Gee, Washington Post, I wonder how this could have happened?

The Post-ABC poll finds 46 percent of registered voters say voter fraud -- described as multiple votes being cast by a single person, or an ineligible person casting a ballot -- occurs very or somewhat often, while 50 percent say it occurs occasionally or rarely. Over two-thirds of Trump voters say voter fraud occurs often, compared with less than one-third of Clinton supporters. Whatever the partisan differences, at least one-fifth of every major demographic and political group says voter fraud occurs somewhat or very often. The prevalence of voter fraud appears to be widely overestimated. A 2012 investigation by the News21 investigative reporting project published in The Washington Post found only 2,068 cases of alleged voter fraud had been reported since 2000, including only 10 cases of voter impersonation over the entire period. A separate study by Loyola Law School professor Justen Levitt found 241 potentially fraudulent ballots over a 14-year period out of 1 billion ballots cast.

Do you suppose it could have anything to do with the fact that this issue often is presented in our news columns as an Opinions Vary kind of story even though every last shred of empirical evidence says that one side is right and the other side is very, very wrong? This is Paul Krugman's Experts Disagree On Shape Of Earth in action, with real and detrimental consequences for the country.

Do you suppose it could have anything to do with the fact that the national Republican Party has been trying to delegitimize time-honored election methods ever since the Great Florida Heist of '00? Hand recounts are bad. Paper ballots are bad. County boards are made up of thieves who could use a good bullying.

Do you suppose it could have anything to do with how Republicans out in the state governments have been peddling this snake oil as a selling point for their campaign of voter-suppression? A federal court certainly thought so. And Glenn Grothman, the millstone that Wisconsin voters tied to the collective IQ of Congress, gave this game away almost six months ago. But now, we have further support for this proposition from the delightful treasure trove of e-mails that The Guardian pried loose from the archives of Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin, as Madison.com reports.

They were dated to the early morning hours of April 6, 2011. At that time, the incumbent and GOP favorite in the Supreme Court race, then-Justice David Prosser, clung to a razor-thin election lead over the candidate favored by Democrats, Judge Joanne Kloppenburg. Steve Baas, a lobbyist for the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce and former Republican legislative staffer, floated an idea on the email thread: "Do we need to start messaging 'widespread reports of election fraud' so we are positively set up for the recount regardless of the final number? I obviously think we should." Scott Jensen — the former GOP Assembly Speaker turned lobbyist for American Federation for Children, a private school voucher advocacy group — quickly responded: "Yes. Anything fishy should be highlighted. Stories should be solicited by talk radio hosts." In another email, Jensen writes that Prosser "needs to be on talk radio in the morning saying he is confident he won and talk radio needs to scream the Dems are trying to steal the race."

(Ed. Note: Maybe NBC News could ask its new BFF, bold and brave anti-Trumper Charlie Sykes of Milwaukee, what he knows about this part of the scam.)

'Ees a puzzlement, for sure, how we came to this pass. I am reminded of something someone wrote a long time ago about the Three Great Premises of Idiot America. If I recalls correctly, the third one went something like this: Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is measured by how fervently they believe it.

Not sure, but this may be more relevant today than it was back then.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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