Earlier this week, John Thune, the man challenging Tom Daschle in South Dakota found himself in the midst of a
family voter fraud scandal. The Thune campaign dismissed the report as a misstatement by a volunteer.
Now, it looks like the fraud is much more widespread than previously reported. According to today's Sioux Falls Argus Leader, the Secretary of State, and the Attorney General, are investigating the allegedly illegal actions of Jeff Thune, John Thune's nephew, and Rachel Hoff, a woman employed by the state Republican party. The fraud is allegedly happening in a number of communities across the state, and local auditors are holding questionable documents that seem to be illegally notarized.
Voter fraud is indeed serious, but there is real irony in John Thune breaking election laws. You may remember that Thune screamed voter fraud in his 2002 race in an effort to justify tactics to suppress the minority vote on South Dakota's Native American Reservations. The Republican Attorney general made clear that there was no widespread voter fraud in 2002, but the Republicans were out in force on the reseravations on election day, attempting to intimidate Native voters. They did the same during the Herseth special election.
So now, it seems, the chickens are coming home to roost. The guy who screamed about voter fraud as a means to justify anti-Indain voter intimidation tactics, is now engaging in voter fraud himself to try to beat Tom Daschle.
I know that there have been some here who wish that Tom Daschle would have made different decisions as Democratic Leader. But we can all agree that people like John Thune, who accuse others of voter fraud to suppress minority voters while engaging in voter fraud themselves, deserve to be beaten, badly.
Update [2004-10-9 14:53:5 by sdindc]: Another story on the investigation by law enforcement officials of Thune's nephew in Brookings.