Election Rigging, Texas Style

In case you had any doubt that the nationwide Republican effort to pass restrictive voter ID laws is intended to obstruct voting by Democrats, take a look at this article in the Dallas Observer web site. And watch the You Tube video.

Debbie Georgatos, running for Chair of the Dallas County, TX Republican Party, makes it clear that the purpose of voter ID is to "prevent Dallas County from becoming a super-blue-hole," drawing an analogy to the black holes in space and implying that the only reason Democrats win is voter fraud.

By the way, I voted in Dallas County in 1992. The system in use then was vastly better than the one in use in Florida in 2000. Fraud is not a problem. Not in Dallas County nor anywhere else in Texas; not in North Carolina either or anywhere else in the United States.

Which doesn't mean there is no rigging of elections. One means of election rigging is selective voter suppression, which is what voter ID is all about. Another way is to redraw election districts in favor of the party with the pen. That is going on in North Carolina as we speak. Both parties do it. It is perfectly legal, so long as the new districts comply with US and North Carolina Supreme Court decisions and Department of Justice requirements. Another technique is to harass and intimidate voters and election officials.

If you want to steal an election, though, the least likely approach is to have individual voters impersonate some legally registered voter. Not only is it a felony if you get caught, it can't possibly be done on a scale great enough to affect an election. Voter suppression has a much greater chance of success. Republican movers and shakers know this. Voter ID is an expensive, disruptive effort to suppress votes.