Voter fraud doesn't usually happen. But when it does, it's usually by Republicans.
by David Atkins
Voter fraud: it almost never happens. When it does, it usually gets caught. And it's usually by Republicans like this guy:
A Shorewood man has been charged with more than a dozen counts of illegal voting, accused of casting multiple ballots in four elections in 2011 and 2012, including five in the 2012 gubernatorial recall.
Robert D. Monroe, 50, used addresses in Shorewood, Milwaukee and Indiana, according to the complaint, and cast some votes in the names of his son and his girlfriend's son.
According to the complaint:
Monroe cast two ballots in the April 2011 Supreme Court election, two in the August 2011 Alberta Darling recall election, five in the Scott Walker-Tom Barrett recall, one illegal ballot in an August 2012 primary, and two ballots in the November 2012 presidential election.
In the presidential election, Monroe cast an in-person absentee ballot in Shorewood on Nov. 1 and drove a rental car to Lebanon, Ind., where he showed his Indiana driver's license to vote in person on election day, Nov. 6, the complaint charges. Monroe owns a house there, according to the complaint.
The 26-page criminal complaint was filed Friday in Milwaukee County Circuit Court and is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf, one of the prosecutors involved in the John Doe investigations of Gov. Scott Walker's staff when he was county executive and the now-halted probe into fundraising by Walker's gubernatorial campaign.
The complaint indicates the investigation started in Waukesha County as an inquiry into possible double voting by Monroe's son, who lives in Waukesha. But the son denied any knowledge of requesting an absentee ballot from his father's Shorewood address, and the investigation shifted back to Milwaukee County.
Steven Benen has more examples of Republican vote fraudsters:
Remember the Nevada voter who cast multiple ballots in the same election because she wanted to test the integrity of the elections system? She was a Republican voter.
Remember the Texas voter who cast absentee ballots on behalf of his girlfriend for the five years after she died? He was a Republican voter, too.
Remember the Indiana secretary of state convinced to voter fraud? Yep, a Republican.
I don’t doubt that there are examples from the other side of the aisle, but they just haven’t left the kind of impression these amazing cases have.
There are a few cases of Dem-leaning voters out there, but a scramble of news stories tends to turn up more on the GOP side.
Again, this isn't a big problem--and that's really the whole point. It's really rare. It's almost always caught. But there's little question which side has less compunction about cheating.
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