Democrats prefer exploiting voter fraud

October 19, 2004

BY JOHN O'SULLIVAN

Here's the first question for your U.S. election night fun quiz as you wait impatiently for the early results: Which candidate would the Sept. 11 terrorists be voting for if they had survived their own attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center?

You think that an unfair question? Not really. Eight of the 19 hijackers could have registered to vote in Virginia and Florida while they were planning their attacks. They were not U.S. citizens, admittedly. They were not even in America legally, having over-stayed their visas. And they certainly did not have the best interests of the nation at heart.

But they could have turned up at the voting booth on Nov. 2 --and it would have been an offense in 33 states for anyone to ask for evidence either of their identity or of their citizenship. If an election official had done so, lawyers for the Democratic National Committee, activist groups for the poor, La Raza, and the media would have been crying ''voter suppression'' and demanding the official be punished. And nothing unusual would have happened.

In recent years voter fraud has been a major problem. It has got ten steadily worse since President Bill Clinton signed the ''Motor Voter'' Act that made voter registration virtually automatic while removing most safeguards against electoral fraud. According to Karen Saranita of the Institute for Fair Elections in California, people have registered their dogs and cats to vote. Illegal immigrants have cast votes in large numbers.

But the sheer scale of fraud in recent years has revived interest.

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