Assuming that election fraud is rampant in county offices and in the precincts, a band of 50 sponsors are proposing to pass a constitutional amendment to prevent fraud. The problem is that there is now no voter fraud in North Dakota, never has been, never will be.

I have personally been involved in a survey of local election inspectors and states attorneys and did not find any reports of fraud. This is another case of passing legislation to restrict something that is unlikely to happen.

In case a circus comes to town and the elephants escape, we need to have a law that prohibits elephants on railroad tracks. Nobody in North Dakota has ever seen an elephant on the railroad tracks but it could happen.

That is about the rationale of the group that wants to make voting more difficult in the event some ineligible person votes in the wrong precinct.

With electronic genius pervasive in our social, political and economic systems, it is ironic that these folks trust all of the other uses in their daily lives but question using electronic voting machines.

It’s all a form of paranoia that some politicians use to gain and hold power.

According Forum reporter Melissa Van Der Stad, the proposal goes beyond merely controlling the non-existent fraud.

It proposes to ban early voting. How is early voting vulnerable to fraud? Some states even go so far as sending out ballots to voters without incurring charges of fraud. Sponsors are suggesting that North Dakotans are more dishonest than residents of other states.

It would allow people from other states to come to North Dakota and circulate petitions. Are sponsors inviting national organizations to take over the circulation of petitions?

It would allow payment per signature in the petition process. This suggests that there are deep pockets outside of North Dakota that want in and this proposal would legalize their access.

It would guarantee petitioners the right to collect signatures on “any public property without restriction.” When it comes to “public property,” do they mean any property used by the public or only property actually owned by a government?

Making the whole proposal more suspect is the provision to reduce the number of signatures required to recall elected officials from 25 percent to 10 percent. It has nothing to do with fraud.

We have to ask about the breadth of this proposal. Does it take in all elected officials in North Dakota, which would include school boards, township supervisors, county and city officials. If passed, it would override county and city home rule powers.

My suspicions are elevated when I look over the committee of sponsors and find the names of right-wingers who are hoping to use these powers to bypass the legislature by bringing out-of-state resources into our policy-making process.

We already have national organizations drafting model laws for state legislatures, too many of which do appear in our statute books.

If the “Election Integrity Act” is passed it would make voting more difficult, especially for the handicapped; it would add a new burden on election workers hand counting paper ballots; it would result in more counting errors than found in electronic systems; it would delay reporting election results, and the ID requirements would skim off voters.

There is no fraud in North Dakota elections, just as there are no elephants on the railroad tracks. Neither one is going to happen.

The suggestion of fraud impeaches the honesty and integrity of all of the hard-working, underpaid election workers who surrender their time for the good of the community.