[EL] election crimes, registration fraud and voter fraud -- moral equivalence?

[Marty Lederman]

Thanks very much, Rick, for that thoughtful post, and for clearly rejecting
the moral and practical equivalence.  You're right, of course, about the
costs of exaggeration by Voter ID opponents, which may well (as you argue)
do more to retard the efforts against voter ID than to advance them.  As I
wrote earlier, it would have been much safer, and likely just as effective,
for such reports to say that "tens or hundreds of thousands" of votes will
not be cast or counted, rather than "millions."

Of course, if the problem we were addressing here (the one Dan appears to
be most concerned about, for instance) were the simple fact that "political
operatives exaggerate claims for partisan purposes," then yes, there would
be plenty of "blame" to go around--such exaggerations are the coin of the
realm in tight elections--and one might plausibly complain of some degree
of moral equivalence.

But that's most decidedly *not *what I and others are most concerned
about.  I'm used to many on this list writing things that are exaggerated
or worse, and it does not usually give me even a moment's pause.  What we
are concerned about, instead, is the propagation of deliberate
falsehoods--or even, crediting the asserted good faith of Joe, et al., the
propagation of *sincere* assertions that are demonstrably untrue and
unsupported by evidence--*with the likely purpose and the certain effect of
preventing many legitimate votes from being cast or counted, and the
distinct possibility that election results might change*, without
justification of any countervailing benefits.

Whatever the faults and shortsightedness of the exaggerations on the other
side might be (see Rick's astute post), they do not share such purposes and
effects, and therefore are of another order entirely, IMHO.


On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 11:26 PM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:

>  Marty, this
> I've addressed the false equivalence argument here:
> http://electionlawblog.org/?p=31719
>
> Rick
>
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