Project Dumb-Ass

So James O'Keefe, famous for creating (heavily edited) videos which purport to show terrible behavior on the part of progressives, tried again.

Moriarty said that O’Keefe used the names of deceased Minnesotans and a Minnesotan who was alive and had voted in the primary. She said she was unaware how they received those names. The men allegedly tried to vote at four different polling places, asking questions of various election judges about the process while falsely identifying who they were. Moriarty said neither man received an actual ballot or cast a vote and that they left one polling place after being asked for identification.

He went to Minnesota, dressed up in faux Middle-Eastern garb, and tried to obtain a ballot using false names -- one of someone who was dead, one of someone who had already voted. He and his friend did this four times, and in none of these cases did they actually obtain a ballot.

In other words, the system in Minnesota worked.

Yet all over conservative FB and conservative blogs, I'm seeing the claim that actually O'Keefe exposed the ease with which people could commit voter fraud in Minnesota, and that this made 'the libs' mad and that's why they arrested him. He's a political prisoner!

O'Keefe has apparently posted yet another heavily edited video, and this is probably where conservatives are getting their mistaken conviction that O'Keefe managed to actually commit voter fraud, or that this was an exposure of the ease with which people can commit voter fraud in MN, instead of an exposure of how they can't.

Or they may be getting it from conservative news sources, which are pushing the same lie.

Also from the article:

Minnesota’s unlawful voting act states that “no individual shall intentionally misrepresent the individuals’ identity in applying for a ballot.” The charges allege that O’Keefe and Higby committed identity theft because O’Keefe “used multiple identities that are not his own with the intent to commit and aid in the commission of an unlawful activity” that included aiding Higby’s attempts to vote in several precincts.

And:

“It is not against the law to be performative, it is not against the law to be offensive, it is not against the law to say the things they said standing outside the polling place,” Moriarty said. “The fundamental issue here is you cannot go into a polling place and misidentify yourself and use other people’s identity and say that to our election judges when you apply for a ballot, whether or not you intend to vote.”

I'm with PZ Myers.  Lock this weasel up.