In order to rationalize voter-suppression tactics, Republicans have to believe that voter fraud — which is incredibly rare — is rampant in the United States, tearing at the fabric of American democracy. They’re wrong, but to acknowledge the truth would be to admit that GOP efforts like voter-ID laws are wholly unnecessary.
The trouble comes when Republican activists try to test their theories.
A Nevada Republican arrested for voter fraud in the 2012 election, after claiming she was trying to test the system’s integrity, pled guilty and accepted a plea deal Thursday, forcing her to pay almost $2,500 and promise to stay out of trouble.
Roxanne Rubin, 56, a casino worker on the Las Vegas Strip, was arrested on Nov. 3, 2012 after trying to vote twice, once at her poling site in Henderson and then at a second site in Las Vegas. The poll workers at the second site said that she had already voted, but Rubin said that she hadn’t and insisted on casting a ballot, which the poll workers refused to allow her to do.
According to Rubin’s story, she wasn’t trying to commit fraud to benefit her preferred candidates; she was trying to commit fraud to prove a point.
“This has always been an issue with me. I just feel the system is flawed,” Rubin told the AP. “If we’re showing ID for everything else, why wouldn’t we show our ID in order to vote?”
First, it would appear voting-rights advocates are in Roxanne Rubin’s debt — she inadvertently helped prove just misguided her party’s efforts really are. And second, why is it that when actual, rare examples of voter fraud pop up in reality, they tend to involve Republicans? For what it’s worth, Rubin was sentenced to pay a fine, complete 100 hours of community service, and attend an impulse control course.
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