What incredible irony. More than one thousand outraged Bernie Sanders Democrats, complaining that an election had been stolen because voters had not been required to show proper ID before casting their ballots.
That was the scene at last weekend’s Democratic convention in California, where the candidate of the Sanders wing was declared the loser by a razor-thin margin.
Apparently voter ID requirements are a good thing and essential to an honest election when only Democrats are voting, but they are an evil attempt to suppress the vote when applied to elections for public office.
Unfortunately, there seems to be no chance that Democrats will learn from the California “steal”.
If anything, the narrow loss of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan to Trump last year has increased their desire to protect opportunities for vote fraud. Removing those opportunities might remove their last chance of electing a president and congressional majorities.
When President Trump issued Executive Order 13799 on May 16, establishing a bipartisan commission under the leadership of Vice President Pence to “promote fair and honest Federal elections”, Democrats reacted with hysteria. Vote fraud is “an imaginary problem” stated New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. The purpose is “to increase voter suppression” said Sen. Bernie Sanders. Sen. Charles Schumer accused Trump of “constricting the access to vote.” Rep. Nancy Pelosi declared that it was “clearly intended to accelerate the vile voter suppression efforts in states across the nation.”
Yet the evidence shows that our nation’s system of voting is at risk. Even The Washington Post ran a front-page story about an illegal alien who “had been voting for more than a decade.” More than 500 people are known to have voted in North Carolina last year even though they were not eligible. (North Carolina’s race for governor was exceptionally close, raising the possibility that it might have been affected if there was a little more undetected fraud.) Kansas identified more than 100 cases of attempted or successful efforts by illegal aliens to register.
After a Democratic activist was caught registering 19 dead people in Virginia, a study of just eight to the state’s 133 counties and cities found that 1,046 non-citizens had registered and voted.
An Alabama woman was convicted of absentee ballot fraud on a scale that tipped a close election for city commissioner. An Arizona couple were convicted of 15 counts of vote fraud involving both registration and voting. There are also a number of documented cases of people being registered in two states and voting in both.
Nor should we forget Melowese Richardson, who was convicted of voting multiple times for Obama in Ohio during the 2012 election. She justified her crime by saying, “I, after registering thousands of people, certainly wanted my vote to count, so I voted.”
Despite this well-documented danger to our electoral system, there are some bright spots. One is that Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach will serve as Vice Chairman of Trump’s Commission on Election Integrity. Kobach has successfully prosecuted voting fraud cases, which are often ignored. (North Carolina failed to prosecute a woman who confessed to voting under her mother’s name.) Kobach will not allow the Democrats on the Commission to sweep this problem under the rug.
There is also reason to hope that the Federal courts will be transformed from election fraud enablers into protectors of election honesty. Recent court decisions have ruthlessly struck down most requirements for voter ID, and the 4-4 split on the Supreme Court has allowed the Appeals Courts, packed by Obama, to have the final word. The addition of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court may turn the tide there. Trump’s appointments to the Appeals Courts will also slowly overcome the Democratic majorities that currently exist in most circuits.
There will be no quick victory in the fight for honest elections, but perhaps the trend will soon be clearly moving in the right direction.
