'Safe-guarding the ballot'

Freedom to vote and freedom to choose whom to vote for -- fundamental rights of American citizens.    So we don't want anybody cheating on this right, do we?

That's why 30 states have recently voted in some kind of "voter ID" laws that require a government-issued photo ID and/or other types of documents that prove a person's legal residence in the voting district.   Or, so they say.  All but one of these are states with Republican governors and Republican-controlled legislatures.

As we well know by now, (1) there is no voter fraud problem;   and (2) the real reason Republicans are pushing these laws is that they tend to inhibit, intimidate, or otherwise discourage voting by Democratic-leaning groups.  

In short, along with lying and obfuscating, Republicans can only win by cheating or suppressing the vote of the opposition.

Now one Republican has put his money into the question.   Iowa's Secretary of State Matt Schultz (R) authorized $150,000 for an investigation into voter fraud;  another $280,000 in federal funds were diverted to this investigation.

What did they find?   After 18 months of investigation, out of more than a million voters in Iowa, they found 10 cases that might come into the category voter fraud.    After further investigation, 5 of those were dismissed.     

Of the remaining five, three were convicted felons who had completed their prison terms and mistakenly thought their voting rights had been restored.   One was a mother who filled in an absentee ballot for her daughter who had recently moved to another state and thought she had missed the registration deadline there.   But the daughter was able to register and vote in the other state;   the mother then self-reported her error.   The last of the 10 was a man with a DUI conviction who had used his dead brother's ID to obtain a new driver's license;   this was discovered when he tried to vote, using the false driver's license for ID.

So there was not one single case of a person trying to vote when they knew they were not eligible to do so.

That is the 'voter fraud' situation in Iowa.   Hardly the most pressing issue.   And when you put this up against the hardship for some people to obtain these photo IDs, and against the actual loss of large numbers of voters at the ballot box . . . . 

. . . . the Republican's pushing these laws for their own political purpose is the scandal.

Ralph