Republicans are, as a party, universally consistent in their demands for voter ID laws and other measures to protect American elections from voter "fraud." Except from their own voters, of course. Let's not be nuts about this, after all.
Neither party [in Iowa] required any identification or proof of address to register to vote, or to caucus.
Iowa Republicans have pushed hard for years for a voter ID law for state-run elections. Because caucuses are a private party function, the party could have mandated an ID rule without the blessing of Democrats in the Iowa Legislature.
So if a voter ID law was so all-important, here we have a case where Republicans could have instituted such a rule with no Democratic obstruction whatsoever. As it stands now, by golly, anybody could waltz into a Republican caucus and caucus for one of their Republicans. How do we know Mr. Smith of Des Moines is not really Mr. Jones, of Elkader?
Both GOP and Democratic state party officials defended the no-ID rule by saying a felony would be a high price to pay to vote for a candidate — any unauthorized voter is committing perjury and risks jail time and a $7,500 fine. The spokesmen for both state parties also noted there have been few reports of fraud in Iowa over the years.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but duh. And yet the party continues to insist that people who are not white Iowa Republicans need to have their identification checked before voting, because while their have been "few reports of fraud" and the penalty for such a meaningless act of defiance is steep compared to the nonexistent returns, something something outrage, and so on.
It's almost as if they have two different standards. Almost.