With the stroke of a pen today, Gov. Scott Walker will officially solve a problem that we don’t have. If you listen to Walker and some fellow governors, they’re protecting the integrity of elections and preventing voter fraud.
If you ask most everyone else, it’s a slick way of making it more difficult for people to vote — especially people who are less likely to vote for Walker and his Republican colleagues.
We’ve written before about the incredible lack of voter fraud in Wisconsin, as reported by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Board.
But let’s look at national figures.
Saturday’s Wall Street Journal pointed out that President George W. Bush made voter fraud a priority for enforcement, so the U.S. Justice Department went to work. From 2002 to 2005, the Journal reported, 55 people were convicted. That’s nationwide. That’s barely one person per state.
The Republican governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, signed voter-ID legislation last week and said: “If you can show a picture to buy Sudafed, if you can show a picture to get on an airplane, you should be able to show a picture to vote.”
Unlike with over-the-counter cold medicine, we’ve never heard of anyone stealing a ballot and trying to cook it into methamphetamine. But maybe it happens.
There is great concern that this legislation will prevent old and young from exercising their democratic right to vote. Tens of thousands of students in the University of Wisconsin System won’t be able to use their student IDs because they don’t meet the new state voter requirement. Do you think that’s a coincidence?
Full Article: Our view: Walker signing law we don’t need.