Brad Friedman Byon 2/9/2012, 4:23pm PT

On Tuesday, we dismantled the latest absurd attempt by pretend journalist and real federal criminal James O'Keefe to demonstrate the rampant "voter fraud" that he and his Republican Party claim to be so pervasive in these United States so as to require polling place Photo ID restrictions guaranteed to prevent little, if any, voter fraud at all, while serving to deter hundreds of thousands of legal (disproportionately Democratic-leaning) voters from being able to even cast their legal vote on Election Day.

We noted that O'Keefe's silly new video purporting to show his proudly unnamed and unseen co-conspirators being told that no ID is necessary to register to vote via third party application is extraordinarily misleading at best, as it fails to note that all newly registered voters who failed to register in person are already required --- by federal law --- to show ID before voting at the polls for the first time. We did concede, however, that those O'Keefe's band of merry pranksters might fraudulently register could, potentially, go on to commit voter fraud via absentee ballot (if they wished to risk the high penalties of a felony). However, as we pointed out, the polling place Photo ID restrictions O'Keefe and his GOP friends are arguing for with his latest series of "Voter Fraud Investigation" silly propaganda videos, would do nothing to prevent absentee voter fraud.

It appears, however, in fact we may have given O'Keefe far too much credit in even conceding that much, as a followup article on our report elsewhere has since revealed.

Yesterday, Mediaite's Tommy Christopher cited our short-order dismantling of O'Keefe's latest ruse and that I had explained in the piece that I'm "currently on the road and don’t have enough time for [O'Keefe's] idiocy as is."

So Christopher did us the favor of picking up the ball at the point, humorously noting "so I generously made time for this idiocy, and found out that even O’Keefe’s absentee scenario is false"....

The premise of O'Keefe's absentee scenario --- as highlighted by the O'Keefe co-conspirators secretly video-taped questions with Minnesota voter registration officials as to whether they might be able to use a registration form to register a "Timothy Tebow" without presenting any ID at all and then sign him up as a permanent absentee voter who would never have to prove that he actually existed --- is based on the third option in the following box on the state's voter registration form...

In the video, O'Keefe breathlessly highlights the box above --- and its third option! --- as if he and his team have uncovered the Holy Rosetta Stone of Voter Fraud!

But then Christopher decided, unlike O'Keefe, to do some actual, ya know, journalism. (You may want to try that some day, Jimmy! It can be almost as much fun as making fake videos!)

Here's how Christopher absolutely destroyed the rest of O'Keefe's already faulty premise...

(1) presenting a driver's license or Minnesota identification card issued pursuant to section 171.07;

(2) presenting any document approved by the secretary of state as proper identification;

(3) presenting one of the following:

(i) a current valid student identification card from a postsecondary educational institution in Minnesota, if a list of students from that institution has been prepared under section 135A.17 and certified to the county auditor in the manner provided in rules of the secretary of state; or

(ii) a current student fee statement that contains the student's valid address in the precinct together with a picture identification card; or

(4) having a voter who is registered to vote in the precinct, or who is an employee employed by and working in a residential facility in the precinct and vouching for a resident in the facility, sign an oath in the presence of the election judge vouching that the voter or employee personally knows that the individual is a resident of the precinct. According to Minnesota election law , anyone registering by mail must either provide a verifiable driver's license/state ID number, or the last four digits of their Social Security number. If those items don't match state records, or if the registrant checks that third box, they are sent a notice informing them that they have to register using the same requirements as in-person registration. Those requirements are So, if O'Keefe wants to register Tim Tebow to vote in Minnesota by mail, he needs to either create a CIA-worthy document trail for him, featuring a valid, verifiable state ID number or Social Security number. Otherwise, fake Tim needs to show ID, or get another registered voter in that precinct to swear (and sign) an oath before an election judge, under penalty of fine and imprisonment, attesting to the identity of the bogus Tebow. That's quite a bit different from O'Keefe's claim of [being able to register and vote] “without identification requirements of any kind.”

So even the one part of O'Keefe's scenario for which we had given him partial credit, turns out to be completetly false, and yet another hoax in a long line of pro-GOP partisan propaganda scams clumsily perpetrated by the professional con-man who continues to trick people into giving him their hard earned money for more such amateurish (and pathetically researched) con jobs.

"The truth is," as Christopher points out, "submitting fake voter information is easy, but successfully registering fake people is incredibly difficult, and casting fake votes is even harder. Doing either of them enough times to affect the outcome of an election is a near-impossibility, and certainly not worth the penalty."

He adds: "Passing a law that imposes a requirement that many of your opponent's supporters don't meet, however, is effective, and when you get people to believe garbage like this, downright simple. It's easy to vote for other people to go get something that you already have."

Yup.

Well, we already knew O'Keefe was a clown and a liar. Sadly, we gave him too much credit for even that much in his latest "investigation". He's not only a clown and a liar, he's a desperate failure at both --- even as his hoaxes succeed in undermining our very Constitution, our electoral system, and our represenative democracy with each sad cream pie he slams into his own face.

[P.S. A reminder that you --- and Jimmy --- may still wish to read our original report on this, for a few tips on several actual cases of recent voter fraud --- by some very high-profile Republicans. For some reason, O'Keefe finds it necessary to just keep making up stuff in pretend "Voter Fraud Investigation" vidoes --- like his previous clunker from New Hampshire which resulted in Manchester's Republican mayor calling for his "arrest and prosecution" --- when, in the meantime, there are actual election fraud crimes going on that he doesn't seem to give a damn about. We continue to wonder why, oh, why that might be.]

[Hat-tip to News Corpse' coverage of this nonsense for the graphic used at the top of this article.]

* * *

Please support The BRAD BLOG's fiercely independent, award-winning coverage of your electoral system, as available from no other media outlet in the nation, with a donation to help us keep going (Snail mail, more options here). If you like, we'll send you some great, award-winning election integrity documentary films in return! Details right here...



