Bond talks city politics, voting dog on Capitol Hill
Kit Bond testified at a Capitol Hill hearing on Wednesday about his favorite suffragist pooch — Ritzy Meckler, the Springer Spaniel who famously was registered to vote in St. Louis.
(Ritzy never cast a vote, and her identity was uncovered by city Election Board workers.)
Still, in the wake of the 2000 election debacle in St. Louis, Ritzy became Bond’s own personal mascot for reform.
At a Senate hearing yesterday, Bond pushed photo ID requirements for voters, showing the committee a picture of him and Ritzy together.
“I’m the one on the right,” Bond quipped.
Bond, a Republican, told the committee what he thought was a “coordinated attempt to keep polls open late in the election day,” in heavily-Democratic St. Louis, both in 2000 and 1972, when Bond was on the ballot for governor.
“We have had a long and undistinguished career of manipulated elections in Missouri,” Bond said.
He focused mostly on St. Louis, quoting his “good friend” Charles Quincy Troupe, an alderman and former state rep.
Troupe, Bond recalled, said “in close elections, everybody knows in St. Louis you’ve got to ‘beat the cheat to win.’”
“That’s a sad commentary on our Democracy,” Bond offered.
The entire hearing, which included testimony from Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, can be viewed on the committee’s Web site.
Ritzy, the voting dog, with her toy trout
For the love of Mike. Can people please stop giving Kit Bond an outlet to continue perpetrating this ridiculous argument?
If I understand him correctly, he is saying that because someone registered this dog to vote that it highlights the need for photo ID legislation.
Ritzy Meckler didn’t vote, or attempt to vote, so there was no voter fraud. There was a fraudulent attempt in the registration process, but let’s be very clear — there has not been a single solitary instance of actual voter fraud. Not one. In the specific case Kit Bond keeps beating into the ground, Ritzy Meckler was never allowed to vote, nor was anyone else using her identity. By definition, it was caught and dealt with, so the process worked EXACTLY AS IT WAS INTENDED.
Second, as U.S. Attorney General, John Ashcroft and the Justice Department investigated the 2000 vote in St. Louis. The found NO INSTANCE OF VOTER FRAUD. They did find multiple instances of voter disenfranchisement, however.
Photo ID will not prevent voter fraud, because there isn’t any to prevent. Photo ID will discourage if not prevent thousands of legally-registered voters — mostly seniors, the disabled, and lower income people — from being able to exercise their right to vote.
If Kit Bond spent as much time beating podiums about people being denied the right to vote as he did on non-existent examples of voter fraud, we might be able to get somewhere.