NYT flip flops on seriousness of voter fraud allegations

I wonder if there’s any truth to the rumor that Daily Kos wrote this?

In its fumbling attempts to explain the purge of United States attorneys, the Bush administration has argued that the fired prosecutors were not aggressive enough about addressing voter fraud. It is a phony argument; there is no evidence that any of them ignored real instances of voter fraud. But more than that, it is a window on what may be a major reason for some of the firings.

In partisan Republican circles, the pursuit of voter fraud is code for suppressing the votes of minorities and poor people. By resisting pressure to crack down on “fraud” the fired United States attorneys actually appear to have been standing up for the integrity of the election system.

Note that as per the NYT custom, they provide no evidence of this, but if any one of the Ivory Tower dwellers on the NYT editorial board had put down their latte and bothered using their own search engine, they would have found a story written by one of their own a few months after the 2004 elections about a ‘5 month study’ commissioned by the DNC that found NO evidence of voter fraud in Ohio, where Democrats believed that GWB stole that crucial state in ’04 (emphasis added):

WASHINGTON, June 22 – A five-month study for the Democratic National Committee found that more than one in four Ohio voters experienced problems at the polls last fall, , but the study did not find evidence of widespread election fraud that might have contributed to President Bush’s narrow victory there.

The detailed report, released Wednesday, said that disproportionately high numbers of blacks and young people had complained about long lines, intimidation and malfunctioning machines. But Democratic officials said they could not conclude that Mr. Bush’s Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, would have won in Ohio even if voting had gone smoothly.

More from the NYT’s editorial:

There is no evidence of rampant voter fraud in this country.

Bbbbbut that’s not what they wanted you to think in some of their pre-Gonzales ‘scandal’ reporting:

November 10, 1997: Vote Fraud Inquiry Grows

April 18, 2004: Bad New Days for Voting Rights

August 20, 2004: Voting While Black

November 1, 2004: Charges of Fraud and Voter Suppression Already Flying

November 12, 2004: Vote Fraud Theories, Spread by Blogs, Are Quickly Buried

November 11, 2006: Keeping the Voting Clean

The bigger issue even beyond them now acting as though voter fraud allegations aren’t “rampant” is the fact that they are alleging that when they do happen, it’s always by Republicans. Think again, NYT.

Sheesh. With mega-faulty reporting like that, it’s no wonder their circulation is down. People are starting to get a clue or two about the NYT. Perhaps the NYT (and other media outlets, whose circulations are also down) should get a few, too.

Comments are closed.