DENNIS MYERS Against the Grain Advertisement

In the U.S. attorneys dispute involving the Bush administration, one of the principal reasons cited for the firings of the attorneys was that they were not aggressive enough in pursuing an administration priority - voter fraud.

This was, for the attorneys, a difficult assignment since there is almost no voter fraud. With a U.S. voting age population of more than 223,000,000, there were 86 cases of voter fraud in the U.S. in the last five years.

But apparently, it wasn't an impossible assignment. Those U.S. attorneys who spent lots of time on the "problem" of voter fraud kept their jobs.

It you think all this is a reflection of inside-the-beltway insanity, consider this: The Nevada Legislature and secretary of state are spending a considerable amount of time on voter fraud.

Secretary of State Ross Miller, interviewed recently on television, was asked about voter fraud: "Is that a real issue, or - I've never talked with a voter registrar who's ever seen an example...of that type of election fraud."

Miller replied, "Well, that's exactly right. I think the clerks and the registrars will tell you that there's no evidence of any voter fraud occurring."

So far, so good. But then Miller said that just because there's no voter fraud does not mean that there's no voter fraud problem. He went on: "But it's a significant issue because the public perceives it as being an issue. And anytime that that happens, I think, the public loses faith in the electoral process, it's an issue that needs to be addressed and it needs to be addressed aggressively. So clearly you've got to have the safety guards in place in order to make sure that fraud doesn't occur."

OK, so we got voting equipment that Miller characterizes as having great protections against voter fraud. That's all we need, right?

Miller goes on: "But I think more importantly you've got to put the penalties in place on the back end and the resources to be able to investigate violations where you see them and push for, you know, real stiff penalties for those that do break the election law violations [sic]. So that's why we've put forth a measure to the legislature that we're hoping will get passed that we've introduced that will make it a category A felony for fraudulent interference with those electronic voting machines or the software."

Wait a minute, isn't election fraud already against the law? Well, yes. But more and heavier penalties are a tradition at the Nevada Legislature, which is why Nevada taxpayers spend a larger portion of their tax bills on penology than those of most other states. But heavy penalties for a nonexistent problem are still quite a reach.

It's important to remember that Miller ran for his job against Danny Tarkanian, who told one interviewer, "I believe it is important to eliminate voter fraud." So is Miller just preempting his opponent's program in order to inoculate himself on this issue? If that's the case, why didn't we just elect Tarkanian and eliminate the middleman? If Miller believes, as he says, that voter fraud is not a serious problem, why isn't he engaged in the elected official's indispensable role of educating the public?

Miller's a Democrat. On the other side of the aisle is Republican Barbara Cegavske, a senator from Clark County who has introduced legislation requiring Nevada voters to present identification when they vote, undercutting the state's long term informality - voting at neighborhood schools in elections handled by volunteer poll workers, usually senior citizens.

At a time when people have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the polls, let's make it more bureaucratic.

Asked why she introduced the bill, Cegavske did not cite actual cases of voter fraud: "I talked to poll workers who say they have no idea if the person that comes forward is who they say they are. No checks and balances. This last election, the workers I have known and seen for the past 18 years at my polling place ... said they had over 60 percent turnout [of registered voters], the most they have ever seen. They did not know these people and said they could not ask for their ID to verify. I always show my ID when I vote."

Based on anecdotal information from people who work on elections two days every other year, she is describing as a problem an election in which there was increased turnout and no voter fraud.

With any kind of luck, we'll be able to stamp out this kind of rampant success.