May 22, 2012 12:14 AM UTC

Scott Walker, Meet Scott Gessler

• 8 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

As the Colorado Independent’s John Tomasic reports:

In the last two years, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler has made voter fraud prevention a top priority. His efforts have included working to stop county clerks from sending absentee ballots to inactive voters, lobbying for a controversial voter ID law and leading an unprecedented effort to determine whether noncitizens are voting in the state.

Critics have questioned Gessler’s priorities, given that the number of documented incidents of voter fraud in Colorado is tiny…

In an interview with the Weekly Standard, Walker said he thought fraud typically accounted for 2 percent of the vote in the state and likely swayed elections.

Using what we assume is similar “fuzzy math” as Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, supporters of embattled Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker warn of dire consequences for his recall election next month–implying substantially more than a token number of “fraudulent” voters.

“As we’ve been telling you, the liberal power network is pulling out all the stops to RECALL Gov. Scott Walker. We’ve now received news that liberal judges have teamed up to block Wisconsin’s new Voter ID law,” wrote Walker supporters at the the Campaign to Defeat Obama in an email last month.

“This means we will not be able to fight voter fraud, and this means that our margin of victory must be much larger now [Pols emphasis] – to compensate for any fraudulent ballots cast by RECALL proponents.”

Got that? A “much larger margin of victory” is needed, because the absence of a voter ID law means the state of Wisconsin “will not be able to fight voter fraud.”

Which makes you assume there is a lot of voter fraud in Wisconsin, doesn’t it?

After the 2008 presidential election, Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen and Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm formed an Election Fraud Task Force to investigate.

In February of 2011, the Department of Justice released a statement on the results of that investigation: Authorities charged 11 felons for voting, 6 people for voter registration misconduct and 2 people for voting twice.

So which is it, folks? Will the margin that decides Wisconsin’s gubernatorial recall election next month be fewer than 20 votes, or are these scare-tactic warnings that vote fraudsters are lining up to steal Walker’s recall election in need of a reality check?

Don’t feel bad, we can’t get a good explanation for this discrepancy from our Scott, either.