Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

The base of the Republican Party — a dwindling but still significant group — clings to a handful of pseudo-facts that don’t hold up to serious scrutiny but that still occupy a central place in GOP ideology. Those include the assertion that Saddam Hussein represented a threat to the United States, that affirmative action in lending led to the mortgage crisis and that voter fraud is a serious problem in modern elections.

In campaign seasons such as this, when victory may turn on a handful of votes, none of those claims is more important to Republican activists than overhyped allegations of voter fraud.

During the past decade, GOP-dominated state legislatures across the country have used assertions of mischief at the ballot box to push through harsh voter ID laws. Republican strategists have also pushed prosecutors to go after allegedly fraudulent voters.

Those GOP strategists know better: One study after another has shown that voter fraud is, at worst, extremely rare. And the sort of in-person fraud that would be prevented by stiff voter ID laws is virtually nonexistent. But Karl Rove and his minions also know this: Voter ID laws can be used to disenfranchise a few hundred or a few thousand voters who are more likely to vote Democratic, usually poor or elderly voters who don’t have driver’s licenses. In close races, shaving off 1 or 2 percentage points is all you need to claim victory.

A recently unearthed e-mail from a Republican strategist in New Mexico shows the unbridled cynicism that underlies claims about fraudulent voting. Patrick Rogers, former lawyer for the New Mexico Republican Party, was among the party hacks pushing for criminal investigations into alleged voter fraud. He clearly was hoping that the threat of legal sanctions would intimidate Democrats and aid Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.), who was in a tight race for re-election. According to a new report from the U.S. Justice Department’s inspector general, Rogers wrote in September 2004:

“I believe the [voter] ID issue should be used at all levels — federal, state legislative races and Heather’s race. … You are not going to find a better wedge issue. … This is the single best wedge issue, ever in [New Mexico].”

The southwestern state presented a compelling set of demographics for using voter ID as a “wedge.” It has a large number of Hispanic residents who could be easily scapegoated as illegal voters, even if they are citizens. For Republicans steeped in Rovian tactics, it seemed too good an opportunity to turn down.

That’s why New Mexico Republicans were furious when David Iglesias, then U.S. attorney in Albuquerque, refused to prosecute community organizers and ordinary citizens over spurious claims of voter fraud. They were so angry that they succeeded in getting Iglesias fired, part of a punitive campaign against prosecutors who wouldn’t play partisan games with the law. (Attorney General Michael Mukasey has appointed a career federal prosecutor, Nora Dannehy, to investigate. Rogers’ e-mail is included in the nearly 400-page report from the Justice Department’s inspector general about the firings of eight prosecutors, including Iglesias.)

In this election season, the Republican Party has stepped up its efforts to restrict the franchise across the country, intimidating voters, purging voter rolls and filing dubious claims in court. (Occasionally, Democrats also get caught in acts of voter suppression, but that’s rare. Democrats usually win elections when more people vote, not fewer.)

The GOP’s brand is in tatters, dragged down by an incompetent president, an unpopular war and a sickly economy. So the party seems to be pinning its hopes on keeping likely Democrats — people of color, the poor, college students — away from the polls.

But that tactic seems unlikely to be enough to prevent Democrats from gaining seats in Congress, if not the White House. Democrats are registering in record numbers, and the GOP can’t intimidate or eliminate enough of them to make a difference.

The stench of corruption and cynicism emanating from the effort to disenfranchise voters is finally too heavy to ignore. The GOP is just ensuring that the tarnish on its brand becomes permanent.