Editorial all wrong on voter-fraud issue

The editorial in (the July 8) Journal titled “SOS should rethink her Election Commission fight” asserts or implies several points that are not supported by historical fact.

First of all, it states “Democrats are focused on the Russians and their alleged collusion with the Trump campaign” and then appears to dismiss the allegations as inconsequential. It’s true that Democrats are certainly focused on Russian interference in our 2016 election, and there is plenty of reason to at least suspect there had been collusion. After numerous statements by first the Trump campaign and then the administration that there had been absolutely no “contact,” we now know for certain that there was not only “contact,” but actually quite a bit of contact. Why lie about it in the first place if there was nothing to hide?

But the fact that 23 intelligence agencies have indicated they have hard evidence that Russia interfered in our election process and recent admissions by members of the Trump team that they had multiple contacts with Russian officials and/or individuals with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, is really beside the point of the editorial. The point was that Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver should cooperate with Trump’s so-called Election Integrity Commission in its attempt to root out widespread voter fraud.

Does voter fraud exist? Absolutely! Is it widespread? Almost undoubtedly not! Here in New Mexico we’ve seen successful prosecutions in a handful of cases, most notably one where a man registered his dog to vote and another where a man voted in his son’s name. But it’s not widespread, and the people involved were caught by the system, charged and convicted. But the database of Trump’s Election Integrity Commission wouldn’t have picked up on those problems. So, what would it actually do?

First, consider the person whom Trump chose to lead this proposed fight against voter fraud. The man’s name is Kris Kobach. He’s currently Kansas’ secretary of state and a candidate for governor there. He’s also the creator of a program called Interstate Crosscheck and has sometimes been referred to as the “King of Caging.” Caging is a process of identifying and purging “questionable” voter registrations, which has been deemed to be illegal when it’s used to target specific groups — typically minorities —for disenfranchisement. And that’s how it’s almost always used.

Records indicate the program has nationally flagged 7.2 million possible double registrants, almost all of them registered Democrats and most of them members of an ethnic minority. But, out of those 7.2 million possible fraudulent voters, a whopping total of four have actually been charged with voter fraud. That’s less than 1 in 2 million!

It needs to be remembered that voting is a right which cannot be abridged without due process. Kobach’s methods for purging voters has nothing to do with “due process.” They simply remove large numbers of legitimate voters, along with a few rare illegitimate ones, from the rolls, forcing those legitimate voters to vote on a “provisional ballot” that will almost never be included in the vote tally. Kobach and Trump want to give a federal mandate to a process that is a clear violation of the Voting Rights Act.

Secretary of State Toulouse Oliver is absolutely right to withhold cooperation with a commission that is clearly intended to violate the rights of the citizens of our state.