December 16, 2002: Liberal Reporter: South Dakota Voter Fraud Allegations Deliberately ‘Trumped Up’ by Republican National Committee

Joshua Micah Marshall of the influential liberal news blog Talking Points Memo (TPM) writes that charges of “massive voter fraud” that supposedly gave Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) a narrow victory over challenger John Thune (R-SD) are not only spurious, but deliberately “trumped up” by the Republican National Committee (RNC) working with the Thune campaign. Marshall finds the RNC’s allegations of voter fraud being primarily committed on Indian reservations particularly objectionable. The “wild-eyed allegations,” he writes, “were then amplified by a number of local reporters who turned out to be working in embarrassingly close coordination—in one case, cohabiting—with the Republican operatives who ginned up the accusations in the first place.” Marshall calls the allegations a coordinated effort to block Democratic “get out the vote,” or GOTV, efforts, as well as to “stir up politically-helpful racial animosity.” He writes that Thune and the RNC are using advertisements and mailings to accuse Johnson of being personally involved in the purported fraud, and notes that while Thune graciously conceded the election, his campaign operatives fanned out through South Dakota’s reservations collecting affidavits alleging a wide variety of crimes and improprieties. State Attorney General Mark Barnett found the allegations to be entirely groundless (see December 10, 2002). However, the RNC also gave the affidavits to Byron York of the conservative National Review; York is in the process of preparing a lengthy article on the subject (see December 19, 2002). Marshall writes that the only real crimes may have been committed by “RNC operatives caught filing perjurious or forged affidavits to prove their phony case.” [Talking Points Memo, 12/16/2002] In October, Marshall noted that groundless allegations of absentee ballot fraud were made by a local reporter who lived with a lawyer for the Thune campaign. [Talking Points Memo, 10/18/2002]