In another example of Fox News pandering to Latino audiences, the Fox News Latino web site featured an article today that contradicted everything that Fox News reports to their non-Latino audiences.

This article is a reprint from the Associated Press and it covers the issue of voter suppression in a manner that respects the truth. The author correctly notes that instances of in-person voter fraud are nearly non-existent, but that the photo-ID laws advanced by Republicans will disenfranchise thousands of eligible voters:

“The numbers suggest legitimate votes rejected by the laws are far more numerous than are the cases of fraud that advocates of the rules say they are trying to prevent. […]

“Supporters of the laws cite anecdotal cases of fraud as a reason that states need to do more to secure elections, but fraud appears to be rare. As part of its effort to build support for voter ID laws, the Republican National Lawyers Association last year published a report that identified some 400 election fraud prosecutions over a decade across the entire country. That’s not even one per state per year.

“ID laws would not have prevented many of those cases because they involved vote-buying schemes in local elections or people who falsified voter registrations.”

On Fox News the typical approach to this story is the ludicrous accusation that opponents of ID laws are proponents of fraud. Even though they can never cite actual incidents of fraud, people like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Neil Cavuto, Megyn Kelly, and the juvenile miscreants on Fox & Friends, persist in spreading falsehoods about imaginary illegal voters. Then they use their fairy tales to justify legislation that will result in valid voters being turned away at the polls. And just coincidentally, the vast majority of those turned away are seniors, students, and minorities, who are likely Democratic voters.

Republican governors and legislators are the ones pushing these discriminatory policies, with the help of Fox News. However, on Fox’s Latino-focused web site the story is completely different. It is treated with the proper attention to the harm that would befall Latino voters. This is a perspective that never appears on the Fox News mothership.

The purpose is obvious. Fox News is working in concert with the GOP to purge Democrats from the voter rolls. However, they don’t want to completely alienate the fast growing Latino population. So they segregate their news coverage in order to mollify Latino audiences who are rightfully concerned about this issue, but Fox hides this honest reporting from the dimwits who watch Fox News. It’s a cynical ploy that could only be hatched by people who think that Latinos are stupid enough to fall for it. Fortunately, that’s where Fox went wrong.