(Tip of the hat to Quorum Report for bringing this to my attention)
Senate Democrats yesterday sent a letter to Attorney General Greg Abbott, requesting that he testify before today’s Senate committee of the whole on the voter ID bill, SB 362.
The Dems, who want to kill the attempt to require would-be voters to present a photo ID in addition to their voter registration card at the polls, wrote:
As Attorney General, you have taken an extremely active role in your duty to enforce voting laws throughout the state. In March of 2006, you announced a significant effort to stamp out the “epidemic of voter fraud” in Texas. … Three years and thousands of taxpayer dollars spent, it would be instructive for the Senate and public to hear the results of your efforts.
Left unsaid – because they’d prefer it as sworn testimony – is that the $1.5 million dollar investigation of the “epidemic” turned up only 26 cases of minor fraud, all against minorities and Democrats, and 18 were cases of perfectly legal ballots being illegally handled by other parties, but not thwarting the voter’s intent. No cases of an improper election result was found, and none of the cases would have been prevented by a voter ID requirement.
This article appears in March 6 • 2009.