I normally don’t ascribe much weight to comments to articles. Some writers think that comments represent an underlying trend and are worthy of building a story around. I don’t.
But I couldn’t help but notice in comments to Deroy Murdock’s story at National Review about the illegal activities of Battleground Texas a comment that this was “registration fraud” and not “voter fraud.”
Put aside the fact the comment represents the familiar phenomena among activist groups and academics to excuse criminal behavior. The more important observation is that it doesn’t matter whether it is “registration fraud” or “voter fraud.” Both are corrupting influences over the process of clean elections. Both deserve to be stamped out. Both compliment each other.
The atmosphere of lawlessness inside Battleground Texas was a shock, and as usual James O’Keefe captured it on video for all to see. But pay attention to the subsequent acceptance of lawlessness by those attempting to differentiate between “registration fraud” and “voter fraud.”
Fraud is fraud, and it has no place in the electoral process. Power flows from the process, and as we have seen for the last 5 years, abuse of power justifies steps to remove fraud from the process.
UPDATE: Deroy Murdock emails me: (used with his permission):
“Yes, the Leftists just excuse one crime after another, don’t they?
Say someone loosens the lock on the back door of a bank. And you and I accuse this person of bank robbery.
“That’s not bank robbery, you liar!”
OK, maybe not precisely. But if the goal is to come back and rob the bank at 2:00 AM, we’re supposed to overlook and excuse (perhaps even applaud?) the lock-picking at 7:00 PM?
The reality is that registration fraud causes more damage to the election system than actual voter fraud. The practice of third party voter registration, and the inevitable fraud that follows it, requires the expenditure of large amounts of resources to detect it, investigate it, document it, and prosecute it. States are simply unwilling to dedicate the necessary resources to train low level workers to detect the fraud, nor pay the salaries of professionals competent and dedicated to investigate it and prosecute it. If the state were willing to allocate funds for enforcement, that money is better spent on voting integrity, where the real damage can be done. The video above would never happen if third party voter registration were abolished. It’s time to run the gauntlet on that fight. What other state function is delegated to untrained private citizens? Drivers license registration? Food stamp registration?