[NEWSBUSTERS.ORG] Appearing on MSNBC during the 11 a.m. ET hour on Monday, attorney and former Republican National Committee counsel Mark Braden denounced an attempt by anchor Tamron Hall to dismiss claims of voter fraud as "extraordinarily rare" and "minuscule." He also called her out for citing statistics from liberal "advocacy group" that she labeled "nonpartisan."
Hall began the discussion by touting that slanted source: "We’ve cited this before, but I'll remind people. According to a study by the nonpartisan Brennan Center ‐ this is in 2007 ‐ and they were discussing how extraordinarily rare voter fraud would be." She added: "And looking at some of the numbers from different organizations, as well. Arizona State, for example, they found in 2012, just 2,000 cases of election fraud nationwide in the year 2000. So the numbers are minuscule."
While Braden acknowledged that "our election system actually works quite well," he immediately corrected her "nonpartisan" claim:
I wouldn't call Brennan Center nonpartisan, I think they’re pretty much an advocacy group. But the notion that vote fraud doesn't exist, is, of course, lunacy. People steal cars, people steal money, why anybody would think you wouldn't steal votes is a mystery to me. Vote fraud is rare but it absolutely occurs, and sometimes occurs on a massive basis.
In fact, the Brennan Center’s so-called "Democracy Agenda," spelled out on its website, is a left-wing wish list of supposed electoral "reforms," among them: Overturning the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, establishing public financing of campaigns, and restoring voting rights to convicted felons. |