VOTER FRAUD — LET’S FIND OUT
It’s time to take a look. Republicans have claimed for years voter fraud is more widespread than is ever acknowledged. Democrats have for years denied it and done their best to make sure investigations into such allegations go nowhere.
President Donald Trump, whose allegations of voter fraud in the 2016 election stretch even the most vivid imaginations, has launched the Election Integrity Commission to see what’s out there.
Good.
If it’s out there — and a commission will for the first time have Homeland Security databases to see how many noncitizens are registered and/ or cast ballots — states must tighten measures under which a person’s eligibility to vote is determined.
If it’s not, Trump and state Republican officials across the country will no longer be able to use that excuse in proposing more restrictive hoops to be jumped through in order to vote.
As a country we should want as many citizens to vote as possible, but we believe voting should be taken seriously. There’s something that seems less than ideal about registering at a partisan event, at a driver’s license station or by mail.
Despite promises of protections by state and local officials across the country, the methods seem rife with opportunities for fraud, especially with so many illegal immigrants flowing into the country.
The bipartisan panel, chaired by Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, will report back to Trump by 2018.
We believe they’ll find much more voting fraud than the next-to-none always claimed by Democrats but much less than the massive amount the president has alleged.
Trump, after all, has suggested that 3 million to 5 million people voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election. He has said he would have won the state of New Hampshire and that Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte would have won a second term there.
We can imagine a panel finding numerous illegalities in California, where illegal immigrants are plentiful and where the Democratic governor and legislature are only too happy to look the other way. But the president’s numbers boggle the mind. That many fraudulent votes would make up the nearly 3 million popular vote difference between him and Democrat Hillary Clinton, and then some.
Democrats and left-leaning organizations oppose the commission. But why would they oppose it — other than as a waste of taxpayer money — if they believe there is nothing to find? Why wouldn’t they call Trump’s hand, confident of the conclusions the panel will reach?
Dale Ho, voting rights project director for the American Civil Liberties Union, has called for sources the commission might contact to boycott its work.
He and Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, D-Ill., have excoriated Kobach, calling him variously “the king of voter suppression” and “enemy of American democracy” and terming his participation “a sham.”
What is the Kansas official’s sin?
Kobach championed the state’s proof-of-citizenship requirement for voting. In that state, applicants are asked to show documentation such as a birth certificate, passport or naturalization papers to register to vote in federal races. In other states, including Tennessee, applicants need only check a box and, by signing their name, swear under penalty of perjury that they are legal citizens.
Captains of the Democratic Party’s far-left base, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., also say — without evidence — the commission is a ruse to tightening voter access.
Kobach, in response, said it’s not always easy to detect fraud.
“To make broad statements like ‘It’s not a problem, it doesn’t exist’ — that is factually impossible to do,” he said. “So what the commission is going to do is … provide data to the public, and people can draw their own conclusions about the numbers.”
It’s about time we took a deep dive into whether this is a serious problem or just hot air.