Thursday, July 3, 2008

Election audit finds near error-free voting Still Not Good Enough for Republicans


For years Republicans have demanded voter ID to stamp out the non-existant problem of voter fraud. The underlying reasons are many, but the two most obvious reasons: to disanfranchise typically Democratic voters and to cast doubt on the whole voting process, discouraging some to think their vote won’t count anyway.

Voter fraud does not exist, and the risk of commiting a felony would seem like a steep price to pay to cast a couple of votes for your candidate. But logic and physical proof were never important enough to deter the right wing their political misdirection play. That all has changed, maybe. From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal:

A group calling itself the Wisconsin Audit Committee conducted audits of more than 2,000 ballots cast in the April 1 2008 elections found virtually error-free voting for school board, county supervisor and other offices.

Just as importantly, officials said, the exercise demonstrated that despite recent criticism of the election system, voters should have confidence that votes are counted correctly. They were joined by other county and city clerks, state election officials, and private organizations such as the League of Women Voters.

Stick a fork in the issue, it’s done, finished and over. Just kidding. As long as there is a breath in the Republican Party, there will never be an end to their irrational platform.

The move is not winning over all skeptics. State Sen. Joe Leibham (R-Sheboygan), a leading proponent of requiring voters to present photo IDs, said that while he supports conducting election audits, he does not believe it will prevent all forms of voter fraud. “I still think there are people getting around those processes,” Leibham said.

Like how? Would it have been to difficult for the press to have asked what Leibham meant by “getting around the process.” The problem for Leibham and all other Republicans is that even before the U.S. Supreme Court, ID proponents could not produce any proof one way or the other. The harm of requiring voter ID was also not proved, but as we have seen in the last primary, there were disanfrinchised Nunns and a 97 year old woman with no birth certificate or Social Security card.

“It went like clockwork,” said Neil Albrecht, deputy director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, which audited results from one city ward. Saying that the process took three employees about four hours, Albrecht said he would have no objection to conducting audits after every local election, whether mandated by the federal government or not. Noting past difficulties, he did note, “You don’t want people to get disillusioned to the point that they don’t turn out and vote.”

Yes, disillusioned is good if you’re a Republican
. Just keep saying voter ID over and over until it just “seems” like a good idea. Why not? Heck you have to use an ID to get a video? It’s right there in the Constitution, next to the requirment to show an ID to cash a check at the grocery store.

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