Voter ID laws are racist. Asking questions about people during the voter registration process is xenophobia. If you reduce early voting periods you’re suppressing minorities. All in all, Democrats know that voter fraud is essentially an illusion created by Republicans in an effort to ensure that only rich white people get to vote. That’s why I’m sure that this story out of the Land of Lincoln can’t possibly be correct. (USA Politics)

The Kankakee County Attorney’s office is investigating at least three cases of voter fraud where people were offered bribes for voting. In addition, State’s Attorney Jamie Boyd said, “several” vote-by-mail applications have been mailed in from people who live outside the county, The Daily Journal is reporting. “This unprecedented action was taken in response to reports of individuals from Chicago offering gifts to potential voters in exchange for a vote for Kate Cloonen, Hillary Clinton and others,” Boyd said in the news release. “Our office takes seriously the obligation to protect the rights of citizens to vote for the candidate of their choice, and to do so without undue influence from special interest groups.

There was a time (back in the bad old days) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin when unscrupulous politicians would literally drive around and round up homeless people or those who were simply down on their luck and offer them a few bucks to go register to vote and cast a ballot for the politician looking to make the deal. In some cases it wasn’t even cash, but packs of cigarettes. You’re probably thinking that we’re talking about the Great Depression here (and I’m sure that went on, particularly in New York City) but we’re actually talking about two elections ago.

As we’ve discussed here in the past, the biggest problem with voter fraud is that it’s so incredibly easy for even relatively unimaginative people to think of ways to do it. And there are so few instances where anyone is investing the time to find voter fraud that your odds of getting away with it are pretty good. Does it actually make a significant impact on the total numbers in a national election? Probably not. (Though we’ll never really know.) But as this newest case from Illinois demonstrates it’s still going on. Who knows if a local or state race (or even a collar county in a swing state) might wind up being turned by a couple hundred ballots?

But you keep on telling yourself that voter fraud never really happens. I’m sure it helps you sleep better at night.