I was glad to see the Chron run a week-long series of editorials on The Big Lie of “voter fraud”, and how the Republican Party has been pushing it for a lot longer than 2020, and how it has been used to justify all kinds of draconian restrictions on voting. Here’s how they started it off last Monday.
So, if voter fraud is the scourge of our democracy, if it’s capable of stealing a presidential election, as some claim, if it’s widespread enough to qualify for “emergency” status in the state Legislature to ratchet up voting restrictions, then surely, the proof of its magnitude lies in Texas.
Indeed it does. After 15 years of looking for election fraud among the 94 million votes cast in Texas elections since 2005, the Texas Attorney General’s office has dutifully prosecuted all of 155 people. Add to that 19 cases cataloged by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which include federal and county prosecutions, and you get a grand total of 174.
That’s not a typo. It’s not 174,000 or 17,400 or even 1,740.
It’s 174 little ol’ Texas souls.
Together, they represent .000185 percent of the total votes cast — or 1 in 540,000 voters. Statistically, voters are more likely to get struck by lightning than to be prosecuted for voter fraud.
And yet, 174 isn’t nothing. If even one of these individuals perpetrated wide-scale fraud that robbed other Texans of their electoral voice or stole a major election or even resulted in a hefty prison sentence, that might provide a whiff of excuse for the zealous pursuit of fraudulent voters.
Alas, most crimes were so minor that only 33 of the 174 perpetrators went to jail, most for less than a year. An analysis of media accounts and the attorney general’s prosecution records obtained by this editorial board through the Texas Public Information Act shows that most cases ended with plea agreements — pre-trial diversion deals or probation. Of the 33 people who were sentenced to any jail time, none were the criminal masterminds conjured up to instill fear in the hearts of freedom-loving Americans.
We’re all familiar with the numbers, if not these specific numbers. However you look at it, the total number of incidents – which by the way tend to be wildly exaggerated by the likes of Ken Paxton – is ridiculously small. As I’ve said, for going on twenty years now we’ve had the most fanatical vote fraud hunters on the planet operating in our state government, and all they’ve ever been able to find is the weakest of sauces, yet they continue to insist that fraud continues unabated and undetected. I don’t know, maybe the real problem here is that these guys truly suck at their jobs, and that if we had more competent and honest people in those positions we’d be able to have a greater sense of security in our elections. Just a thought.
Anyway. The subsequent editorials in the series:
The Big Lie – Is Crystal Mason proof of Texas election fraud – or of a political ploy? I think we know the answer to that one.
The Big Lie – Texas has been crying ‘election fraud’ since it blocked ex-slaves from voting. However far back you think this goes, you’re underestimating it.
The Big Lie – For 20 years, GOP has groomed their voters to believe in fraud. The big change in recent years has been the attack on the voting process itself, and with proposed legislation in Georgia and Arizona and elsewhere the ability for a partisan body to explicitly overrule local and state election officials who count and verify the results. If a state legislature can say basically “we don’t care who the voters elected, we’re going to declare the candidate we like the winner”, that doesn’t say much for our democracy.
The Big Lie – What happens when a GOP state tells the truth about voter fraud? Ask Kentucky. Good luck finding a current Republican elected official who’s willing to tell the truth, in public, about this.
I remember having conversations with the general counsel for our state’s top election official, the Secretary of State, regarding the GOP state leaders’ (and others) accusations of rampant electoral fraud.
The general counsel worked herself into a pretzel trying to not answer questions and avoid the uncomfortable situation of having to provide non-existent evidence of the supposed electoral fraud.
She had a modicum of integrity and didn’t lie, but she realized the awkwardness of her position attempting to protect the GOP lies.
Agreed. It was an excellent series, and I was really glad to see the Chronicle publish these. Every Texas voter should read them!
The Arizona election audit of Maricopa County is finally underway, after months of lawsuits and legal wrangling.
https://www.oann.com/ariz-audit-underway-officials-finding-signs-of-fraud/
They’re using UV lights and other techniques to check watermarks and to look for folds that should be present on mail in ballots. Will be interesting to see what happens here.
Blue Anon had 4 plus years of conspiracy theories that have been proven false, you’d think we could just humor the Pubs while they conduct their audits.
Bill, please put back on your tin foil hat.