Voter Fraud happens, but is relatively rare because it only typically gains you one lousy vote, its a felony and leaves evidence. (dead voters, double voting, illegal registrations). When the US Attorney scandal broke, it was clear that Republicans and the White House were pushing for frivolous voter fraud charges mostly against Democrats that study after study shows are rare to nonexistent.
On the other hand, ELECTION FRAUD is the proper name when insiders (typically) get involved, it is a lot more interesting since they have the capability, often, to deliver the desired result: THE ELECTION RESULT. Particularly in this day and age when the first counts announced on election night for both optical scan systems and touch screen systems feature trade secret software and their completely secret counts (even elections officials don't know the counts or have access to the internal workings of the software) the magic numbers are just taken on faith. THis ought to be a form of Election Fraud all by itself, not showing your work. I used to get in trouble for that in high school math class, and election math is only 1 plus 1 equals 2. Any election insider could easily sell the election. Luckily controlling all or part of the the world's greatest country is of so little attraction that nobody would be tempted to cheat on computers where it would leave essentially no evidence, right?
But anyway, the rhetoric is now changing and the Bush Administration and others are referring to ELECTION FRAUD and trying to steer clear of VOTER FRAUD. The Missouri Star gives some good examples, note how Dems and the press use "voter fraud" but Rove and Bush use "election fraud":
WASHINGTON - Under President Bush, the Justice Department has backed laws that narrow minority voting rights and pressed U.S. attorneys to investigate
voter fraud - policies that critics say have been intended to suppress Democratic votes. Bush, his deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, and other Republican political advisers have highlighted voting rights issues and
what Rove has called the "growing problem" of election fraud by Democrats since Bush took power in the tumultuous election of 2000, a race ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Bush administration's emphasis on voter fraud is drawing scrutiny from the Democratic Congress, which has begun investigating the firings of eight U.S. attorneys - two of whom say that their ousters may have been
prompted by the Bush administration's dissatisfaction with their investigations of alleged Democratic voter fraud. Bush has said he's heard complaints from Republicans about some U.S. attorneys' "lack of vigorous prosecution of election fraud cases," and administration e-mails have shown that Rove and other White House officials were involved in the dismissals and in selecting a Rove aide to replace one of the U.S. attorneys. Nonetheless, Bush has refused to permit congressional investigators to question Rove and others under oath.
{...}
Frank DiMarino, a former federal prosecutor who served six U.S. attorneys in Florida and Georgia during an 18-year Justice Department career, said that too much emphasis on voter fraud investigations "smacks of trying to use prosecutorial power to investigate and potentially indict political enemies."
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/16963344.htm You heard it here first: Bush complains about lack of vigorous prosecution of ELECTION FRAUD cases!
The voter fraud pressure is the scandal, the lack of vigorous election fraud investigation is a REAL ISSUE. In fact, following up on several convictions for felonies for rigging the presidential recount in Ohio in 2004, an Ohio criminal prosecutor is looking deeper. http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2506
Let's not forget, Bush wants to be "fully cooperative" with and vigorously prosecute "election fraud"!
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ANNOUNCING: THE NEW ELECTIONS ORGANIZATION: PSEPHOS Psephos Means Elections (in Greek) www.psephos-us.com (under construction).
PSEPHOS will engage on behalf of democracy in Deliberation first, Education Second, and Litigation, if the first two fail.
"The compromise of the voting right IS the violation of the voting right."
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