Dan Branch wants to become Texas’s next attorney general and, by golly, the Republican state representative from Dallas says he’s going to get really tough on voter fraud.

I must ask, therefore: Is voter fraud a major problem in Texas? I am thinking it’s about as major an issue here as it is virtually everywhere else. Which means it isn’t that big a deal.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2013/10/branch-vows-to-attack-voter-fraud-in-texas/

Branch vows to monitor groups that seek to “subvert” voter integrity; he would appoint a special counsel who would prosecute those accused of voter fraud; and he vows to defend the Texas voter ID law against “spurious” attempts by the Obama administration to overturn it.

I’m still a bit dubious about the need for a voter ID law in Texas, particularly since those who sing its praises contend that voter fraud has reached epidemic proportions here. I’m still awaiting evidence that voter fraud is rampant.

Roughly 8 million Texans voted in the 2012 presidential election. Has anyone produced evidence that voter fraud has become a major concern anywhere in the state? I haven’t heard of it.

Yes, the state’s political history is full of stories of dead people voting. Duval County in South Texas provides the best-known example of corpses rising from their graves to vote for Lyndon Johnson. That was a very long time ago.

The state’s population has exploded in the decades since that era. The number of people voting in elections has boomed. Have we seen an accompanying explosion in cases of vote fraud? No.

Obviously, I do not condone voter fraud. Yes, the state needs to be vigilant to protect the integrity of the electoral process. I sense, however, that candidates for public office, as the San Antonio Express-News blog linked to this post notes, may be “creating a solution in search of a problem.”