"Voter fraud" fraud #2

It is a well known truth that the so-called national crisis in voter fraud is non-existent and that voter ID laws recently passed by many states have the primary purpose (and effect) of suppressing voters who tend to vote Democratic.

Now we have some facts to back up the assertion that this supposed "crisis" is a distortion of the truth, manufactured by conservatives.  It has Karl Rove's fingerprints all over it.

News21 is an non-partisan initiative of the Future of Journalism Education program that is supported by non-profit foundations and located in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

In a major investigative project, faculty and students of journalism from many universities have examined all the claims of election fraud in the U.S. since 2000.  Here are some of their findings.

1.  The number of in-person voter impersonations on election day is virtually non-existant.  Only 10 valid cases were found since 2000.

2.  Not only is the actual number small, it shrinks to infinitesimal when you consider that, since 2000, more than 600 million votes have been cast in presidential elections alone.  That comes to 1 in 60 million.   You're more likely to be bitten by a pit viper while attending a production of "The Marriage of Figaro" at the Metropolitan Opera on a Tuesday night in February.


3.  Yet to combat this non-existent problem, 37 states have passed laws requiring a government issued, photo ID to be presented in order to vote in person -- but not in order to vote by absentee ballot, where demonstrable cases of fraud do happen.

4.  An estimated 11% (21 million people) do not have the required photo ID.  An estimated 3 our of 4 of these are in demographic groups that tend to vote Democratic.

5.  Defending their voter ID law in a court case, Pennsylvania state officials conceded that they have no evidence of any prior in-person voter fraud.  Yet they have also said that as many as 8 million voters in the state may lack the proper ID to vote as a result of the law.

Now here is the scandalous part.   

In a close election, this could be the decisive factor.
The Republicans could once again steal the election
and set our country on a disastrous course.

And it would be through manipulation and deceipt -- not through true voter preference.

Ralph