Evidence of real voter fraud suggests GOP’s claims are merely projection

Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2021 | 2 a.m.

For “Stop the steal” Republicans, recent events in Nevada and Pennsylvania reveal a couple of inconvenient truths about voter fraud.

One is that when cheating occurs, which is rare, cases are investigated and violators are prosecuted. That was evidenced last week by an announcement from Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford that charges had been filed against a Las Vegas man for allegedly casting more than one ballot, and by news that Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick had paid a Pennsylvania poll worker a bounty he had offered for evidence of fraudulent voting.

But contrary to the right’s false claims that Democratic voters are committing voter fraud on a scale sufficient to flip an election, the two isolated violations were both allegedly committed by Republicans. They involved two fraudulent votes in total.

In Nevada, the defendant is Donald “Kirk” Hartle, 55, who was charged with two felonies after allegedly voting twice in the 2020 presidential election, including with the ballot of his deceased wife, Rosemarie. Hartle is an executive with Ahern Rentals Inc., whose owner, Donald Ahern, also owns the off-strip Ahern Hotel, which was the site of an event last weekend for QAnon sympathizers and right-wing extremists.

As for Patrick’s bounty money, $25,000 of it went to a Pennsylvanian who caught a Republican voting twice. The violator was Ralph Thurman, 72, who pleaded guilty in September to voting once with his own ballot and a second time using his son’s name.

Patrick had offered between $25,000 and $1 million of campaign cash for violations, and apparently gave the poll worker the minimum because the larger awards were being reserved for “bigger fish.”

The poll worker, Eric Frank, said he felt he got the minimum because the case he uncovered involved a GOP voter and not a Democrat.

Good assessment, Mr. Frank.

The reality about the Big Lie is that it was investigated in state after state after state, and not a single one found evidence of substantial fraud that would have changed the outcome of the election.

Meanwhile, it’s become common to discover that Republicans, not Democrats, are behind the few cases of voter fraud that occur.

That outcome is an essential goal of the Big Lie. By promoting the falsehood, Republican leaders are trying to normalize the idea of voter fraud and provide a permission structure for their followers to commit fraud themselves. The delusion goes like this: The other side is doing it, so we should too. This is how democracies die, and voter fraud charges are the stock-in-trade for would-be dictators across the world for precisely this reason.

That’s certainly the case in Nevada. This year, for instance, 53-year-old Craig Frank of Las Vegas pleaded guilty to voting in both Arkansas and Clark County during the 2016 election. Frank was granted two years probation under a plea bargain. And in the 2012 election, 56-year-old Las Vegas resident Roxanne Rubin was arrested while trying to vote twice at two different polls. Rubin said her purpose in attempting to cast two ballots was “to show how easy it would be to commit voter fraud with just a signature.” Instead, she demonstrated how effective existing voter integrity measures are. Like Frank, she also pleaded guilty under a plea deal, in which she agreed to pay nearly $2,500 to the state, perform community service and complete an impulse control course.

There have been other examples of voter fraud and irregularities, but nothing on the scale that the proponents of the Big Lie would have Americans believe. For example, the GOP alleged that the ballots of 1,506 dead people were cast in Nevada in the 2020 election, but Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske — a Republican — concluded after a review that 10 such cases had occurred. Cegavske’s office referred all 10 of those cases for prosecution. The party affiliation of those 10 are not yet known.

This brings up another reality of voter integrity: The system is overseen by election officials and volunteers, both Republican and Democrat, who are committed to maintaining fair and accurate elections. It’s abhorrent that in promoting the Big Lie, GOP leadership is impugning the work of these individuals and vilifying them to the point where they and their families are being subjected to threats and intimidation by crazed extremists and members of violent right-wing groups.

Can security within the system be improved? Of course. But good, dedicated people are working every day to do that in Nevada and across the country.

On the other hand, Republican primaries are filling up with atrocious candidates like Nevada’s Adam Laxalt, who are either actively promoting the Big Lie or are refusing to disavow it.

Laxalt, who’s seeking the Senate seat held by Catherine Cortez Masto, openly attempted to subvert the will of Nevada voters by filing a series of bogus lawsuits on the 2020 election results as Donald Trump’s capo in the Silver State.

As reported Friday by The Washington Post’s Philip Bump, Laxalt and his clan used Rosemarie Hartle as an example of dead people voting in Nevada to support their claim of widespread voter fraud.

Remember that the next time you hear Laxalt or anyone like him attacking voter integrity.

Another worrisome candidate is Jim Marchant, a former Republican lawmaker who’s running for secretary of state, with Cegavske having termed out. Marchant was a leading GOP figure promoting the Big Lie in 2020 and now is using it as the tent pole in his campaign. The thought of such a person becoming Nevada’s top elections leader is deeply troubling.

In addition, the crowded field in the GOP primary for governor contains fervent Big Lie proponents and others who are refusing to call it a fallacy. The latter — we’re looking at you, former Sen. Dean Heller, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo and North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee — are just as culpable in spreading the lie as those who are actively promoting it, as they have the ability to counter it with the truth but refuse to do so.

Thanks to responsible election officials and judicious minds in Nevada courts, the likes of Laxalt and Marchant failed and democracy prevailed here. For now.

But voters must not forget what these GOP forces tried to do — render their ballots useless and tip the state to a candidate they rejected, all based on a complete fallacy and driven by self interest.

They also must remember the truth about voting integrity. Not only have Republicans not being victimized by massive voter fraud, they often are the perpetrators in the few cases that occur.