Republican Secretary of State Dianna Duran and New Mexico Republicans have trotted out New Mexico GOP Executive Director Bryan Watkins as the most recent talking head to champion their effort to sell New Mexicans the bill of goods that our state is being overrun with systematic voter fraud.
In Watkins’ op-ed, he argues that we should spend millions of taxpayer dollars adopting a policy that will diminish Hispanics’, senior citizens’, Native Americans’ and African-Americans’ rights to vote.
But to support his case he is able to cite only two – just two – cases of voter fraud in New Mexico. (One of which was actually a voter registration case, 20 years ago, that involved zero actual votes.) Nevertheless, for argument’s sake, let’s say both hold water as actual cases of voter fraud in New Mexico.
Since 1992, more than 5.3 million ballots have been cast in New Mexico. Factor in the two cases that the New Mexico GOP is building its entire argument on, and that comes out to an alleged fraud rate of .000000037 percent of ballots cast. And they had to go back 20 years just to get the percentage up that high!
And considering that in both cases the perpetrators were caught, it would seem to me that the facts of Watkins’ argument go to show that election law in New Mexico is already pretty good.
Not much to hang your hat on there.
This is a partisan attempt to intimidate voters and a massive waste of taxpayer dollars, and Duran’s inclusion of State Police in the probe is a cynical attempt to hide a nasty political tactic behind a curtain of public safety and up the ante on voter intimidation.
The real issue here is that both nationally and locally, the GOP knows that they have to stop intimidated and disenfranchised groups from voting if they want to stand a chance in the 2012 elections.
It’s that simple.
It should come as no surprise that the groups who are most likely to not have the proper ID required for voting – seniors, African-Americans, Native Americans and Latinos – are by and large traditional Democratic constituencies.
Voter suppression is a tool long used by Republicans to keep the poor, minorities and the elderly away from the polls on Election Day. Instead of encouraging wider participation – the lifeblood of any democracy – and making New Mexicans feel comfortable about voting, Republicans are trying to exclude eligible voters and fool the average New Mexican into believing that our democracy is anything but free and fair.
Everyday New Mexicans are struggling. The state budget is ballooning and unemployment is way too high. But instead of proposing solutions, our governor, secretary of state and New Mexico Republicans have decided to focus on their own political future.
They’re trying to pull a fast one with talk of voter fraud and restrictive voter ID laws, and they’re using your money to do it. Here’s a simple question to ask in these tough economic times: Is spending millions on a voter ID Law and fraud cases that go nowhere really a good use of your tax dollars?