Follow Up: On The Non-Existent Voter Fraud

The P-G had the story yesterday:

State attorneys defending the new voter ID law at a hearing beginning Wednesday will present no evidence that in-person electoral fraud is likely to occur this November without the law, according to a document signed earlier this month.

The state and the parties challenging the law agreed in the court document that neither side knows of cases of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania.

Here's the stipulation in the event you wanted to read it for yourself.  The first two points (FIRST TWO POINTS) are as follows:

There have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania; and the parties do not have direct personal knowledge of any investigations or prosecutions in other states;

The parties are not aware of any incidence of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania and do not have direct personal knowledge of in person voter fraud elsewhere;

However, when asked about the stipulation, Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele strayed from the truth:

Asked about a stipulation, signed by both parties in the lawsuit, that the state would offer neither evidence of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania nor evidence that voter fraud would be likely without the law this November, Ms. Aichele said there are few cases of such kind of fraud.

"The attorney general is not going to pursue the issue of cases brought for voter impersonations, for voter fraud," she said. "If there are cases, there are very few."

But she suggested this might be because district attorneys use limited resources to prosecute other crimes: "If you're a district attorney in a county, and you have a choice to prosecute crimes like murder, rape and armed robbery, you're going to do that before you go after the voter fraud cases."

But the state stipulated that there have been no investigations - how can there be a case without an investigation?.  Aichele is trying to say there have been cases ("a few") but implied that since other crimes like  murder and rape take precedence those cases aren't pursued.

But the state stipulated no incidence of in-person voter fraud (the sort the Voter ID bill is supposed to combat).

But the big point is found here, on the pages of the Trib:

Critics note that Senior Deputy Attorney General Patrick Cawley acknowledged in a stipulation with the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia for the Commonwealth Court hearing that Pennsylvania hasn’t investigated or prosecuted anyone for “in-person” voter fraud and won’t offer evidence of voter fraud.

So if ever, in the future, our good friends on Scaife's braintrust ever assert the "fact" of voter fraud in Pennsylvania, we'll know that they're lying.  It was already reported in their own paper that Pennsylvania stipulated no voter fraud.

NO VOTER FRAUD in Pennsylvania.