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Friday, October 21, 2016

The IRS Scandal, Day 1261: George Will And Donald Trump Are Wrong — Elections Are Not Rigged, And The IRS Is Not Rigging Them

IRS Logo 2Salon, George Will Says Donald Trump Is Simply Making the Wrong Argument About Rigged Election, Is Incredibly Wrong:

George Will is a fan of voter purging. He's also an old white male. That explains it.

As most of the conservative fold realizes that conspiracy theorist Donald Trump is Godzilla and the Republican Party is Tokyo, George Will is dipping his toes into the Pacific Ocean and thinking, maybe there’s something here.

On Monday, Will told Fox News that Trump “has a point” when he claims that the election is rigged, according to a transcript via RealClearPolitics:

It is hard to think of an innocent reason why Democrats spend so much time, energy and money, scarce resources all, resisting attempts to purge the voter rolls, that is to remove people who are dead or otherwise have left the jurisdiction. It’s hard to think of an innocent reason why they fight so tremendously against Voter I.D. laws. They say, well, that burdens the exercise of a fundamental right. The Supreme Court has said that travel is a fundamental right and no one thinks that showing an I.D. at the airport burdens that fundamental right.

We know — we don’t surmise — we know that the 2010, ’12 and ’14 elections were rigged by the most intrusive and potentially punitive institution of the federal government, the IRS. 

First of all, the election is not rigged. This can’t be stressed enough. Also, if Will is claiming that the 2010 and 2014 elections were rigged (they weren’t), they would have been rigged for Republicans, who during the midterms rode two wave elections.

And we’ll completely ignore his claim that “vote rigging” includes Internal Revenue Service audits of whether 501(c)4 organizations are really “promot[ing] the social welfare” — or existing to create valuable and profitable email lists for others to rent.

But here’s the reason why Democrats “spend so much time, energy and money” resisting attempts to purge the voter rolls. Because most of the time, that’s code for “making sure lots of Democrats don’t vote.” ...

Republicans have pushed illegal voter ID laws and have pursued a questionable tactic known as “voter caging.” Even if the people affected by these voter-suppression strategies are able to get to the polls, they would have to file provisional ballots and could face longer lines in fewer polling places. Such tactics, unsurprisingly, have mainly been applied in minority areas.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2016/10/the-irs-scandal-day-1261-george-will-and-donald-trump-are-wrong-elections-are-not-rigged-and-the-irs.html

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Comments

On reflection, I guess it depends on whether we're talking about the "attempts to purge the voter rolls" or the resisting of those attempts!

Posted by: ruralcounsel | Oct 24, 2016 10:38:35 AM

"... making sure lots of [dead] Democrats don't vote." There, fixed.

Posted by: ruralcounsel | Oct 24, 2016 4:29:26 AM

'But here’s the reason why Democrats “spend so much time, energy and money” resisting attempts to purge the voter rolls. Because most of the time, that’s code for “making sure lots of Democrats don’t vote.” ...'

"... making sure lots of [dead] Democrats don't vote." There, fixed.

Posted by: el Hombre | Oct 21, 2016 10:04:20 AM

The disposition of partisan Democrats is to lie and make excuses for criminal behavior, while impugning everyone else's motives. One's inclination to care about the welfare of partisan Democrats is correspondingly vitiated.

Posted by: Art Deco | Oct 21, 2016 7:42:29 AM

Will is correct. The Salon article is merely the reflexive protective reaction of those who benefit from having an antiquated voting system that lacks basic maintenance. Proper maintenance, such as periodic purging of those ineligible, just makes it too hard for certain groups to carry out their preferred methods of vote fraud. It wouldn't stop legitimate voters from voting any more than the police checking for false drivers licenses would stop legit drivers from driving.

Posted by: ruralcounsel | Oct 21, 2016 5:14:51 AM