Power Line: The Issue That Must Be Faced

January 12, 2005

The Issue That Must Be Faced

Electoral fraud. It is a grave and growing threat to our democracy. Major elections have turned on it, and it is only a matter of time until voter fraud precipitates a constitutional crisis. Consider what is happening now in Washington. Christine Gregoire was sworn in as Governor today, but a legal challenge to her "victory" is pending. It appears reasonably clear that the Democrats stole that race, and they will probably get away with it. Al Gore tried to steal the Presidency in 2000, and nearly succeeded, with the aid of a grotesquely partisan 4-3 majority of the Florida Supreme Court, which issued one of the most absurd decisions in the history of litigation, lacking even a fig leaf of legal coherence.

It seems to me that we have two choices: upgrade our electoral system and guard its integrity with at least the fervor that we bring to preventing, say, underage drinking, or face the inevitable crisis when it comes.

For the latest on the situation in Washington, see Sound Politics. Today the Seattle Post-Intelligencer had a pretty good article on Stefan Sharkansky, principal proprietor of Sound Politics. And Sound Politics has this interesting item, which goes back to the national scene:

While doing the previous post, I ran across this very clear example of what I have begun to call distributed vote fraud. The New York Daily News found last August that 46,000 people were registered to vote in both Florida and New York. Of those 46,000, 68 percent were Democrats, 12 percent were Republicans, and 16 percent were neither. (And no, the newspaper does not explain why the numbers don't add up to 100 percent.)
No Democratic party leader organized these voters — at least as far as I know. Instead, they decided, by themselves, perhaps after talking with friends, to vote twice. And, just as I argued below, far more Democrats than Republicans decided, on their own, to commit vote fraud.

Anyone want to guess how many fraudulent votes Al Gore received in the 2000 election from this group?

Currently, there is no check whatsoever on the ability of citizens to register and vote in more than one state. Someone tell me: why isn't this a scandal?

UPDATE: Dafydd ab Hugh answers my rhetorical question:

Because it isn't 12% Democrat and 68% Republican. Duh.

Posted by John at 07:03 PM |

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