Voter fraud deniers

There they go again. Democrats have launched yet another specious attack on Colorado’s Republican Secretary of State Scott Gessler after his office mailed letters to several thousand registered voters suspected of being non-citizens.

They were under suspicion because they had applied for a driver’s license using non-citizen identification. Some may have become citizens since then, or not, but all have been asked to prove they’re legally qualified to vote or, otherwise, have their names removed from registration lists.

While this seems perfectly reasonable, Democratic Rep. Crisanta Duran has theatrically accused Gessler of devious, partisan motivations. Her evidence? Of the 3,903 letters sent, only 486 went to registered Republicans, while 1,566 went to Democrats and 1,794 to independents. Therefore what? Gessler explains there was no manipulation; it’s just the way the list played out. Couldn’t it innocently be that Republicans in Colorado are simply less likely to have applied for driver’s licenses with non-citizen identification?

Piling on, Democratic Party chairman Rick Palacio criticized Gessler for sending out the letters in a “rushed process” so close to the election. This is hypocritical chutzpah on steroids since it was Barack Obama’s Department of Homeland Security that stalled for months in cooperating with Gessler’s request for access to its database for verifying citizenship.

Palacio also feigned distress that eligible citizens may be denied their right to vote. There’s little danger of that since under state law, on Election Day anyone whose registration status is questionable is allowed to cast a provisional ballot.

This is all part of the Democrats’ monotonous, contrived narrative in this election campaign that Republicans are out to “suppress” the turnout of minorities who vote for Democrats. The argument is nonsense. There’s nothing intimidating about asking legal citizens, regardless of their color or ethnicity, to identify themselves. Only illegal voters have something to fear.

But it does appear we have a problem with the Department of Motor Vehicles’ handling of motor-voter registration. There are accounts that they’re indiscriminately “upselling” that option, much like the counter server at a fast-food restaurant who asks if you want “fries with that.” It should be standard procedure that anyone asked by a DMV clerk about registering to vote should also be asked if he or she is a U.S. citizen.

Ironically, an immigration attorney called in to my radio show the other day and reported that he’s encountered non-citizen immigrants who unwittingly, but nonetheless illegally, have registered to vote at the DMV and, consequently, may have jeopardized their opportunity to ever become a U.S. citizen.

It’s not only reasonable but also imperative to scrutinize voter registration lists to eliminate ineligible voters and to require that photo IDs be presented at polling places. When opponents of those policies argue there’s no proof that voter fraud is a serious problem, they’re offering the same argument as that presented in an apocryphal tale of the Irishman on trial in Dublin for murder. After the prosecution produces 10 eyewitnesses who testify that they plainly saw the defendant commit the crime, the defense responds by producing 20 eyewitnesses who say they didn’t see him do it.

Although much voter fraud may go unnoticed, it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. A new book, “Who’s Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk,” by John Fund of the National Review and Han von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation, documents serious problems in this area.

So what’s the motivation of liberals who deny the incidence and seriousness of voter fraud or who willfully choose to ignore it? And why do they fight efforts to protect the integrity of our voting process? It’s obvious. They believe that fraudulent voters are more likely to advance their self-interest by voting for Democrats.

Read more:Mike Rosen – The Denver Posthttp://www.denverpost.com/rosen#ixzz25oiasw3Y