(YouTube — Hans Von Spakovsky gins up scary voter fraud chatter as Fox News’ election expert. No mention of his voter suppression credentials, natch.)

Oh, WSJ editorial page, stoking the politically motivated fires of voter fraud without so much as evidentiary foundations to match. Again. How do I mock thee? Let me allow David Iglesias to explain your erroneous DOJ assumptions:

The overblown histrionics about ACORN do not surprise those of us who have been watching the RNC’s election manipulation antics. For eight years White House operatives have been trying to gin up press stories about voter fraud. David Iglesias of New Mexico was one of seven U.S. Attorneys fired by the White House for their refusal to bring voter fraud prosecutions. "We took over 100 complaints," from the GOP, he told us, "We investigated for almost 2 years, I didn’t find one prosecutable voter fraud case in the entire state of New Mexico."

Iglesias, a McCain supporter, has, for the first time, leveled a new and serious charge: Despite finding none of the 200 voters guilty, he says the White House nevertheless ordered him to illegally prosecute baseless cases against innocent citizens, just to gin up voter fraud publicity. His refusal, he says, cost him his job. "They were looking for politicized — for improperly politicized US attorneys to file bogus voter fraud cases."

And before anyone says, "well, the Bush WH probably learned its lesson from the public shaming on this the last time around," let’s just say they did not. And neither did the WSJ.

Let me explain a bit about the difference between filing a "voter fraud" case and filing an access case under HAVA. The Ohio GOP had no standing to file their case regarding ACORN because individuals do not have that ability under HAVA. And the Ohio GOP’s legal folks knew that, but filed anyway, because the case wasn’t about preventing fraud — it was about getting publicity for their unsubstantiated claims.

By contrast, filing criminal charges requires that the prosecutor have evidence in hand which proves claims of deliberate, concerted action to defraud the public. You don’t just willy nilly file a criminal charge to garner publicity in an election year to scare people when the charge is baseless, phony, politically motivated and/or unsubstantiated. That would be wrong.

What the WSJ fails to recognize is that the DOJ cases which it cites as having been filed are ones which expand voter access as required by law, forcing recalcitrant government entities from denying a vote to people who would otherwise be entitled to cast one. Such cases HAVE to be brought prior to the election because otherwise those voters would be utterly disenfranchised. Once the election is passed, those folks would not be allowed to cast their ballot, so those cases have to be filed before the election.

Logic, it’s not just for lawyers, people.

The cases which have not been filed, about which the WSJ whines, involved amorphous charges of potential "voter fraud" for which local elections officials are already doing what it is they are supposed to do: checking individual registrations to see if there actually IS any substance to the allegations. If, indeed, there is some merit to the claims, local elections officials will file information with proper authorities, including filing a challenge to individual voter ballots which will then be verified before being included in the vote tally before certification. And, if someone knowingly casts a ballot fraudulently? Well, that’s a whole other criminal charge in and of itself. It’s also quite rare.

This sputtering outrage over a non-problem? It happens every fricking election year in every state in the country. But in most cases, the problems whined and screeched about end up not being deliberate intent to defraud but something not prosecutable that I like to call "inadvertant ignorance or common mistakes." Or, more commonly, not really problems at all.

If "stupid" were something prosecutable, law enforcement folks would be so busy they couldn’t see straight. But, despite the WSJ’s attempt to foist it as a cause of action, it simply is not.

What is a real problem at the moment? Deliberate attempts to divert voters from voting — such as these asinine fliers in Virginia, or these in Pennsylvania. Or the still unsolved mystery of vote flipping machines in WV, and our Secretary of State who just handed an award over to one of the executives at the faulty machines’ company without really explaining why. (Weird? You betcha!) Or falsely representing yourself as a Democratic volunteer when, in fact, you work for Rep. Lincoln Diaz-
Balart (R-FL) and may be committing vote fraud by not turning in picked-up absentee ballots from seniors. (ooops, that could be prosecutable!)

Here’s a thought — the election is a week away. How about instead of shrilly squawking about something not provable, we instead allow professionals to do their jobs in verifying individual registrations, try to encourage all eligible voters to get to the polls and exercise their rights to vote, and stop trying to politicize something that ought to be sacred on all sides of the aisle.

But that wouldn’t suit the WSJ’s politicized editorial purposes, now would it?