Greg Abbott’s bogus voter fraud crusade
Since taking office in 2001, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has called voter fraud an “epidemic,” and made cracking down on it a top priority. Now, as he runs for governor, he’s touting his ongoing battle to implement the state’s strict voter ID law, arguing that the measure is crucial to combat fraud.
But over the 13 years of Abbott’s tenure, his office can only cite two fraudulent votes that might have been stopped by the ID law.
To put that another way, such votes accounted for one out of every 18.7 million votes cast in Texas during that period—and that’s counting only the general elections for statewide races. Meanwhile, 796,000 Texans, by the state’s own numbers, lack an ID.
The glaring difference between rhetoric and reality in Abbott’s treatment of the issue underscores the comically weak case for voter ID measures, and highlights the lengths that their backers have gone to—still without success—to find evidence of large-scale fraud. It also raises questions about Abbott’s basic intellectual honesty as he works to persuade Texas voters to make him one of the most important Republican office-holders in the country.
The struggle over access to voting is already playing a major role in the governor’s race, where Abbott, a Republican, is favored over state Sen. Wendy Davis, a Democrat, this fall. On the campaign trail, Abbott’s pledge to fight to the death over voter ID is among his top applause lines. Democrats fret that, if left to stand, the law could make it far harder for low-income and minority Texans to cast ballots. Meanwhile, a group of national Democratic operatives supporting Davis is working to register large numbers of new voters—while Republicans and their allies put obstacles in their path.
More here: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/greg-abbott-bogus-voter-fraud-crusade
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