{"id":6821,"date":"2012-11-06T08:38:18","date_gmt":"2012-11-06T13:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=6821"},"modified":"2012-11-06T10:41:16","modified_gmt":"2012-11-06T15:41:16","slug":"is-republican-voter-suppression-real-sure-and-its-mostly-legal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2012\/11\/06\/is-republican-voter-suppression-real-sure-and-its-mostly-legal\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Republican voter suppression real? Sure. And it’s mostly legal."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This debate has simmered in the comment section of the In Box for the last couple of weeks.\u00a0 Is Republican voter suppression real?\u00a0 If so, how big an impact does it have?<\/p>\n

First let me acknowledge up front what many conservatives will see as a bias in the framing of this essay.\u00a0 Some will argue that the real question is Do Democrats really try to skew elections through voter fraud?<\/em><\/p>\n

So let me treat that question first, very briefly.<\/p>\n

There have been many and frequent investigations into this concern over the last decade and they have all concluded that there is no significant or systemic voter fraud being committed by Democrats in major elections.<\/p>\n

Accusations sometimes get made and they are promptly investigated, and it turns out that either the allegations were incorrect, or the improper voting was the result of error rather than malice — and in any event, the number of votes in question are trivial.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s part of the mythology now in the Republican Party that there\u2019s widespread voter fraud across the country,” said Steve Schmidt, the Republican political operative, speaking recently on MSNBC.\u00a0 “In fact, there\u2019s not.”<\/p>\n

The reasons that voting fraud by Democrats doesn’t occur are pretty simple:<\/p>\n

First, the voting systems in most of the key battleground states are controlled by Republicans.\u00a0 Second, the system is monitored closely by attorneys and civil servants from all sides.<\/p>\n

Finally, and most significantly, Democrats have no motive to cheat in this way.\u00a0 Democrats have a vast pool of voters available at their disposal.<\/p>\n

Their challenge isn’t a shortage of bodies — which would make it necessary to recruit illegal immigrants or repeat voters — it’s a problem of motivation.<\/p>\n

So rather than engineers some massive, complex and legally risky scheme to get people to go to the polls fraudulently, Democrats have instead created a massive, complex and legally proper system to get legitimate voters to go to the polls.<\/p>\n

It’s cheaper, it’s more effective, and at the end of the day you don’t go to prison for it.<\/p>\n

Now let’s pivot to Republicans, where the question of motive is very different.\u00a0 Republicans do, in fact, have a problem with an actual shortage of voters.<\/p>\n

Demographically speaking, if all eligible Americans voted, Republican politicians would have very little chance of winning.\u00a0 They would be overwhelmed by the minority and young voters who tend to vote Democratic in high percentages.<\/p>\n

In a 1980 speech, one of the founders of the modern conservative movement, Paul Weyrich, addressed this dilemma, laying out an argument that has shaped much of the political climate since.<\/p>\n

“How many of our conservative Christians have what I call the goo-goo<\/em> syndrome?” Weyrich asked contemptuously.\u00a0 “Good government.\u00a0 They want everybody to vote.”<\/p>\n

“I don’t want everybody to vote. [Weyrich continued.] Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n