'Democrats must support voter fraud'

Paddy Mac is back.

Today's Patrick McIlheran column gets a couple of things right. Unfortunately, they are both at the beginning of the piece, and it rapidly goes downhill from there.

He begins with:

Making Donovan Riley show a photo ID wouldn't have stopped him from having a second helping of democracy in 2000. A belief, engraved on his heart, that cheating's wrong would have done that.

I'm theorizing about its absence: So far, the lefty Democrat seeking to unseat his own party's state Sen. Jeff Plale (D-South Milwaukee) is merely accused of voting in both Illinois and Wisconsin. He's guilty of nothing but the weakest defense since President Clinton argued about "is." Riley says he forgot he'd already voted.

I don't know if Riley voted twice, and neither does McIlheran. He is accused of it by a political enemy. He has not been charged, let alone convicted of anything. You can bet if there is even the flimsiest excuse that Waukesha DA Paul Bucher will charge him.

So McIlheran is right. Riley is merely accused.

He's also right that requiring a photo ID would not have stopped Riley from voting twice. If that's really what he did, he used his own name.

It's also true that Riley has mounted less than a strong defense, for whatever reason. Because he's guilty? Maybe. But maybe not. I think McIlheran mischaracterizes it.

All that aside, once he's carefully protected the paper from a libel suit by using the word "accused," McIlheran proceeds -- based on the premise that Riley must be guilty -- to basically accuse Democrats of supporting voter fraud. Why else hasn't the party purged Riley from its website, he wonders.

Maybe it's because he's innocent until proven guilty. Like most Dems, I'm withholding judgment. If he's guilty, I'll be the first to condemn the double voting. But I don't know whether he's guilty or the victim of a political dirty trick. I hope we have an answer before the primary.

Because all of the Democrats haven't roundly condemned Riley, they condone vote fraud, McIlheran suggests:

Riley shows that fraud takes place. His supporters' silence shows that a swath of the political spectrum doesn't take it seriously. We can't ignore it until there's organized electoral theft. In saying he didn't find evidence of such theft in 2004, U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic pointed out that vote fraud is hard to pin down. We should pay heed to what we do see.

OK, I'll say it again: There is no evidence, despite all of the noise from McIlheran's Republican friends, that there is any widespread voter fraud in Wisconsin. After a thorough investigation, Biskupic found a couple of isolated cases, and couldn't even win those in court.

Voter fraud is hard to find in Wisconsin because it simply isn't there.

Adopting all kinds of new restrictions, as Republicans propose (Mark Green said yesterday that the first bill he'll sign as governor is a photo ID bill for voters), will do little or nothing to improve our election process. But it will make it harder for many people to vote, which is their real intention.

I'd support the purple finger system, which Paddy Mac mentions in passing, because seeing people with purple fingers might remind and encourage others to vote. They'd probably be a lot more effective than an "I voted" sticker on your lapel. Democrats want more voter participation, not less.

By the way, another Democrat, Jim Sullivan, also has been accused of double-voting. In his case the charge comes from the lunatic fanatic Reynolds-Dohnal-Blonien team. They are old, phony, discredited charges. But McIlheran doesn't suggest the Democrats condemn or shun Sullivan. Maybe it's because in this instance it's Republican Reynolds whose trying to defraud voters?

UPDATE: Riley out; massive voter fraud confirmed.