Donald Mayew: Bogus claims of election fraud | Letters | kenoshanews.com
Republican legislators across the country have enacted so-called voter reform legislation to combat claimed massive voter fraud which led to the election being stolen from Donald Trump (the Big Lie). Our Wisconsin Legislature, under the leadership of Robin Vos, jumped on this bandwagon with new laws designed to discourage certain citizens from voting.
Are such laws justified in light of empirical evidence?
An answer may be found in the efforts of the former Kansas Republican Secretary of State, Kris Kobach. In 2010, he set out to prove and prosecute claimed massive vote fraud in Kansas. His results proved that voter fraud was virtually non-existent in Kansas.
In eight years he obtained nine convictions in a state with two million registered voters. Among these were older citizens who mistakenly voted in two different places where they owned property. A college student voted by absentee ballot in her home state and voted months later in Kansas, both times for Trump. A former Republican congressman was charged with felony voting offenses.
The conservative Heritage Foundation supports the argument of Trump and Kobach of massive voter fraud in this country. Their web site lists 15 convictions for voter fraud in Kansas from 2005 forward. This is one offense per year over a 15-year period. Heritage further reports 1,322 proven instances of voter fraud in the U.S over a 40-year time frame among our 168 million voters. It is this weak foundation on which Republican legislators have built their case for these laws. Their unsubstantiated claims of fraud are an excuse to discourage certain citizens from participating in our democracy. Without such bogus claims they are unable to make out a factual case for these restrictive laws.
Donald Mayew, Pleasant Prairie
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