Kerby Anderson

Once several Democrats returned to the state legislature, Texas was able to pass an election reform bill. A recent commentary by Dr. Merrill Matthews lays out some facts about election fraud. One problem is the deceptive way the media covers the issue. Reporters and TV anchors will say there is no evidence of “widespread voter fraud.” That’s not the issue. I have heard everyone from Rush Limbaugh to Barack Obama express doubt there is widespread voter fraud. Instead, critics of the voter laws are pointing to what could be considered targeted voter fraud. Texas isn’t one of those states where voter fraud is considered rampant. Nevertheless, the Texas Attorney General’s office cites 534 cases of “successfully prosecuted election fraud offenses” since 2005. There are also 510 pending cases against 43 defendants and 386 currently active election fraud investigations. Some of the more prominent cases involve government officials. Dr. Matthews provides one example from Texas but also mentions another case out of Southern California. In that case, a city councilman and others were charged with obtaining fraudulent votes in a runoff election that was decided by one vote. In previous commentaries, I have described elections that were so tainted the elections had to be run again. The title of his commentary is “Voter Fraud is Real, Just Ask the Dead Voters.” He cites a case where a city council candidate committed massive election fraud that included registering a dead man to vote for him. The candidate was a Republican. Dr. Matthews concludes by reminding us of the joke that “only dead people vote for Democrats.” In this case, “a dead man may have voted for a Republican.” Here’s a better slogan: “Make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.”