Republicans have complained for years that Democrats are “stealing” elections because ineligible people vote, people vote using the names of the deceased, etc, etc. But whenever they have gone looking for the elusive person who is committing in-person voter fraud, they have largely come up empty. Oh sure, there have been cases here and there, but there has never been a proven case where voter fraud changed the results of an election.

The GOP lost its collective mind when Barack Obama was elected in 2008, because they seemed to realize that if the country would elect a black Democrat, Americans would probably not shy away from voting for a Democrat of literally any race or creed. Republicans nationwide knew they had to do something about that.

The 2010 mid-terms brought about the losses that a sitting president’s party can almost always expect and Republicans took control of a number of state legislatures and governors’ mansions. Many of those GOP-controlled legislatures set out on a literal war on voting. As we entered the 2016 election season, nine states had what the National Conference of State Legislatures calls “strict” photo ID laws on the books. Another eight had a “non-strict” photo ID law. There would be even more, except that court challenges have struck down the laws in some states.

Seth Meyers took a look at these laws on “Late Night,” and found the same things that others have found: in many places the laws are making it almost impossible for some people to vote. He highlights the absurdity of these laws with the example of a 94-year-old North Carolina resident who had to make 10 visits to the DMV, which required driving over 200 miles and over 20 hours of her time. Meyers observes,
94-year-olds are not committing voter fraud. Old people don’t pull scams, they get scammed. Ninety-four is a terrible age to start a long con. ‘First, I’ll get a Democrat elected. And then, oh, I died.’