As we gird ourselves for the possibility that hundreds of Republican election deniers will win their races next week, some of them in highly influential positions, it's important to remember that their party has been crying about "voter fraud" for decades. Republicans began organizing in earnest around the issue back in the 1980s, when Jesse Jackson's campaign successfully registered many African Americans and younger voters during his Rainbow Coalition campaigns, and sharp-eyed GOP operatives perceived the dangerous potential for a new Democratic majority. After Bill Clinton signed the Motor Voter Bill in 1993, making it easier for those folks to register through the DMV, Republicans really went to work.
By 2000, the GOP had organized partisan election lawyers all over the country, many of whom descended on Florida that November to help George W. Bush's team press every favorable electoral and judicial lever in the state governed by his brother to ensure a so-called victory. Luckily for them, Florida had taken their advice and "mistakenly" purged the voter rolls of thousands of eligible voters, and after the Supreme Court halted a recount (which might have reversed the outcome all by itself) Bush was successfully installed in the White House.
