N.C. lawmakers guilty of voter fraud?!!

Will Democratic N.C. House members Duane Hall and Rodney Moore, and Republican colleagues Rep. Charles Jeter and Sen. Ronald Rabin be investigated for voter fraud? Democracy North Carolina presented documentation Monday that it says shows all four had duplicate voter registrations in other states - what Republican lawmakers say is an indication of voter fraud.

Moore and Jeter are from Mecklenburg County. Rabin is from Hartnett and Hall is from Wake.

Duplicate registrations were a trigger for a current state investigation. The state board of elections is looking at possible voter fraud involving 765 voters with the same name, date of birth, and last 4 digits of their social security number.

Hall, Moore, Jeter and Rabin all have active voter registrations with the same first and last name and the same date of birth in other states, Democracy NC officials said. ABC news affiliate WTVD in Raleigh reported that the group said it is using the examples to make the argument that there are thousands of North Carolinians who moved to the state, and simply forgot to cancel their old voter registration or who just happen to share the same name and date of birth as a voter in another state.

Said the group's executive director Bob Hall: "The hysteria about voter fraud is being used to justify restrictions that do not improve the fairness or security of our election system. They just reduce the access to our voting system for people who are occasional voters."

WRAL reported Jeter had a different view. He acknowledged there could be, as in his case, innocent reasons why people showed up as registered in two states. But he said: "The argument from some of my colleagues is there are probably nefariousness reasons as well." He said the situation pointed to problems within the election system.

Jeter said that he had been a registered voter in his home state of South Carolina before moving to North Carolina. The fact that he could be shown as an active voter in both places "is a primary example of why there needs to be voter ID."

Meanwhile over the weekend, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was quoted in the New York Times as acknowledging the GOP hysteria, as Bob Hall called it, in the push for stricter voter ID laws, saying the Republican Party was alienating and insulting African-Americans. In a Times story headlined, "Paul diverges from his party over voter ID", he quoted as saying: "Everybody's gone completely crazy on this voter ID thing." Paul, who has presidential aspirations, said in the interview Friday. "I think it's wrong for Republicans to go too crazy on this issue, because it's offending people."

It's not just offending people. It's wrong.

- Fannie Flono