If we didn’t have a guy like Secretary of State Husted around, we would probably have to invent him.

Husted has finally admitted what we all knew: voter fraud in Ohio is rare, if not practically non-existent. Here is the reporting from the Cincinnati Enquirer:

Vote fraud, [Husted said], “is a very rare occurrence,” despite claims from far-right groups and others to the contrary. While county boards of elections throughout Ohio currently are investigating hundreds of cases in which individuals tried to vote twice, Husted said he does not regard that as evidence that fraud is a significant problem or that the state’s electoral processes are flawed. “They tried to vote twice, but the system caught it,” he said. “We shouldn’t overreact.”

You catch that? “We shouldn’t over-react,” Husted now says.

Where was this Husted guy before the election?

On September 17, we wrote, “Secretary of State John Husted – with help from the Columbus Dispatch — continues to repeat the Big Lie in this election, that voter fraud is an issue in Ohio.” At that time, Husted, in response to lawsuits filed by a right wing group called Judicial Watch seeking to remove inactive voters on the voting lists, said, “Common sense says that the odds of voter fraud increase the longer these ineligible voters are allowed to populate our rolls.”

That wasn’t the only time Husted tried to suggest that voter fraud was a real problem. In February, he tried to make a big deal about federal rules that limited the ability of the state to purge voter rolls. Husted said, “The longer ineligible voters are permitted to remain on the rolls the greater the chance Ohio has of seeing an increase in voter fraud . . .” And, in March, his office issued a press release making a big deal about the referral of a potential voter fraud case for prosecution.

We could go on, but why?

Rather than criticize Husted for hypocrisy, we prefer to welcome him back to reality. We hope he stays here with us the next time the right wing tries to use the excuse of non-existent “voter fraud” to justify voter suppression legislation.