RUTHFULLY YOURS

He walked up to the desk and asked a poll worker for the ballot of Attorney General Eric Holder, and gave Holder’s address. The worker began to hand him the ballot, at which point the young man said he wanted to show his identification. “You don’t need it,” the poll worker replied. “It’s all right. As long as you’re in here, you’re on our list, and that’s who you say you are, you’re okay.”

The tape broke huge, with Matt Drudge championing it at the top of the Drudge Report. And sure enough, the Department of Justice, which sometimes plays to Drudge’s tune, responded with ire and outrage: “It’s no coincidence that these so-called examples of rampant voter fraud consistently turn out to be manufactured ones.”

Except, of course, that wasn’t the point. O’Keefe wasn’t voting fraudulently; he was showing the public how easy it would be for someone with bad motives to vote fraudulently. And the DOJ knew that – it would take a full-on fool not to understand that point.

But the DOJ has no interest in that point. It is far more interested in leaving loopholes for voter fraud than in filling in those gaps.

Their stated motive for opposing voter ID is that increases the possibility of racial bias. As the Associated Press recently reported, “Liberal groups have said the requirements are the product of Republican-controlled state governments and are aimed at disenfranchising people who tend to vote Democratic – African-Americans, Hispanics, people of low-income and college students.” The Justice Department, in attempting to stop the implement of Texas’ new voter ID law, cited the same rationale, explaining that “Hispanic voters in Texas are more than twice as likely than non-Hispanic voters to lack a driver’s license or personal state-issued photo ID.”

Why this should be true is anyone’s guess. It is certainly not due to institutional racism – if it were, then the state would be sued on a regular basis for violating the Civil Rights Act. There are two forms of photo-issued ID in Texas: driver’s licenses and simple identification cards. Both are available through simple applications. Voters must register to vote. Why shouldn’t they also have to register to receive an ID beforehand?

And it isn’t expensive to get an ID, either. An original driver’s license in Texas costs $16; a six-year extension costs $25. A photo ID costs $6. It costs less that a decent Carl’s Jr. meal to register for identification.

But the cost isn’t the real issue. The only people disenfranchised by voter ID requirements are those who cannot obtain a voter ID – namely, illegal immigrants, felons, and others who should not be voting. And these are precisely the sorts of folks that Democrats love to register. In 2008, a full one-third of voters registered by ACORN and their affiliate, Project Vote, were fraudulent. Voter fraud has tainted presidential primaries in Iowa and Texas; Hillary Clinton supporters asserted, with significant evidence, that the Obama campaign regularly utilized fraudulent voting to impact results. Hans von Spakovsky at National Review points out that in Indiana in 2008, four Democrats were charged with conspiracy, forgery, and official misconduct in an attempt to get Barack Obama listed on the ballot. Obama barely made it.

When it came to the New Black Panthers intimidating voters in Philadelphia, Holder and Co. looked the other way. But when it comes to states enforcing the law, the Justice Department jumps in with both feet.

Do Democrats mean to steal the election of 2012? The numbers would have to be astonishing large to do that – one vote isn’t going to make a difference. But the problem that O’Keefe exposed was this: there are no consequences for voter fraud..

The American people are losing faith in the electoral process – especially when voter registration drives are run by lobbying groups with a very specific agenda. The leading voter registration drives largely spring from the bowels of the SEIU or the American Federation of Teachers. The unions are interested in registering voters – but they’re only interested in registering a particular kind of voter. That’s their prerogative. And it’s our prerogative to ensure that every American who votes isn’t cancelled out by someone voting illegally.

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