As I’ve noted before, one of the causes célèbres of the right is the ersatz issue of voter fraud. In 2008, conservatives falsely believed hundreds of thousands of illegally cast votes–on behalf of the Democrats, by those people. Nationally, there are a handful of cases of voter fraud every election cycle. But this propaganda point 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.

Well, from the Great State of California, we have another conservative case of voter fraud, this time involving thousands of fraudulent registrations:

According to a report today from Sacramento ABC affiliate News10, a private, for-profit firm calling itself Momentum Political Services, hired by the local Republican Party “to boost GOP registration ranks in key battleground communities” has turned in more than 3,100 invalid voter registration cards during their recent drive.

Voter registration forms have allegedly been turned in with fake addresses, voter names that don’t exist, duplicate Social Security numbers, and party affiliations that seem to have been changed “by someone” to Republican. The head of the firm has admitted she has hired workers with criminal backgrounds, as found via Craigslist.

Some more details (boldface mine):

In some instances, cards were submitted with street numbers or names that can’t be found. In others, the voters themselves don’t appear to exist, as formal county registration letters come back undeliverable. Officials said a number of cards were also submitted for individual voters who not only couldn’t be located, but who also all had the same last four Social Security digits.

And in some instances, the voter’s party affiliation appears to have been changed, by someone, to Republican.

“The circulator signed in blue ink, and it just happens that the party is checked in a blue ink,” said [Sacramento County registrar of voters Jill] LaVine during an examination of one suspicious card. “The voter did the rest [of the card] in black ink.”

To put this in context, the housing advocacy organization ACORN was condemned by Congress, even though they notified registrars of likely fraud:

The owner of Momentum Political Services, Monica Harris has admitted only that “some of her contractors had been ‘sloppy'” according to News10, and that she has now fired 16 of them.

Contrast that with the non-partisan ACORN which actually developed a system to try and confirm the legitimacy of each and every voter registration form they collected, flag the ones they could not be confirmed as “potentially fraudulent,” before turning them in (as required by law), along with the names of workers who had defrauded them to election officials and law enforcement agencies….

Never mind that the rates of fraudulent voter registration forms turned in by firms hired by Republicans are far greater than any of those turned in (and flagged as fraudulent!) by ACORN — 60% versus less than 1%…

Keep in mind that ACORN actually did valuable work for poor people, and Democrats, as they always do, curled up into the fetal pain and cried “Not the face!” rather than fighting for their own.

So do you think they’ll use this criminal activity to ding Republicans and go after their credibility* ? Of course Democrats won’t. They’ll consider pointing out repeated instances of voter fraud by conservatives as beneath them–and it wouldn’t be ‘civil’ either.

This is yet another reason why we can’t have nice things.

*One of Gingrich’s campaign officials recently admitted that they submitted fraudulent information to get on the ballot in Virgina.