Here in Pennsylvania, the Republicans in the state legislature have based a strict voterID law. I say Republicans because the law did not attact a single Democratic vote. The Philadephia Inquirer has had a good series of articles on the difficulties of getting the ID that some people experience and the legal battles.

Many have a hard time but a few are lucky. Often a case highlighted by the paper is given help by the state but a recent one was Jim Cramer’s dad. Yes, it was that Jim Cramer of Mad Money fame.

A recent study by News21 (http://votingrights.news21.com/article/election-fraud/) rather convincingly shows that the type of voting fraud that would be prevented by VoterID laws is extremely rare. In the study they canvassed voting officials in all 50 states.

They found 10 cases of in-person voter impersonation among 146 million voters – about 1 case in every 15 million. By the way, there were 0 in Pennsylvania. In-person voter impersonation is the only type of voting fraud that would would be prevented by the VoterID laws.

There were about 200 times as many other types of voting fraud but VoterID laws and the Republicans who support them focus on the rare cases because they also happen to disenfranchise large numbers of voters who may side with Democrats.

Why solve real problems when you can stick it to the opposition?