Enough Already, Mr. Huffington

Mike Huffington is wasting taxpayer money by pressing his claim that “massive” voter fraud denied him a U.S. Senate seat. His claim strains credibility, and is unlikely to prevail even in a Senate now controlled by Republicans.

The Senate Wednesday seated his Democratic opponent, Dianne Feinstein, pending review of Huffington’s claim by the Senate Rules Committee. From what he and his lawyers have thus far presented, Californians are unlikely to be represented soon by a Sen. Huffington.

A report by Huffington’s “voter fraud task force” claimed at least 170,000 fake voters in the Nov. 8 election. But the report cited only a single example--one Eduardo Rivera of Santa Barbara, who it said registered in 1988 and voted in 1988 and 1994 but did not “appear” to be a citizen.

Feinstein won by a mere 165,562 votes out of 8.5 million cast. Huffington, represented by Harold Ezell, a former federal regional immigration official, devised the 170,000 figure by dubious extrapolation of false registrations from a sampling of a handful of voting precincts. Certainly the rolls contain many errors. But that does not automatically translate into actual votes. Even if there indeed are 170,000 fraudulent ballots, to make a difference in the outcome nearly all of them would have to be Feinstein votes.

That is unbelievable in a GOP landslide in which few Democratic incumbents survived, in which Republican Gov. Pete Wilson crushed Kathleen Brown and in which Proposition 187 passed overwhelmingly. Moreover, voter fraud of this scale would require organization and money that would by now have been quite apparent.

That said, Huffington has done a service in calling attention to glaring faults in California’s voting system. People can register and vote without proof of identity, citizenship or residence. Contrary to Huffington’s assertions, however, there is a means to purge the rolls of voters who have died or moved away. But it is a weak, passive system in which voters are purged only if postcards sent to their homes are returned as undeliverable.

The new secretary of state, Bill Jones, has properly promised to remedy these defects. Huffington should take his case to Jones, not the Senate. There may be some “ghost” voters on the rolls, but Huffington should give up the ghost in his costly bid to be a senator.

fington should give up the ghost in his costly bid to be a senator.