Rhode Island’s state Republican Party accidentally hit upon a novel way to prove voter fraud exists: cause it.
The Providence Journal reports that party officials had to invalidate and reschedule Thursday’s election for a new state party chair. The problem? More people voted than were registered.
The finally tally was 187 votes cast…out of a possible 186. Which is a problem when the margin of victory is a mere one vote (94-93).
“It would not be the R.I. GOP without drama,” said current state GOP chairman Mark Zaccaria.
Of course, this isn’t the first time Republicans have tripped over their shoelaces to prove claims of possible voting fraud.
Weeks before the November elections, the RNC cut ties to a firm employed to register new voters in seven swing-states after Florida prosecutors found evidence of voter registration fraud. In fact, two ex-employees admitted to Florida authorities this month they forged voter registration forms in that state.
This isn’t to say we should shrug off the idea that voter fraud exists: We’ve already seen our first known case of hackers trying to illegally obtain thousands of absentee ballots in a Miami primary election.
But c’mon. When Arkansas’s state senate becomes the latest to pass a voter I.D. bill—again, along party lines—and says the reason is the state’s “terrible history of voter fraud”—again, without examples—supporters aren’t fooling anyone: This is about suppressing Democratic turnout. Like it usually is. What’s more, supporters now appear to be ignoring hackers and the potential for actual fraud to pursue these laws. As Arkansas Times columnist Ernie Dumas noted of voter fraud in his state: “In a dozen years of chasing Arkansas vote thieves in Conway County and elsewhere, [former Arkansas Justice] Tom Glaze identified thousands of illegal votes but none that would have been stopped by a photo ID. The thieves were election officials and their bosses, never individual voters, except the few cases where people registered and voted in several counties. They had driver IDs.” As Pennsylvania’s House Republican leader Mike Turzai famously put it, voter I.D. laws are about one thing:
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