{"id":4337,"date":"2007-03-29T15:59:43","date_gmt":"2007-03-29T22:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bradblog.com\/?p=4337"},"modified":"2007-03-30T02:44:11","modified_gmt":"2007-03-30T09:44:11","slug":"brennan-center-oped-in-wapo-the-myth-of-voter-fraud-and-the-us-attorney-purge-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=4337","title":{"rendered":"Brennan Center Op\/Ed in WaPo: &#8216;The Myth of Voter Fraud&#8217; and the U.S. Attorney Purge Scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From attorneys Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/03\/28\/AR2007032801969.html?nav%3Dhcmodule&#038;sub=AR\">in today&#8217;s <i>WaPo<\/i>&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"pullquote pqRight\"><!--Firing a prosecutor for failing to find wide voter fraud is like firing a park ranger for failing to find Sasquatch.--><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"media\">As Congress probes the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, attention is centering on who knew what, and when. It&#8217;s just as important to focus on &#8220;why,&#8221; such as the reason given for the firing of at least one of the U.S. attorneys, John McKay of Washington state: failure to prosecute the phantom of individual voter fraud.<\/p>\n<p>Allegations of voter fraud &#8212; someone sneaking into the polls to cast an illicit vote &#8212; have been pushed in recent years by partisans seeking to justify proof-of-citizenship and other restrictive ID requirements as a condition of voting. Scare stories abound on the Internet and on editorial pages, and they quickly become accepted wisdom.<\/p>\n<p>But the notion of widespread voter fraud, as these prosecutors found out, is itself a fraud. Firing a prosecutor for failing to find wide voter fraud is like firing a park ranger for failing to find Sasquatch.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>And three more notable money quotes from the piece worth running here&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"pullquote pqLeft\"><!--[T]hose chasing imaginary fraud are actually taking preventive steps that would disenfranchise millions of real live Americans.--><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"media\">Proven voter fraud, statistically, happens about as often as death by lightning strike.<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\n[T]hose chasing imaginary fraud are actually taking preventive steps that would disenfranchise millions of real live Americans.<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\nPressure on prosecutors to join a witch hunt for individual voter fraud is a scandal, not just for the Justice Department but for voters seeking to exercise their most basic right.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From attorneys Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law in today&#8217;s WaPo&#8230; As Congress probes the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, attention is centering on who knew what, and when. It&#8217;s just as important to focus on &#8220;why,&#8221; such as the reason given for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[223],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-4337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dept-of-justice","bb-type-bradblog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4337"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=4337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}