Republican Vote Fraud

Republican claims of vote fraud were recently revived after reports that employees hired to register voters for community groups in Milwaukee had submitted fraudulent registrations. The community groups themselves discovered the fraudulent registrations and reported them to the Milwaukee Election Commission. The commission referred them to the district attorney for possible prosecution.

The results of the district attorney’s investigation should be very interesting. To prevent the submission of fraudulent registrations, vote drives no longer pay employees by the number of registrations they turn in. Employees are paid an hourly rate, regard less of how many voters they register. There is absolutely no incentive for employees to turn in fraudulent registrations.

In fact, one of the few groups with any incentive to put phony voters on the rolls is the Republican Party. That could then be used to justify all of the obstacles they are eager to put in the way of likely Democratic voters.

Investigate away, Mr. District Attorney. It would be wrong to prejudge the investigation, but if the Republican Party turns out to be involved in any way, hang ’em high.

One of the false claims Van Hollen makes is that his lawsuit is not intended to prevent anyone from voting. Anyone with a clerical discrepancy on voter registration records would be allowed to cast a provisional ballot, he said. Casting a provisional ballot is not the same as being allowed to vote. Provisional ballots are set aside.

Provisional voters are required to return by the next day with additional paperwork. Then, if the ballots are necessary to determine who wins an election, someone might actually count them.

Those who cast provisional ballots essentially have to show up twice to have their votes counted—maybe. Other voters only have to show up once on Election Day.

Republicans want to make voters jump through more and more hoops so that many of them will become discouraged and fall away. That is especially true of low-income voters who lack transportation and have other difficulties in their lives to distract them from voting.

By attempting to remove thousands of registered voters from the voting rolls, Republicans are making Election Day more difficult for all of us, especially those of us who live in urban areas.

By forcing thousands of legitimate voters to re-register at their polling places or to go through additional paperwork to cast provisional ballots, Republicans hope to create even more delays at urban polling places.

Those of us who waited three hours to vote in 2004 may have to wait four hours or more this time. Stay mad the entire time and stay more determined than ever to triumph over Republican vote fraud.