Election integrity but not elected integrity
by Tom Sullivan
It's a cliche anymore to say that people who get distraught when women they don't know want an abortion show much less concern for other people's children once they're born. But a headline from the inbox yesterday reminds me this is not the only area of public policy where such behavior holds.
One of the state's GOP websites regularly reproduces in whole press releases from the Voter Integrity Project, North Carolina's spinoff of True the Vote. This week's 10-alarm headline? Curbside voting. Did you know that "there is no actual 'proof' of disability required" for the disabled or aged to use curbside voting? That you don't have to show a photo ID at curbside voting? And that George Soros-backed groups will use this "curbside loophole" to help "drive-by voters" circumvent the state's new voter ID law?
No code-speak there, huh?
But it strikes me that all the alarmism over the integrity of elections by people who devote themselves to undermining public confidence in them dissipates like morning fog once candidates take office. Ensuring only their preferred candidates come to term is what's important. The integrity of those electeds and the actual legislative process afterwards? Not so much.
People whose only power is at the polls are a threat to democracy. Money wielding unprecedented influence in the halls of government at both the state and national level is much less of a concern.