While We Worry About Voting Funny Business, Pundits Think We’re Nuts
By Bronwyn on October 29, 2010 at 7:00 PM in Current Affairs
Yet again, we have regular folks pitted against the elite media. This time, the inbred elite media believe the folks are not just ignorant, but are also nuts for worrying about voting irregularities. However, as you’ll learn below, there’s a new, disturbing story of voter fraud activity that even the elite media cannot explain away (especially since it’s reported in the National Review).
First, we begin with the ever-earnest and mightily feisty Megyn Kelly reporting on accusations of fraud in Nevada because Fox News is one news service that does take voting fraud seriously:
But wait just a darn minute! Those claims of voting fraud are a rightwing myth. Yup. So sayeth the bright minds at the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Washington Post, and more.
Here’s a sampling from AJC columnist Jay Bookman’s “Voter-fraud claims a case of mass, self-induced hysteria“:
The charge that liberal groups are trying to steal elections through massive voter fraud has become an integral part of the conservative belief system. I used to think it was just a claim they used in a cynical effort to gain political advantage, and maybe that’s all it was in the beginning. But at this point, the charge is fully and sincerely believed by millions, and they are acting on that sincere belief.
Yet, there is no factual evidence whatsoever to sustain that claim. For eight years, the Bush Department of Justice tried very, very hard to come up with evidence of such a conspiracy. They even pushed good, conservative, effective federal prosecutors out of their jobs because those prosecutors were allegedly lax in pursuing such cases. …
Adds the bloggers for the Washington Post’s Plum Line in “The voter fraud racket is back!“:
With another Election Day approaching, conservatives are again trotting out conspiracy theories about elections stolen through voter fraud. The absence of any actual intimidated voters in the trumped-up New Black Panther voter intimidation case has been a fundraising boon for the Republican National Lawyers’ Association, which has spent all year trying to persuade anyone who will listen that there is an “epidemic” of voter fraud. As Suzy Khimm has reported for Mother Jones, conservative groups in Minnesota, Illinois, and Texas have all been gearing up for so called “anti-fraud” operations.
Voter fraud is a virtually nonexistent problem. Conservatives helped assemble the myth that now-defunct community organizing group ACORN “stole elections” by blurring the distinction between voter registration fraud — which is as easy as filling out a registration form incorrectly — and the actual act of casting a fraudulent ballot. Despite the fact that the Justice Department spent years in an effort to root out voter fraud that only produced a handful of prosecutions, none involving a large-scale conspiracy to steal an election, the belief that Democrats regularly steal elections through fraudulent votes is widespread. Nevertheless, this myth gets recycled every election year. Last year Wall Street Journal editorial columnist John Fund even stooped to recycling a anecdote about voter fraud in Philadelphia in 1993 — almost verbatim — to allege voter fraud in the New Jersey Governor’s race. As a 2007 Brennan Center report put it, the possibility that someone will impersonate another person at the polls is “more rare than death by lightning.” There’s a reason for that: As Chris Beam points out, even if you wanted to steal an election this way, it’s logistically unfeasible. Swaying the numbers in any significant way would require such a large number of well-trained co-conspirators that getting caught is a virtual certainty.
So-called “voter integrity” efforts often have a more sinister motive — suppressing votes in Democratic leaning precincts, which often means areas where there are a lot of minority voters. …
AHA! So the anti-conspiracy theory writer has his OWN conspiracy theory about what’s behind the “myth” of voting irregularities. All of us “conservatives” who worry about voting problems are doing it to suppress votes “in Democratic leaning precincts.” And this theory is not only apparently true, it is also SINISTER. Woah.
The Washington Post/AJC/et al. liberal bloggers are telling us “nothing to see here, move along” while at the same time watching us VERY closely to make sure that we are not trying to suppress voting. Go figure.
Let’s return to what I believe is a bit more real. Bret Baier’s Special Report had an excellent segment on voting irregularities around the country, including Florida, but I can’t find that video. Here’s another report, from earlier in the day, on Fox News:
THEN there is this story, which came to my attention after I’d written all of the above, but which must be included because I would LOVE to see the elite media explain away this report. With a h/t to Pat Racimora for bringing this to my attention, here’s what the National Review reports in its story, “Exclusive: Patrick Murphy’s Campaign Linked to Fictitious Voter Office Scandal“:
Last week, it came to light that voters in southeastern Pennsylvania’s 8th district were receiving notices warning that their right to vote could be in jeopardy if they did not return an absentee ballot to the “Pennsylvania Voter Assistance Office,” a fictitious agency headquartered at a post office box. The letters, shown below, were underwritten by the Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee.
“By failing to return the enclosed [absentee ballot],” warned the notice, “you may be placing your ability to participate in this year’s general election at risk.” The mailer contained a postage-paid envelope instructing voters to return their ballots to a post office box controlled by the Democratic Party.
That post office box … was controlled at least in part by Tim Persico, the campaign manager for Rep. Patrick Murphy. Persico was apparently listed as one of two authorized to access the post office box. …
The Pennsylvania GOP has released a photograph of the access list bearing Persico’s name, available here. …
At issue is whether Rep. Patrick Murphy was directly involved with the absentee ballot scheme, which is being investigated by the local district attorney’s office and has so far resulted in the rejection of at least 600 absentee ballots for “defects.”
The number of reject ballots, which is “significantly higher” than in previous years, has been reportedly fueled by errors including mismatching signatures and incorrect birth dates, indicators of potential fraud.
This comes on the heels of the county Board of Elections recording a unusual spike in Democratic absentee ballot application last week. … [F]rom Oct. 14 to 19, Democrat absentee ballot applications to the county increased by 67 percent as compared to Republican applications, a spike that occurred nowhere else in the state. …
Read all of “Exclusive: Patrick Murphy’s Campaign Linked to Fictitious Voter Office Scandal.”
Do any of you want to bet that this story will not be discussed by Andrew Sullivan, Greg Sargent, and the rest of the elite media bloggers? Of course not. Never will they stray from their precious theory that the little people’s complaints about voter fraud are just silly.
So much for the Fourth Estate being a responsible element of this nation’s democracy and fulfilling its commitment to educate and enlighten the populace.
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