An interesting side note to the Senate hearing on voter rights laws from last week: the author of Indiana’s photo voter ID law is now a member of Congress.
Freshman Rep. Todd Rokita (R-IN) was Indiana’s Secretary of State when the state passed a voter ID law in 2006 that the Supreme Court then upheld in 2008. At Thursday’s hearing, Rokita launched a passionate defense of photo ID laws at the polls.
“Whether or not you agree that in-person voter impersonation fraud exists — and I will say that as eight years of being Indiana’s Secretary of State, it does exist, we have allegations made every election,” Rokita said. “But if it’s happening in Indiana, it’s happening everywhere from New York to California.”
“Now these gentleman and others say ‘well you can’t produce one case, you can’t produce one conviction, therefore it doesn’t exist,’ the word evidence was used. Well that’s not true, there’s a lot of evidence,” Rokita said.
“There are several cases that I presented to prosecutors who didn’t take up the case, not because of a lack of evidence, but think about the kind of fraud it is, think about the kind of crime it is,” Rokita said. “It’s something that happens in an instant and than it’s gone.”
“It’s the kind of cases, the kind of fraud, that’s very hard to prosecute, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,” Rokita said.
Ryan J. Reilly
Ryan J. Reilly is a D.C.-based reporter for TPM. Prior to joining TPM, he worked for a news website covering the Justice Department and was a researcher for Bloomberg News. His email address is ryan(at)talkingpointsmemo.com.
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