Both the New York Times, a few days ago (here), and the Washington Post, today, have blasted a new Missouri law requiring voters to have a photo ID as “vote suppression.” Jabari Asim, the WaPo’s OpEd writer, dismisses the fraud prevention as pure pretext for vote suppression. “Besides,” he writes, “Missouri hasn’t exactly suffered from an epidemic of imposters showing up to vote.”
Oh, really? In recent elecctions dead Missourians voting have been almost as numberous as the famous cadaverous voters in Mayor Daley’s Chicago. As Gateway Pundit pointed out last month, vote fraud seems to hve become a way of life for Missouri Democrats:
Nov. 18 2004: Nine precinct committeemen appear before a federal grand jury probing vote fraud during the Nov. 2 election.
December 2004: In St. Louis Six volunteers pleaded guilty in December of dozens of election law violations for filling out the cards with names of the dead and other bogus information. One still faces charges.
January 21, 2005: Kelvin Ellis, a top administrator at East St. Louis City Hall, was indicted for plotting to kill a witness in the year long East St. Louis, Illinois federal vote fraud investigation.
February 10, 2005: In St. Louis Nonaresa Montgomery was found guilty by a jury of perjury in a trial in St. Louis Circuit Court in the St. Louis vote fraud trial.
March 22, 2005: Precinct committeemen Leroy Scott Jr., 46; Lillie Nichols, 51; Terrance R. Stith, 43; and his wife, precinct worker Sandra Stith, 54; plead guilty to one count each of vote-buying.
March 23, 2005: The chairman of the East St. Louis Democratic Central Committee and councilman Charles Powell Jr. is charged with conspiracy to commit election fraud. Charged with conspiracy as well as election fraud are East St. Louis City Hall employees Jesse Lewis, Sheila Thomas, Kelvin Ellis, and Yvette Johnson.
June 29, 2005: All five defendants are convicted on all counts.
….
The Federal Election Commission has imposed a $20,000 fine on the Missouri Democratic Party for violating federal campaign finance laws during the 2002 election.
The fine – part of a negotiated settlement – comes less than a year after the party paid a separate $110,000 fine to resolve similar allegations from the 2000 election.
Evidence of voter fraud in Missouri is voluminous. Here’s one example, testimony about the 2000 election:
I would like to focus on the events in St. Louis, Missouri, both during the election of 2000 and thereafter. I believe these events point out the real costs “Motor Voter” has imposed on the United States.
Since last fall, “Operation Big Vote” has been active in the St. Louis area as part of a national campaign — promoted by Democrats — to register more African-American voters and get them to the polling booth. This effort delivered 3,800 voter registration cards to the St. Louis Elections Board on the February 7, 2001, the deadline for the March mayoral primary in that city.
A cursory check of the registration cards turned up questionable names. Shortly thereafter, election board workers spent an entire day calling the names listed on the cards and found that nearly all of them were fraudulent. Many of them sought to register prominent people, dead or alive – as well as at least three deceased aldermen and a dog. The media have reported that close examinations have turned up cards that attempted to register prominent businessmen using their childhood addresses, a former deputy mayor using an old address for an alderman, and a former alderman who has been dead for years. They also found cards for convicted felons and for residents who did not seek to register themselves in the primary. The woman at the center of this vote fraud investigation “doesn’t deny” that some of her canvassers may have turned in bogus voter registration cards. A grand jury convened by St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce has begun interviewing witnesses regarding the 3,800 bogus registration cards. St. Louis police have obtained a warrant and searched the house of the Operation Big Vote director for evidence.
Perhaps photo IDs are a bad idea (although I don’t think they are). Perhaps no policy should ever be implemented that “disproportionately affects those who have been disfranchised in the past, such as the poor and racial minorities,” as Mr. Asim seems to think. But it’s a mistake to oppose this measure based on the purity of Missouri politics.
I agree about the Missouri problem, but we need to make the proper geographic distinctions here – East St. Louis is in ILLINOIS.
Good point, though Gateway Pundit did at least identify East St. Louis as being in Illinois, even while listing fraud there as a Missouri problem.
John, “There’s no evidence of voter fraud” has become the official talking point of the far left in opposing voter ID laws. The New York Times trots it out in every single discussion of the issue.
Here’s the thing: how the !#@$%$ would they know? Without requiring ID, there’s no way to identify whether there’s fraud. So the Times opposes the only method for revealing the fraud, and then says, “Ha! You can’t prove fraud!”
Photo ID is certainly worth doing, but I think it’s clear the bigger problem with ballot fraud lies with absentee ballots, not people voting in person.
Once again those evil Republicans are trying to suppress the graveyard vote.