Making Voter Fraud Respectable

Jack Shafer at Slate has given up on the attempt to say that voter fraud is not a problem. He defends it as an old American tradition in “Stolen Elections—as American as Apple Pie”

It’s called the “Clinton Defense.” After denying that Clinton had sex with Monica Lewinski, his defenders then said that .. sure he had sex, but everyone lies about sex.

So now we have the excuse that everyone cheats to win an election. Everyone makes Mickey Mouse eligible to vote. Everyone has the dead vote absentee ballots. Everyone buses the homeless to as many polling places as possible to vote under fake names. Everyone does it and we should not get all bent out of shape about stolen elections.

Shafer:

Getting a place on the short list of the greatest voter frauds would require something a lot more brazen than smuggling a few thousand ineligible voters onto the rolls, as ACORN has been accused of doing by some critics. Even a casual fanning of U.S. history books reveals hundreds of more blatant examples, including ballot stuffing, the purchase of votes, counterfeit votes, discarded ballots, voter intimidation, and bloody murder.

Glenn Reynolds:

GETTING AHEAD OF THE STORY: Stolen Elections—as American as Apple Pie. Old spin: Fraud is a myth! New spin: What's wrong with fraud? As I've said before, if the NRA were registering Mickey Mouse to vote, the press would be a lot more upset about it than it is about ACORN.

Again:

CNN: Ex-ACORN worker: 'I paid the price' for voter registration fraud.

Clifton Mitchell helped register nearly 2,000 voters for the community group ACORN. But not one of them actually existed. "I regret it. I paid the price for it," he said.

Mitchell was convicted last year and spent nearly three months in prison. He's one of the few ACORN workers convicted of voter registration fraud.

Read the whole thing. But remember, voter fraud used to be a myth, but in the new spin, it's all-American!