Pivot & Shoot: It's Now Impossible To Uncover Voter Impersonation Fraud In Missouri

One week ago today, Rep. Stanley Cox (R-Sedalia) told the House Elections Committee that "there are countless examples of voter fraud" in Missouri.  Cox has long been a proponent of laws to require voters to show government-issued photo identification at the polls, and is sponsoring a constitutional amendment this year (HJR64) to make that happen.

Then Saturday, longtime voter suppression activist Thor Hearne rejected questions from a conservative crowd in Chesterfield about the possibility of widespread voter fraud.  "I'm not a big believer in conspiracy theories," he said about the conservative hysteria about fraud he helped gin up. (And yes, Hearne's about-face on this subject is still puzzling).

So today, Rep. Cynthia Davis (R-O'Fallon) tried out a brand new message at this week's Elections Committee hearing. In her words, it's now "virtually impossible" to know if there's voter impersonation fraud in Missouri (the kind of fraud a photo id would attempt to thwart). 

You bring up that people haven't proven how much fraud there is, but absent this law, it would be virtually impossible -- after this law is passed is when we may find out how much fraud there was. I would recommend that we need to try it as an experiment, and then we'll [inaudible] be able to discover how many people  showed up.

In the course of one week, Republicans have gone from (a) alleging "countless examples" to (b) citing no examples to (c) stating that it's actually impossible to know if there's any fraud without experimenting and disenfranchising a bunch of folks first. 

An impressive feat, even for the House Republicans.

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