Kris Kobach’s leap of logic on voter fraud in New Hampshire should be disqualifying

By Philip Bump September 8 at 8:26 AM

In the end, the conclusion that Kris Kobach should be kept as far as possible from any investigation into “voter fraud” — much less co-chairing President Trump’s federal exercise — comes down to three words:

“Now there’s proof.”

Kobach, Kansas’ secretary of state, has made a name for himself by ostentatiously seeking to uproot the eternally looming threat of fraudulent voting — much as Don Quixote made a name for himself in battling the scourge of giants. Kobach’s efforts have been picked apart exhaustively and repeatedly, including by us, and so we will set aside his greatest hits in favor of his latest which, by itself, is disqualifying for anyone who seeks to claim the authority to weigh in on the topic.

Writing for Breitbart, Kobach picks up a story from the Washington Times about voting in New Hampshire last year. That state has been a focus of voter-fraud conspiracy theories for two primary reasons: (1) It was close and (2) Trump didn’t win it. (In Michigan, a state he did win and where the percentage-point margin was even narrower, no one allied with Trump has raised a question at all. In fact, his lawyers asserted in a anti-recount lawsuit in that state that “all available evidence suggests that the 2016 general election was not tainted by fraud or mistake.”)

New Hampshire has also been a focus of fraud allegations because it has same-day voter registration, allowing people to show up to a polling place to vote even if they hadn’t registered in advance. This is the focus of the Times piece, and of Kobach’s failing freshman logic paper at Breitbart.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/09/08/kris-kobachs-leap-of-logic-on-voter-fraud-in-new-hampshire-should-be-disqualifying/