Election fraud scare is attempt to suppress voters

Hamtramck City Clerk Ed Norris deserves praise for following election law and not the witch hunt of Secretary of State Ruth Johnson.

Well, make that former City Clerk Ed Norris since he recently resigned, but we are sure Hamtramck election officials will follow his lead.

Johnson has printed up voter applications for ballots that include a box where voters are asked to confirm that they are a U.S. citizen.

A number of local clerks, including Norris, have said they will not require voters to check that box in order to vote. That’s because, they say, registered voters have already confirmed that they are citizens.

To do so again, local clerks say, is redundant and pointless.

Johnson, who is a Republican, said she is concerned that when some people apply for a driver’s license, they mistakenly say they are a citizen. This extra step, Johnson said, will help ensure non-citizens do not inadvertently vote.

Johnson insists there have been instances when voters were asked to confirm their citizenship status, some voters turned away without voting.

Johnson is part of a growing attempt by conservatives to suppress immigrant and minority voters from voting.

They are claiming there is a serious problem of fraud in the election process. The only problem is, there isn’t any documentation to back up this assertion. As some critics have pointed out, these so-called rules and laws being enacted to protect the integrity of elections are solutions in search of a true problem.

There simply aren’t enough significant cases of election fraud to worry about it.

But again, it’s not really about election fraud. It’s about making it difficult for voters who would likely vote Democrat to actually vote.

We can only wonder what will come next in this slippery slope: The return of a poll tax to help offset the cost of elections?