Fighting Voter Fraud

Many conservatives have viewed the very real problem of voter fraud in America as a guarantee that the Left will be able to use this nefarious means to steal crucial elections. There is little doubt that Leftists would do this if they could, and in some cases they have succeeded (just ask former Senator Norm Coleman.)

The current Leftist opposition to voter photo ID laws passed by a number of states on the spurious grounds of racism makes clear that the Left feels that it needs to steal votes in order to win elections. Equally unsavory was the Left’s “Secretary of State Project” or SoSP, which was funded by George Soros to get “progressive” state officers to superintend the counting of votes.

The wish of the Left to steal elections, however, has not translated into winning elections through voter fraud. Wisconsin in 2000 was the home of some of the most egregious examples of vote buying and Gore narrowly carried the state. Ten years later the situation was radically different. Republicans swept into control of state government. More importantly, there were three elections after Walker’s collective bargaining reforms – the Wisconsin Supreme Court election of Prosser, the recall of state senators several months later, and the effort to recall Walker and several other Republicans.

The Left lost all these elections even though labor bosses and their lackeys had an intense and personal financial incentive in stealing those elections – and evidence that the Left did steal votes. The Prosser election was strong evidence that voter fraud can fail: he won a very close race in which only the recount votes gave him the victory.

The SoSP candidates did well in 2006 and 2008, and the stated goal of this group – preventing Republican voter suppression – is transparently partisan for officers who are required to be nonpartisan. What happened in 2010? Five of the seven candidates for secretary of state were defeated by Republicans (only SoSP candidates in California and Minnesota won). The SoSP has not endorsed candidates in 2012 and it has not given money to any campaigns.

Republican state legislatures have passed laws to require voter ID, and sometimes photo ID, as this article by the National Conference of State Legislatures shows. Eric Holder is trying to get federal judges to block these laws as suppressing the vote, but the outcome of this litigation is unclear and will depend, initially, upon the federal district court judge who hears the case. If Obama loses in November, these laws will not be challenged by Romney’s Department of Justice. Even if he wins, state legislatures can modify voting laws in other ways to reduce fraud.

One method never discussed but utterly foolproof would be for a state to enact a law ending the Australian ballot. I have written about this option in the past and noted that the secret ballot is not a constitutional right but that voter fraud is possible only with a hidden vote. It is very easy to determine the probability of how a particular person will vote, which is why the results of elections can be predicted with a tiny percentage of the vote reported. Most American presidents were elected with public ballots, including every president on Mount Rushmore.

Another reform which is imperative, if Republicans gain the White House and adequate majorities in Congress, is to end federal “voting rights” laws, which are no longer needed to protect minorities from casting ballots. This would also remove federal interference in redistricting and the antiquated and bigoted attitude towards states in the South which are still, almost fifty years later, required to obtain clearances for changes in the voting laws.

It is also vital to recall that in the heyday of Democrat big city machines, in which voter fraud was truly rampant, the Democrats made a point of conspicuous voter fraud as a way of demoralizing their political opponents. It is imperative that this not happen to conservatives. If the Left could truly steal every election, then it would not have been slobber-knocked in 2010. The Left wins, in this area as in so many others, when conservatives feel hopeless, helpless and abandoned. Voter fraud, like every trick, every bribe, and every scam of Leftism simply proves how unpalatable the Left is to America . We win when we fight back.