Do Republicans Really Care About Vote Fraud

Over the last few weeks, Sen. McCain and Republican officials and supporters have spoken quite a bit about ACORN and alleged vote fraud (never mind that it appears to be ACORN who was the victim of fraud, not the perpetrator, and never mind that the fraud, if any, was voter registration fraud, and not actual vote fraud). So, it will be interesting to see how Sen. McCain and the Republicans respond to real, actual, vote fraud, of the kind that actually takes a real person's vote and switches it to the other party. According to the Sunday Gazette-Mail (of the West Virginia Charleston Gazette):

Three Putnam County voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week.

This is the second West Virginia county where voters have reported this problem. Last week, three voters in Jackson County told The Charleston Gazette their electronic vote for "Barack Obama" kept flipping to "John McCain".

In both counties, Republicans are responsible for overseeing elections. Both county clerks said the problem is isolated.

They also blamed voters for not being more careful.

I'm sure that Sen. McCain will immediately demand that the Justice Department step in a investigate; I'm sure that the Republican Party will immediately sue to put a stop to this kind of action. I'm sure that Sen. McCain will demand the resignation of the county officials and seek a way to allow those who voted early to cast new ballots. Right? I think that we all know the answers to those rhetorical questions. And the truly unfortunate part of this story, besides the fact that the election could be influenced by this sort of machine-based vote fraud, is that many people might never know that they were cheated out of casting the vote that they intended. How many West Virginians might emerge from the polls thinking that they'd cast the vote that they wanted and never know that the machines, overseen by Republicans, had switched their votes. That is the kind of vote fraud that we really need to worry about.

Republicans worry about Mickey Mouse showing up on election day to cast a ballot. Democrats worry about Republican county officials rigging voting machines to miscount votes. You tell me which is a greater worry?