Un-Dead Voters
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
NYT
If you watched Fox News last month, you might have heard that more than 900 dead people voted in “recent” South Carolina elections. Right-wingers have used this supposed fraud to bolster the case for voter ID laws.
If you read this blog, you might remember me questioning this zombie tale. Perhaps these people weren’t dead, just listed as dead in state records, which everyone admits are in terrible condition. I also wondered what “recent” meant. The last year? The last ten years? It makes a difference when we’re talking about a truly small fraction of the South Carolina electorate. I argued that the solution to this alleged problem was better record keeping, and regular purging of voter rolls, not ID laws that could end up disenfranchising elderly and minority voters.
Well, readers, I learned today through Think Progress, a liberal blog, that although South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson has still not disclosed the identities of all 900 walking-dead, he has provided six names—and it turns out there’s nary a case of grave-digging identity theft.
The State Election Commission reviewed the names, and found the following (this is a direct quotation from their site)
(More here.)
NYT
If you watched Fox News last month, you might have heard that more than 900 dead people voted in “recent” South Carolina elections. Right-wingers have used this supposed fraud to bolster the case for voter ID laws.
If you read this blog, you might remember me questioning this zombie tale. Perhaps these people weren’t dead, just listed as dead in state records, which everyone admits are in terrible condition. I also wondered what “recent” meant. The last year? The last ten years? It makes a difference when we’re talking about a truly small fraction of the South Carolina electorate. I argued that the solution to this alleged problem was better record keeping, and regular purging of voter rolls, not ID laws that could end up disenfranchising elderly and minority voters.
Well, readers, I learned today through Think Progress, a liberal blog, that although South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson has still not disclosed the identities of all 900 walking-dead, he has provided six names—and it turns out there’s nary a case of grave-digging identity theft.
The State Election Commission reviewed the names, and found the following (this is a direct quotation from their site)
(More here.)
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