Nov.22

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Houston, We Have Voter Fraud

The catch-all argument that Republicans make in cases related to voter access, voting, etc., including the one in Pennsylvania (see above) is "voter fraud." As in, it's a serious problem, and we must make it very difficult to vote so as to make certain that no illegitimate ballots sneak through. If tossing out thousands of legitimate ballots is the price of that, then so be it.

Yesterday, there was a conviction in a case involving the single-largest case of voter fraud uncovered during the 2020 elections. Kim Taylor applied for, and received, a bunch of absentee ballots, which she then submitted. The total number of phony ballots was... 52, and she did it to help her husband Jim win the Republican nomination for IA-04, the seat then held by Steve King (R). It did not come within a country mile of working; Jim Taylor got only 8% of the vote.

Now, Kim Taylor has been convicted on all 52 counts, each of them carrying a maximum sentence of 5 years. She surely won't end up doing 260 years in the clink, but she's certainly going away for some meaningful period of time. Meanwhile, this case serves as a reminder of several things about voter fraud:

• It's rare.
• It's usually discovered.
• It's nearly impossible to execute at the level needed to swing an election.
• Most of the recent culprits have been Republicans.
• The most effective avenue for potential fraud is absentee ballots, an avenue that GOP anti-fraud efforts rarely focus upon.

That ends today's lesson. (Z)