What Happened to the 'Countless Examples' of Voter Fraud?

Submitted by .Sean on February 15, 2010 - 11:46am

Color me confused by these statements in a Saturday Beacon article from GOP activist lawyer Thor Hearne:

[Hearne] told fellow conservatives Saturday that the best way for them to attack voter fraud was to get involved as a poll worker, so that they could familiarize themselves with Missouri's election laws and offer up some front-line protection against potential fraud.

Hearne also rejected audience queries about the possibility of widespread voter fraud. While acknowledging "a rare group of people wanting to subvert an election,'' Hearne added, "I'm not a big believer in conspiracy theories."

First, Hearne's comments are at odds with the decidedly weak GOP argument employed to justify a constitutional amendment and new laws to require voters to show a government-issued photo ID at the polls.

Second, Thor Hearne has not exactly been a passive observer of Republican campaigns to enact photo ID legislation, based on conspiracy theories of widespread voter fraud. 

Much has been written about Hearne's involvement in these efforts (a few links below), but here's an excerpt of a 2007 Slate article about the sudden closing of Hearne's American Center for Voting Rights:

With no notice and little comment, ACVR—the only prominent nongovernmental organization claiming that voter fraud is a major problem, a problem warranting strict rules such as voter-ID laws—simply stopped appearing at government panels and conferences. Its Web domain name has suddenly expired, its reports are all gone (except where they have been preserved by its opponents), and its general counsel, Mark "Thor" Hearne, has cleansed his résumé of affiliation with the group. Hearne won't speak to the press about ACVR's demise. No other group has taken up the "voter fraud" mantra...

Perhaps even with the demise of ACVR, the hard work—of giving credibility to a nonproblem—is done. The short organizational history of ACVR, chronicled indefatigably by Brad Friedman of the Brad Blog, shows that the group was founded just days before its representatives testified before a congressional committee hearing on election-administration issues chaired by then-Rep. (and now federal inmate) Bob Ney. The group was headed by Hearne, national election counsel to Bush-Cheney '04, and staffed with other Republican operatives, including Jim Dyke, a former RNC communications director.

Consisting of little more than a post-office box and some staffers who wrote reports and gave helpful quotes about the pervasive problems of voter fraud to the press, the group identified Democratic cities as hot spots for voter fraud, then pushed the line that "election integrity" required making it harder for people to vote. The group issued reports (PDF) on areas in the country of special concern, areas that coincidentally tended to be presidential battleground states. In many of these places, it now appears the White House was pressuring U.S. attorneys to bring more voter-fraud prosecutions.

What accounts for Hearne's change of heart?  Shame?  Money?  A deceptive strategy to downplay the alleged threats of voter fraud in public while still pushing voter suppression laws behind the scenes? 

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