Voter fraud is so rare “you’re more likely to get hit by lightning than find a case of prosecutorial voter fraud,” according to Judith Browne-Dianis, co-director of the liberal Advancement Project.
Apparently lightning has struck very hard in a local primary election according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune whose only real reference to voter fraud in the past two years was to reprint a St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial mocking the possibility of its existence as "GOP voter suppression efforts." What has made the Star Tribune suddenly discover the (GASP!) existence of voter fraud is that it was allegedly perpetrated by one Democrat candidate against another Democrat in a primary. Here is the Star Tribune finally acknowledging the existence of this "rare" crime but only because it involves Democrat vs Democrat:
The Hennepin County attorney’s office is investigating whether a private mailbox center in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood has been improperly used as an address for more than 140 voters.
State records show that 419 Cedar Avenue S. has been used by some of the voters as far back as 2008.
No one lives at the address, which is a Somali-dominated commercial building housing several small businesses and a popular mail center. Several dozen apartments upstairs use a different building number. Records also show that more than 90 of the registrants at that address have voted in previous elections, although it’s unclear how many voted while registered at 419 Cedar.
The investigation reignites a long-running debate about voter fraud in Minnesota and is the latest flash point in the highly competitive race between Capitol stalwart Rep. Phyllis Kahn and Mohamud Noor, who would become the first Somali-American elected to the Legislature if elected. Kahn was denied the DFL endorsement in April due in part to Noor’s ability to turn out Somali supporters. An August primary will decide the fate of the race.
After discovering the number of registrants at 419 Cedar, Brian Rice, an attorney for Kahn’s campaign, filed a petition asking the county to investigate.
“Every person needs to know they can only vote where they live,” Rice said in an e-mail. “Any person registered at 419 Cedar cannot be allowed to vote from that address.”
So does that mean that Democrat Kahn would support the efforts of organizations such as of True The Vote? Of course not. However, suddenly she is in favor of voter integrity when it comes to her own primary race against a fellow Democrat suspected of perpetrating voter fraud. A bit of karmatic kickback is involved here since Democrats in Minnesota have been loudly opposed to stronger voter ID requirements:
Conservatives for years have argued that the state’s system was vulnerable to fraud and pushed for greater voter security. Democrats, in their attempts to broaden access, insisted that fraud was minimal and that Republicans wanted to depress turnout.
“There is a side of me that is kind of chuckling,” Sen. Scott Newman, R-Hutchinson, said Monday. Newman sponsored the failed constitutional amendment that would have required voters to present photo ID at the polls. “This particular story lends credence to what some of us have tried to accomplish.”
Newman said voters in 2012 rejected the idea that a voter ID requirement should be enshrined in the constitution but, “the issue of voter fraud has never gone away.”
The suspicion is that this example of voter fraud is being reported in the Star Tribune only because it is a case of Democrat vs Democrat. It remains to be seen if the same newspaper will treat the future charge of voter fraud by a Republican candidate against a Democrat campaign the same way or will it be written off as a "GOP voter suppression effort?"
