Honest Voting

Now for some further examination of the Republican Party’s voter fraud page.

As mentioned before, as of June 19th the page lists a total of 112 entries, going back to 2006, over 50 states, counting duplicates and national stories.  These stories have a few unifying characteristics that I’ll get to in a minute.  First, a quick breakdown of the page.

Here are the states and territories for which they list no episodes of voter fraud within the last three years:

Alaska
American Samoa
Arizona
Arkansas
Connecticut
Delaware
District of Columbia
Guam
Hawaii
Idaho
Iowa
Kansas
Maine
Maryland
Minnesota
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
North Carolina
North Dakota
Northern Mariana Islands
Oklahoma
Oregon
Puerto Rico
South Dakota
Utah
Vermont
Virgin Islands
Wyoming
States with voter fraud stories listed:

California - Four stories, eight entries
Colorado - One story
Florida - One story
Georgia - Two stories, two entries
Illinois - Three stories, five entries
Indiana - Eight stories, thirteen entries, including one entry about a Supreme Court decision and four entries about the overall work of a state voter fraud task force
Kentucky - Eight stories, ten entries
Louisiana - One story, two entries
Massachusetts - One story
Michigan - One story
Mississippi - Four stories, thirteen entries
Missouri - Six stories, eight entries
New Jersey - Two stories, two entries
New Mexico - Two stories, three entries
New York - One story
Ohio - One story
Pennsylvania - Two stories, two entries
Rhode Island - One story
South Carolina - Two stories, five entries
Tennessee - One story, two entries
Texas - Four stories, five entries
Virginia - One story
Washington - Three stories, nine entries.
West Virginia - One story
Wisconsin - Six stories, seven entries; also, one entry following up on issues from 2004.

So, 112 entries on the page, but only 67 actual stories. The page also links to three major stories from earlier years on a separate Flashback page.

Beyond the things you’d expect — if any Republicans are involved in these cases they’re not named by party, but hey, it’s the Republican Party site, whaddya think they’ll say; meanwhile, Democrats and unions are called out by name — I noticed one thing: the vast majority of these cases are really small-time.  A number of them have to do with absentee ballots, which can’t readily be fixed by voter ID rules at a polling place.

Is this really the backbone of the case for preventing voter fraud with voter ID laws?

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