The Kansas City Star editorial board deserves hearty congratulations for being the first media outlet in years to debunk the Missouri election fraud myth.

   For years, Republicans in Missouri and elsewhere have been screaming election fraud as a way to push through regressive policies to keep elderly, poor and minority voters from voting.  Even last week, the New York Times printed a letter from Governor Blunt where he spouted off large numbers of "alleged" illegal votes cast, without any empirical data to support any of these claims.

   Republicans consistently use a strategy called “if you say it enough times, it must be true.”  Members of the media help perpetuate and enable this phenomenon by printing and repeating the political talking points without checking to see if they are based in fact.

   Part of the media’s job is to fact check.  Just because someone says it’s true shouldn’t make it so, and the public depends on the “independent” media to be a source of truth amidst competing societal interests.

   Congratulations to the Star staff for doing their homework and having the courage to expose the truth to their readers.   here are some exerpts from their piece from yesterday – it is well worth the full read at http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/opinion/15309191.htm [1].

Missouri rules could keep thousands of poor, disabled and elderly from casting ballots [2]

Court should waste no time killing voter ID law [3]

 ...the law could disenfranchise as many as 200,000 Missourians...

...This law — ostensibly passed to counter fraud — is overkill that works against those least likely to have driver’s licenses: the poor, the elderly and the disabled....

 ... In 2004, when he was Missouri secretary of state, Blunt wrote that elections in November 2002 and February 2004 were “two of the cleanest and problem-free elections in recent history.”...

...Blunt now says the new law is needed to combat fraud in the state’s voting system. However, the governor is citing outdated, questionable evidence...

 ...When he was secretary of state, Blunt wrote, his office found “at least 1,300 illegal votes were cast and counted” in the 2000 general election in St. Louis....

 ...Yet the actual report he issued after the 2000 elections includes far less specific language, saying only that it “appears” that most of those persons were not qualified to vote, although they obtained court orders that allowed them to do so. That, however, is not proof of fraud...

...A U.S. Justice Department investigation of the November 2000 election didn’t point to widespread fraud in St. Louis. It focused instead on the fact that many voters were improperly denied their right to vote....

FULL EDITORIAL: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/opinion/15309191.htm [4]