID bill
April 4, 2013The Arkansas Republican Party, having passed a Voter ID bill developed nationally to depress turnout among traditional Democratic constituencies, mounted a PR effort this morning to show that they really do care about people voting. /more/
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House overrides Beebe veto of voter ID bill
April 1, 2013At 2:20 p.m., the House is hearing arguments from Rep. Stephen Meeks to override Gov. Mike Beebe's veto of the bill to require a photo ID to vote in Arkansas. /more/
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Speaker Carter gets touchy on senator's outburst
March 30, 2013The Arkansas legislature faces a six-day week next week because of the need for extended meetings to complete action on pending business before the currently scheduled end of the session April 19. /more/
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The Good God Friday Edition
March 29, 2013Prop 8 and DOMA and the Arkansas General Assembly and Sen. Mark Pryor shameful responses where, the fight over voter ID, media criticism of the Democrat-Gazette, the morality of Republican tax cuts, Big River Steel, new numbers on expansion and the latest on the potential merger between UAMS and St. Vincent — all covered on this week's edition. /more/
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Republicans don't want poor people to vote
March 29, 2013When they say it (voter ID, whatever) isn't about race or poor people .... Check this out. /more/
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The floor to Gov. Beebe
March 28, 2013Gov. Mike Beebe on Monday vetoed the Republican vote suppression bill because it unnecessarily restricts the right to vote. It was courageous. /more/
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Gov. Mike Beebe vetoes Voter ID bill
March 25, 2013Gov. Mike Beebe has vetoed SB 2, the Republican-backed Voter ID bill. /more/
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The gubernatorial race open line
March 21, 2013The line is open. Finishing up: * VOTING RIGHTS: Now that the legislature has approved a bill to make it harder to vote in Arkansas, it's a good time for reading the Encyclopedia of Arkansas's new entry on voting rights in Arkansas. /more/
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NSFR: Not suitable for Republicans working in legislature
March 20, 2013Wider circulation on YouTube of Rep. John Walker's powerful remarks on efforts to make it harder to vote in Arkansas, a speech that a white-faced Republican unborn when Walker faced institutional discrimination found inappropriate. /more/
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