Apparently, there are limits to what voter fraud conspiracy theorists will say. Take Virginia’s attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, who was a major backer of the law passed by his state requiring voters to present ID before they cast a ballot.

Last week, life on the Republican fringe got too uncomfortable even for Mr. Cuccinelli, when he found himself agreeing with a radio talk show host, Cheri Jacobus, who implied that President Obama stole the 2012 election.

Her “evidence” for this assertion was that Mr. Obama lost all of the states where voter ID is required. “He can’t win a state where photo ID is required. So clearly there’s something going on out there,” she said on WMAL. Ms. Jacobus and her co-host, Brian Wilson, proceeded to complain that Mr. Cuccinelli had not opened an investigation into what they said was widespread voter fraud in Virginia — claims that ThinkProgress reported were based on emails from their listeners.



Mr. Cuccinelli replied, “Your tone suggests you’re a little upset with me. You’re preaching to the choir. I’m with you completely.”

That’s a pretty shocking position for a man who aspires to be governor of his state. According to ThinkProgress, Mr. Cuccinelli’s office later told the Virginian-Pilot: “There is no question that President Obama legitimately won re-election. Ken was simply talking about the fact that there were problems on election day which need to be addressed.”

How big of him.

But let’s take a look at the rest of his comment. The only “problems on election day which need to be addressed” are the broken machines, inadequate polling stations and outrageously long lines.

In this election, like in the elections before it, there is absolutely no evidence that people were trying to vote when they had no right to. (The outgoing chairman of the Maine GOP, Charlie Webster, did say he was highly suspicious of the fact that black people were voting in his state. But that’s just racist nonsense, not voter fraud.)

But what about the claim that Mr. Obama lost every state that requires voter ID? And that this is proof that he can only win where voters are allowed to cast fraudulent ballots? It’s complete nonsense.

Indeed, Mr. Obama lost in Georgia, Indiana, Kansas and Tennessee, the states that had strict photo ID requirements in place this year. But that’s because those states are dominated by right-wing Republican voters. Mr. Obama, on the other hand, won Florida, Michigan, Hawaii and New Hampshire, all of which require some form of voter ID.

This all goes without saying that Mr. Obama trounced Mitt Romney in the electoral college and won the popular vote. His victory had nothing to do with voter ID requirements, except perhaps that in some places he might have done better if the Republicans had not managed to put in place ID requirements that were designed to suppress minority votes and, therefore, Democratic votes.

A previous version of this post stated that Virginia requires voters to present photo ID before voting. Virginia requires voters to present one of several forms of identification, not necessarily a photo ID.