About That Voter Fraud Thing…

Today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch (Richmond, Virginia) posted an article about a Washington-based nonprofit group called Voter Participation Center which is sending voter registration forms to Virginia residents. Sounds like a good idea–a major election is coming up, let’s get out the vote. However, there is a slight problem–the voter registration forms are being sent to deceased relatives, children, family pets and others ineligible to vote.

The article reports:

The organization has been mass-mailing the forms — pre-populated with key information such as names and addresses — to primarily Democratic-leaning voting blocs such as young adults, unmarried women, African-Americans and Latinos.

In a letter to Cuccinelli’s office and the State Board of Elections, Kathryn Bieber, an attorney for the Romney campaign, calls for an investigation into the matter by law-enforcement officials, claiming that the mailings appear to violate “at least one and maybe several Virginia laws aimed at ensuring a fair election.”

Bieber refers to the mailings as “tactics that amount to, or at the very least induce, voter registration fraud,” and says the issue “presents a very significant risk to the proper administration of the upcoming general election.”

Citing a Sunday Richmond Times-Dispatch story that brought the mailings to light, the letter also asks the State Board of Elections to require registrars to reject all pre-populated voter registration applications from the group and review the eligibility of all Virginians who have registered in the past two months.

Now we all know how the major media will report this (if they report it at all). The story line will be that the Romney campaign is attempting to suppress the vote. Yes, they are. They are attempting to suppress the vote of dead people, children, family pets, and other groups not eligible to vote.

The article further reports:

On Monday, the Voter Participation Center responded to the Sunday Times-Dispatch story, stating in a letter on its website that “imperfections in the VPC vendors’ lists — while regrettable and unfortunate — should not be the reason or the excuse to call an entire process that is working into question.”

Justin Riemer, the State Board of Elections’ deputy secretary, said forms have been sent by the group to deceased infants, out-of-state family members, and non-U.S. citizens, among others.

Anyone who promotes voter fraud needs to remember that (aside from the legal aspect) voter fraud makes everyone’s vote count less–even the people perpetrating the fraud.

Enhanced by Zemanta