The New York Times is at it again.
Today\’s lead editorial is titled “The Big Lie Behind Voter ID Laws”. You can read it by clicking here.
But who is telling “The Big Lie”?
Let\’s find out. Here is the first part of this editorial – the part which tells you about “The Big Lie” – in rust…with my comments in blue.
ElectionDay is three weeks off, and Republican officials and legislatorsaround the country are battling down to the wire to preserve strictand discriminatory new voting laws that could disenfranchise hundredsof thousands, if not millions, of Americans. Yes, they discriminate. They discriminate against illegal voterscasting ballots.
OnThursday, the Supreme Court – no friend to expansive voting rights -stepped in and blockedone of the worst laws, a Wisconsin statute requiring voters to show aphoto ID to cast a ballot. A federal judge had struckit down in April, saying it would disproportionately preventvoting by poorer and minority citizens. Last month, however, theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit allowedit to go into effect, even though thousands of absentee ballots hadbeen sent out under the old rules. Actuallythe Supreme Court decision wasdue to a procedural issue – the timing of when absentee ballotswere sent out – and not because it was discriminatory…as theTimes itself admits in the next paragraph (maybe the editorial writers figured that, byseparating the ruling and the reason, some readers wouldn\’t catchon).
Therewas sure to be chaos if the justices had not stayed that appealscourt ruling, and their decision appearsto be based on the risk of changing voting rules so close to anelection. But they could still vote to uphold the law should theydecide to review its constitutionality. See?The ruling was not related to discrimination against poor and minority citizens. Shame on the Times for structuring this editorial in a way that might suggest it did.
Similarlaws have been aggressively pushed in many states by Republicanlawmakers who say they are preventing voter fraud, promotingelectoral “integrity” and increasing voter turnout. None of thatis true. There is virtuallyno in-person voter fraud; the purpose of these laws is tosuppress voting. Hereis “The Big Lie”. But it is not Republicans telling the lie, it is the Times. OF COURSE voterfraud is not found where there are no Voter ID laws. No matter howprevalent fraud is, it cannot be found if no one is checking to see whether it is taking place. Inother words, “The Big Lie” is the Times editorial board\’s claim that it knows there isn\’t any voter fraud.
Let me provide an example of what I am saying – one so basic that even the Times people will be able to follow along.
Suppose you owned a diner – the kind of restaurant where many people pay in cash. And suppose your cashier was pocketing some of that cash every day. How would you know?
The answer, of course, is that you would compare the cash received against the checks that were paid in cash. And if you saw, for example, that $500 was paid in cash, but there was only $480 in the register, you would know that $20 was missing. If it happened just once, you might chalk it up to inadvertent error. if it happened continually, you\’d know the cashier was siphoning off money.
But if you never checked at all, the cashier would be able to steal from you every day and you\’d never be the wiser.
That is the way it works with Voter ID. If you check IDs, you will minimize voter fraud. If you don\’t, then you cannot possibly know how much voter fraud takes place.
And if you think this is the only ridiculous part of this editorial, you are wrong. Further on, it agrees with an Obama appointed judge\’s comparison of Texas Voter ID laws to “the state\’s \’uncontroverted and shameful history\’ of discriminatory voting practices – including whites-only primaries, literacy restrictions and actual poll taxes”.
In other words, asking people of all colors and backgrounds to show they are who they say they are is identical to laws that specifically included one group and excluded others – and have not been in effect for over a half a century.
It figures that this would be an Obama-appointed judge. I bet that opinion put eric holder in a love-swoon altogether.
The good news is that, even after a year of leftward venues like the Times battering Voter ID as being discriminatory, every national poll I have ever seen shows that a large majority of the country approves of them (click here, here, and here for three major polls across the last two years – with plenty more just like them.) And, for the record, this includes a majority of Democrats, and a majority of Black people (though, after years of being battered with claims that Voter ID is racist over and over again, the margin is lower now than used to be).
I wonder what the Times editorial board thinks about this. Do they pity these poor ignoramuses for not knowing better? Do they lament that the general public does not just put aside its common sense and think the way the Times wants it to?
Or is pointing out that most people support Voter IDs a “Big Lie” too?
Let me end by making a suggestion. If you should happen to meet a member of the New York Times editorial board, and he/she regales you with explanations of why IDs are meaningless, discriminatory, etc. etc. etc…………please respond by asking whether visitors to the New York Times offices do or do not need to show an ID to get past security. Then enjoy the show, as he/she tries to explain why the answer is yes.
