The latest video out by James O’Keefe is a powerful argument for voter ID laws, with a cameo from Eric Holder (actually his would-be voting impersonator). As a requisite disclaimer, O’Keefe has been accused of selectively editing videos in the past, but this one appears to include the full conversation.
New York Magazine says there’s nothing to see here:
The question is whether anyone should really care. Yes, if you wanted to, you could risk five years in prison and a $10,000 fine to vote for someone else, but we’re not sure why you would, since a single vote, or even a few votes, will never make a difference. (Okay, almost never.) Could a group of hundreds or thousands of fraudsters be mobilized to go around to different polling stations on election day and vote for one particular candidate or issue, possibly altering the outcome of an election? It would be difficult to organize surreptitiously, but sure, it’s probably doable. But it has never happened.
That’s like the government saying it’s pointless for bars to check IDs, because underage drinkers will face a hefty fine if they’re caught. The punishment becomes less of a deterrent if there’s a very high probability of getting away with the crime.
Voter fraud, by the way, is notoriously difficult to prosecute. Unless the fraudster sparks the suspicion of a polling official, the incident is unlikely to be reported or investigated. Often a fake name and/or address are used, which means there’s little chance of tracking this person down once he’s left the premises. And even if the suspect is reported and somehow located, it’s difficult to prove intentional fraud – can anyone demonstrate that this was the same individual at the polling location? Was the fraud intentional, or could it have been done in error?
And yes, voting fraud is a big deal, even if, as New York Magazine stipulates, the fraud doesn’t sway the election one way or another. Every false ballot cast for Candidate A undermines the democratic process by canceling out a legitimate ballot cast for Candidate B. Is it an epidemic? Maybe not. But the whole blasé “what’s a little bit of voter fraud anyway?” attitude seems to be the exact opposite of what the media should be espousing. It’s a message that welcomes corruption. Conservatives have proposed voter ID laws; some others may argue these laws are ineffective. That’s a debate to have. But denying that there’s a problem – or at least loopholes that could easily lead to a serious problem – isn’t a constructive way to deal with the issue.
If you note: Cherkokees are required to prove who they are when they vote.
Voter fraud has become more sophisticated. Look at Minnesota. The Dems take any extra ballots, fill them out the way they want, then produce and count them until they have enough to win. That would be hard to do in a national Republican landslide, thankfully; but then there's Dems who slash van tires in get-out-the-vote vehicles, or destroy local Republican headquarters to destroy signage. Point is, the left has proven that there is extensive voter fraud right now in America. Since everyone has to have a photo ID, anyway, I can't see how Holder thinks he can get away with getting rid of any law that makes Democrat voter fraud harder???
The guy that gave us Al Franken in MN did the same thing two years earlier in The Washington State Governors race. nSearch "Soros secretary of state project " for the ugly details. Are you surprised to see the Soros name? Me either.
The old adage was "Vote Often & Early for Curley" — James Michael Curley who was re-elected to either Mayor of Boston or Mass Legislature (I forget which) WHILE IN JAIL. He had taken the civil service or postal exam for someone else and gotten caught at it, but that only endeared him more to the Irish/Catholic community in what had been WASP/Protestant Massachusetts. _The Last Hurrah_ was written about him, and he actually did do a lot of good for his constitutients, creating Boston City Hospital (which was free, they would send bills but no one really cared if you didn't pay them). n nAnyway, the Irish immigrants were told to "vote early" in the day so that when they went back later, the clerks wouldn't remember them, to "vote often" — in your own name and in the name of several dead people (as no one ever purged the deceased off the voting rolls), and "for Curley" — whatever he was running for this time, vote for him.
In the book "Means of Ascent" Robert Caro details the election of Lyndon Johnson to the US Senate in 1948. Essentially the Johnson campaign determined how many votes were needed to win the election after the polls had closed and blatantly manufactured the ballots needed to steal the election. It has been widely known that Johnson orchestrated a similar effort in 1960 to help Kennedy get the votes needed to win Texas in the campaign for President. Sadly the Democrats at the New Yorker must know how essential voter fraud is to their party. They would not be so motivated to oppose the ID laws if it were not a genuine problem.
The version I always heard was that it was Joseph Kennedy (JFK's father) who was behind the Chicago vote fraud that stole the 1960 election for JFK. To his credit, Nixon did NOT do what Gore did in 2000 — Nixon accepted the theft for the good of t he country and all, so as not to put us into the Florida 2000 mess. n nKennedy historian Doris Kerns Goodwin openly states how corrupt Joe was — this is the guy who bought up the importation rights on Scotch whiskey during Prohibition, knowing it was going to end, etc — and how the Kennedy boys changed once their father's corrupting influence waned. Now as to LBJ in Texas, possibly, but the fraud I heard the most about was Illinois.
I am a liberal but do see some of the arguments for better standards of voter registration. That said, Okeefe is one of the worst manipulative hacks going. His latest video, has already proven inaccurate. I site the following: nConservative filmmaker James O’Keefe released a new video today supposedly exposing voter fraud in North Carolina by highlighting non-citizens like Zbigniew Gorzkowski who have voted in recent elections.The problem: Gorzkowski is an American citizen. In fact, if O’Keefe had done a simple Nexis search for “Zbigniew Gorzkowski”, he would have found a single article from the News & Observer in 2008 noting that Gorzkowski and his wife are naturalized citizens: n Customers flock through the red door of Zbigniew “Ziggy” and wife Halina Gorzkowski’s European grocery and flower shop to buy one of the 12 varieties they sell. The pierogis and 400 eastern European food items and flowers are also punching the naturalized citizen couple’s ticket for their version of the American Dream. n nThere are pros and cons of this legislative effort. try and NOT make your case for an based on the work of someone (O’Keefe) who body of work is questionable, at best. n