The GOP Fearmongers About Voter Fraud In New Jersey.

[Ian David]

The GOP Fearmongers About Voter Fraud In New Jersey.

When I posted earlier on John Fund, I hadn't realized that his typical voter fraud fearmongering had reached four-alarm-fire status in the rest of the right wing blogosphere, where folks like Jim Geraghty are freaking out about relaxed standards for handing out provisional ballots, which they believe may allow Democrats to steal the election in New Jersey. Over at The Next Right, David Kralik writes:

Its been said that Democrats have two growing electoral bases: trial lawyers and voter fraud.

Republican candidates who get screwed in elections by Democrat / Leftist / ACORN voter fraud is so common that its deserving of its own Wylie Coyote routine.

Naturally, even though it's "so common" Kralik doesn't provide a single link of a proven instance of ACORN stealing an election for a Democrat. Because it hasn't happened.

At any rate, what Geraghty, Kralik and Fund don't tell you about "provisional ballots" in New Jersey is that while getting one is easy, committing fraud with it would be very hard. I spoke with Robert Giles, Director of the New Jersey Division of Elections this morning, who explained that each county in New Jersey has a review board, composed of four individuals, two Republicans and two Democrats, who review each provisional ballot before validating it. In fact, it's fair to say that provisional ballots in general are scrutinized more closely than regular ballots.

{Provisional ballots} aren’t subject to less scrutiny, they’re more scrutinized in fact,"explained Gerry Hebert, a voting rights expert with the Campaign Legal Center who formerly worked in the voting rights section of the Justice Department. "Each one of them are generally reviewed by a verification board to make sure that the person who cast the ballot is in fact a registered voter or eligible to cast that ballot.” Just generally speaking, provisional ballots are far more likely than regular ballots not to be counted. So relying on provisional ballots to steal an election--really stupid. But it doesn't sound that stupid if you don't know that they aren't carefully scrutinized.

More:
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=11&year=2009&base_name=the_gop_fearmongers_about_vote

[DJ13]

1. They benefitted from the two biggest instances of fraud in our history

They really shouldnt have any room to complain.

[Bitwit1234]

2. They should come back with

Like bush in Florida in 2000 and in Ohio in 2004...what could be more appropriate.