Voter ID: Where is the fraud?

Legislative Republicans continue to try to milk the media -- and bilk the public -- on voter ID, hand-delivering their latest bill to Gov. Doyle's office. Cute.

That will undoubtedly help a lot, delivering it personally, don't you think?

Governor Doyle has said as clearly as humanly possible that he will veto this bill, because it will make it harder for many Wisconsinites to vote, and will keep some from voting altogether.

Republicans don't get that argument, because their goal is to keep people from voting and reduce the turnout, especially among the poor and riffraff who are more likely to vote for Democrats.

The state GOP has already admitted this is just step one. The next would be to eliminate registration at the polls on election day. That would greatly reduce the number of people voting, but, again, that is their goal. (Why not just pass a poll tax; that would be more honest and maybe help balance the budget.)

A couple of points need to be made about the voter photo ID bill.

One is that, despite all sorts of wild claims by Repubs, no one has produced any evidence of voter fraud in the last election. Some investigations are still underway, and maybe something will turn up. But if it they find anything it will be an isolated case or two, not widespread fraud.

State Sen. Neal Kedzie says: "The people in my hometown of Elkhorn or in the city of Delafield must be certain that when they go to the polls to cast a ballot, their vote actually counts! That is not happening now and voter ID will change that." Why aren't their votes counting now, and how will voter ID change that? Blather, blather, blather.

More importantly, no one has identified a single case of fraud where a voter ID would have prevented it. Some felons apparently voted, for example, but they used their own names, and unless their ID cards had "FELON" stamped on they would have been able to vote anyway.

Nearly six months have passed since the presidential election, and we are still waiting for the GOP to produce a single case of fraud -- let alone one that would have been prevented by requiring a photo ID.

This is partisan politics, pure and simple. Unfortunately, it is an issue on which it is easy to demagogue, and the GOP is more than happy to do that.