Across the country, Republicans are pushing "voter ID" laws that would effectively serve as voter suppression and drive down the votes of likely Democratic Party voters. To justify this push, they're hyping the fear of "voter fraud"—despite no evidence that it exists to any significant degree. A new voter I.D. law in Pennsylvania, signed by Republican governor Tom Corbett, could disenfranchise up to 750,000 eligible voters, reports have found.
On PoliticsNation Monday, Jim Burn, the state's Democratic Party chairman noted something that provides a pretty compelling rebuttal to the vote fraud myth—and helps shed light on the GOP's real motivation.
Burn: When Governor Corbett was Attorney General, he prosecuted zero cases of voter fraud.Host Al Sharpton: How many?Burn: Zero.
That fact was reported in May by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
In other words, Corbett didn't seem to think voter fraud was such a problem when he was the state's chief law enforcement officer. Or at least, he didn't seem able to find sufficient evidence to prosecute any cases. But now all of a sudden as governor, it's such a threat that the state needs to take measures that couldn't prevent three quarters of a million voters—mostly low-income and minority voters, of course—from casting ballots.
As a reminder: There have actually been more documented cases of shark attacks in Florida since 2008, for example, than there have been documented cases of voter fraud.