Rand Paul is starting to sound like a mush these days. When he met with David Axelrod earlier this week, he suggested that Republicans might have over-emphasized voter fraud in pushing for new voter-ID laws:
WAPO – Here’s another interesting comment from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) during his sitdown with former senior Obama adviser David Axelrod on Tuesday: Paul said that the Republican Party might be over-selling incidences of voter fraud.
The GOP has cited actual fraud and the potential for fraud while pushing new voting laws, including requiring voters to present identification at the polls. Such laws have passed in numerous GOP-controlled states in recent years, but Democrats say the efforts are aimed at reducing the vote of groups less likely to carry IDs — most notably minorities — who favor Democrats.
From the transcript:
PAUL: Dead people do still vote in some elections. There still is some fraud. And so we should stop that, and one way of doing it is (driver’s licenses).
AXELROD: Although the incidence of fraud is relatively small.
PAUL: It probably is, and I think Republicans may have over-emphasized this. I don’t know.
I would have never conceded that point to Axelrod. All Paul had to say was that while the recorded incidence of voter fraud might be low, we likely don’t know of all the incidents because it’s difficult with the loose standards we currently have around voting. And he could have brought up North Carolina’s recent massive voter fraud revelation as well.
But he didn’t. He got all mushy and agreeable.
Ugh.