If You Tell A Lie Big Enough And Keep Repeating It…

…people will eventually come to believe it. That is the case for vote fraud; you see big headlines after every election citing these huge numbers of illegal voters. Here in Connecticut there were large banner headlines about voter fraud that accused the nonprofit organization ACORN of voter fraud. But after the state Attorney General and the Secretary of State conducted their investigation and they found no voter fraud the story was buried inside the paper. An article by Brian Lockhart in the CT Post said,

Following a two-year probe, state investigators have cleared the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now of charges of voter fraud brought by Republican registrars in Bridgeport and Stamford.

"The evidence does not provide a sufficient basis to determine that Connecticut ACORN had an institutional or systematic role in designing and implementing a scheme or strategy to fraudulently register or enroll electors ... prior to the November 2, 2008 election," read the recent report from the Elections Enforcement Commission.

Not only did they find no illegal activity but the commission also said that,

"The Commission finds ACORN ... maintained a system designed to prevent or diminish inaccuracies or inefficiencies in the voter registration drive," read the report. "Unfortunately these attempts to flag problem cards were rendered useless upon processing when the top portion ... was separated and discarded from the voter registration card below, which was retained for record keeping."

California Attorney General found the same results in their investigation of ACORN, that there was no criminality, but that was after the Republican Congressional hearing that made nation headlines.

The Republicans are doing the same thing with the voter ID laws. The Republicans claim that there is massive voter fraud and are passing laws that make it impossible for some people to get voter ID cards. Many minority people do not have easy access to their birth certificate in most states you have to apply for a copy of your birth certificate in person. For them to take a day off from work would cost them a day’s pay; in addition, they would have to take public transportation to get to the city of their birth. There is also a problem for many transgender people because the gender on their birth certificate does not match their driver license. In an article in Bloomberg said that,

“There were 13 million combined votes cast in all Texas elections in 2008 and 2010,” Trey Martinez Fischer, chairman of the Texas Legislature’s Mexican American Legislative Caucus, which opposed the law, said in an interview. “There has been only one indictment for voter impersonation in that time, so what’s the big public policy issue that requires sacrificing 700,000 voters?”

Since 2002, Texas conducted 308 investigations of voter fraud, filing criminal charges against at least four people, according to a state filing. At least three cases involved alleged voting by noncitizens.

In an article in the Star Tribune, Mike Baker wrote,

When Edward and Mary Weidenbener went to vote in Indiana's primary in May, they didn't realize that state law required them to bring government photo IDs such as a driver's license or passport.

The husband and wife, both approaching 90 years old, had to use a temporary ballot that would be verified later, even though they knew the people working the polling site that day. Unaware that Indiana law obligated them to follow up with the county election board, the Weidenbeners ultimately had their votes rejected — news to them until informed recently by an Associated Press reporter.

Edward Weidenbener, a World War II veteran who had voted for Mitt Romney in the Republican presidential contest, said he was surprised by the rules and the consequences.

"A lot of people don't have a photo ID. They'll be automatically disenfranchised," he said.

As more states put in place strict voter ID rules, an AP review of temporary ballots from Indiana and Georgia, which first adopted the most stringent standards, found that more than 1,200 such votes were tossed during the 2008 general election.

The Christian Science Monitor reported that even the Republican’s own study only found some 400 election fraud prosecutions over a decade across the U.S., which is only 40 election fraud prosecutions a year. Which hardly enough to deny tens of thousands of people the right to vote.

Seventeen states have voter ID laws that require photo IDs and of those nine states have very strict voter ID laws. One of those states, Texas is challenging the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that limits restrictions on voter requirements. The Bloomberg article goes on to say,

The Obama administration’s claim that Texas’s voter identification law will keep blacks and Hispanics away from the polls this November will be tested in a week-long federal trial starting today in Washington.

Texas, one of eight states that passed laws last year requiring photo identification in order to vote, is seeking court approval of the measure, arguing it’s needed to prevent electoral fraud. The Justice Department says Texas’s rules are harsher than any other state and place a “new and substantial burden” on minorities’ ability to cast a ballot.

“Clearly there is a sense that the political stakes are high,” Christopher Elmendorf, a professor of election law at the University of California Davis School of Law, said in an interview. “There’s a belief that in close elections these laws could make a difference.”

And that is the crux of the voter ID laws, denying minority voters the right to vote because they traditionally vote Democratic. Hence the reason of the Republican’s campaign to limit voter rights.