BURY THE DEMOCRATS' HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE:

An election scam: Both parties are ignoring yet more stories of massive voter fraud--much of which was carried out through illegal manipulation of absentee ballots--that seem to be getting worse each election cycle. (Freelance Star, 11/11/02)

Republican John Thune lost to incumbent Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson by just 528 votes. Mr. Thune had a comfortable lead at 2 a.m. Wednesday morning with just three counties left to report. Those areas just happened to be where the Johnson campaign had worked hard to register Indians living on reservations--the center of the vote-fraud probe. Dewey County election officials told The Wall Street Journal's John Fund that they had received "a huge envelope of 350 absentee ballot applications postmarked from the Sioux Falls office of the Democratic Party." That county's attorney says that many of the absentee ballot applications were filled out in the same handwriting.

Denise Red Horse, who died in a Sept. 3 car crash, somehow managed to apply for an absentee ballot on Sept. 21--in two different counties. Both applications were mailed from Democratic headquarters, where a party worker was found with a history filled with local names. Many of those listed in the book ended up registering to vote, which contributed to this statistical oddity: The number of people on the voting rolls in Dewey and Ziebach counties far exceeded the 2000 Census count of residents over the age of 18.

The seemingly automatic recourse of Democrats to the courts and to outright fraud in recent elections suggests a party that thinks it has to cheat just to stay competitive. As Republicans found out to their great regret during the Nixon presidency, the creation of a culture of criminality can nearly destroy a party's soul. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 11, 2002 10:12 AM