Voter Fraud: Is the GOP concerned or complicit?

[_MeDotOrg]

Yes, we know how the GOP is concerned with voter registration fraud. Turns out they're a little complicit, too:

A man originally reported to have been working for the Republican Party of Virginia was arrested by the Rockingham County, Va., Sheriff’s Office on Thursday and charged with attempting to destroy voter registration forms by tossing them into a dumpster behind a shopping center in Harrisonburg, Va.

“Prosecutors charged him with four counts of destruction of voter registration applications, eight counts of failing to disclose voter registration applications and one count of obstruction of justice,” according to a report late Thursday afternoon from TPM’s Ryan Reilly. More charges could be forthcoming, according to officials.

But there is more to the story, as evidence emerges to document that it ties into a still-expanding nationwide GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal that the BRAD BLOG first began reporting in late September, after we’d learned that the Republican Party of Florida had turned in more than 100 allegedly fraudulent and otherwise suspect voter registration forms in Palm Beach County. The story has continued to widen ever since, to a dozen Florida counties and several other states, now including Virginia, and even to the upper-echelons of the Republican Party itself.

The man arrested today was 23-year-old Colin Small of Phoenixville, Pa. As it turns out, he does not only work for the Virginia Republican Party. According to an online profile, he appears to be working for the Republican National Committee and, prior to that, served as an Intern for Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Read the complete article at:

http://www.salon.com/2012/10/19/gop_voter_registration_scandal_widens/

[_subgenius]

voter fraud is a fine american tradition that has been kept alive by both parties...it is one of the few activities that truly unites us a nation.
It will always be a "non-issue" to the population at large...that is to say, it is a micro-problem not macro.
We are nation that prides itself on how much we can get away with in most every facet of our lives....soooo....good luck on getting traction with this topic.

[_moksha]

This stacking the vote goes back even further than when Boss Young would hand out shots of Postum to every man and wives who would go into Social Hall and cast their vote for the Peoples Party.

[_Kevin Graham]

Republicans are using this as an excuse to suppress votes, plain and simple. This is a no-brainer. I mean really, does anyone believe these folks really care about voter fraud? They're the ones engaging in it!

They understand that if every eligible voter would actually vote, that they'd never win another election. If I were a Democrat President I'd make move to reform our entire system of voting. It should be electronic, based on social security numbers. This is how it is done in Brazil and everyone is required to vote. Every vote is counted and accounted for, and there is no possibility of "fraud."

The way we do it is so old school and idiotic it is embarrassing. But that is how the Republicans want it, because they know that they'll probably never win the popular vote again.

[_MeDotOrg]

voter fraud is a fine american tradition that has been kept alive by both parties...it is one of the few activities that truly unites us a nation.
It will always be a "non-issue" to the population at large...that is to say, it is a micro-problem not macro.
We are nation that prides itself on how much we can get away with in most every facet of our lives....soooo....good luck on getting traction with this topic.

I agree that in terms of deciding an election, the amount of registrations being discarded here are probably inconsequential.

The point I was trying to make is that Republicans have passed strict voter I.D. laws in several swing states. These laws have the potential to disenfranchise tens of thousands of legitimate, mostly minority, poor, elderly and student voters.

That is not the reason, say Republicans. We don't want to disenfranchise voters. We're not trying to use these laws to influence elections. We're merely trying to stop voter fraud, although they are unable to show that voter fraud is a problem of any consequence.

And yet we have Mike Turzai, the Republican House Majority Leader from the State of Pennsylvania saying, "Voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done."

And now we have employees of the Republican Party engaging in the willful destruction (and therefore the intentional disenfranchisement) of voter registrations.

Strategic Allied Consulting, the organization contracted by the GOP for voter canvassing, has been implicated in numerous illegal and unethical voter registration activities. One of their employees was caught on camera in Colorado saying she was only registering Mitt Romney supporters.Florida's Department of State said that Allied Consultants may have submitted "hundreds" of fraudulent voter registration forms from 9 different counties

To be polite about it, the Republicans seem (ahem) somewhat disingenuous in their concern over voter fraud.

To be more direct about it: The Republicans know that demographic trends don't portend well for Republican chances in the future. Rather than make their ideas bigger, they are trying to make democracy smaller, with the systematic disenfranchisement of minorities, poor, the elderly and college students.

To me, the willful and intentional subversion of the democratic process, whether done by Democrats or Republicans, is an act of treason. By subverting the democratic process you are saying you believe that your personal objectives are more important than the will of the people.

Ask yourself: if you found the proverbial genie in a lamp, would you ask him to swing the election for Romney or Obama? If you would, you really don't believe in democracy.

[_Kevin Graham]

Haven't you heard the latest meme going around in Right Wing circles? Democracy is bad.

We're not a Democracy and we shouldn't even try to be. We're a Republic and the founding fathers hated Democracy. The voice of the majority means tyranny and stolen freedoms.

Here is something written by a Mormon friend of mine here in Georgia. He writes regularly for unitedliberty.org but here is something published in his local newspaper:

http://www.daily-tribune.com/view/full_ ... overnments

So it doesn't surprise me at all that they can rationalize their campaign to steal votes. I had one wing nut ask me on Facebook last week if I thought poor people should be allowed to vote if they don't pay income taxes.

If they could, they'd take away voting rights for most Democrats and they'd do it with a smile on their faces. The end justifies the means in their view.

[_EAllusion]

Voter registration fraud is distinct from in-person voter fraud where a person misrepresents who they are. The former, while not exactly common, happens often enough. It's usually because voter registration groups pay people a small sum by quota which gives them an incentive to create fictional registrations. The latter is extremely rare. There's only a few cases that turn up each election.

Voter ID has no bearing on voter registration fraud, which is what this case is about. Voter ID is allegedly aimed at the in-person fraud, but even in a best case scenario that wouldn't stop more than handful of cases each year. For that, the price is making it significantly more difficult for a hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people to vote in such a way that it will discourage them from doing so. Those people are, to a significant degree, disproportionately likely Democrat voters, which is why Republicans are backing such laws. Those laws tend to have all sorts of provisions that blatantly are aimed at Democratic voting behavior, such as outlawing early voting on Sundays. It's a clear attempt to suppress votes by creating unequal burdens. It's no different than a poll-tax or literacy test. The ugliness of Dixie, now in Republican form, is back again.