One of the causes célèbres of the right is the ersatz issue of voter fraud. Supposedly, hundreds of thousands of illegally cast votes–on behalf of the Democrats, by those people–are fixing elections for Democrats. Nationally, there are a handful of cases of voter fraud (if that). Nonetheless, this shibboleth has been used to justify strict voter identification laws (to fix a non-existent problem), which have the effect of making it harder for the poor, the elderly, and stay-at-home mothers to vote. That these groups trend Democratic is just a coincidence.

So we read recent news of a substantiated case of voter fraud. Except that it seems to involve conservatives of the honkysoid persuasion (boldface mine):

Seven tea partiers were indicted by a grand jury for voter fraud last week, and one of them was even a candidate for county judge.

More than a year since a state district judge ruled 10 Montgomery County residents voted fraudulently in a Woodlands election, a grand jury last week indicted seven of those individuals for illegal voting.

The indictments stem from the May 8, 2010, election of The Woodlands Road Utility District No. 1. Ten individuals listed their voter registration address as that of a hotel in order to take control of the RUD board.

And why did these criminals want to fix the election? Fear of taxes:

He had been curious about the operations and taxing authority of the road district for some time, wondering just who called the shots and how a resident could get on the district board. The five-member board meets monthly in open meetings. The district taxes only commercial businesses, at a rate of 47 cents per $100 property valuation. Heath feared that the debt issuance and the ability to tax might eventually trickle down to residents if a financial crisis were to strike the well-heeled planned community 35 miles north of Houston.

But ACORN!!! Or something. The self-projection combined with cognitive dissonance is incredible: movement conservatives think most of us will behave like they do.

Fortunately, many of us are better than that.