Rethug Convicted for Election Fraud

Yes, this is election fraud: preventing people from voting through deception or intimidation.

Not to be confused with voter fraud: voting by people who are not eligible to vote.

Here's how to tell the difference:

Election fraud is committed by republicans, targets minorities and other Democratic voters, affects thousands of people, and can change election results.

Voter fraud is falsely attributed to Democrats, doesn't target any particular group, affects a handful of people at most, and has no effect on election results.

Republicans scream bloody murder about rare voter fraud in order to distract attention away from frequent, widespread and destructive election fraud they themselves are committing.

Now we have an actual conviction in a case of republican election fraud.

From TPM:

Former House candidate Tan Nguyen (R) was convicted yesterday of lying to investigators during a voter suppression probe surrounding an intimidating letter sent to Spanish-speaking voters.

Nguyen, a Republican who challenged Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) in 2006, was convicted of obstruction of justice.

According to prosecutors, Nguyen lied to investigators about his involvement with a mailing, written in Spanish and sent to 14,000 households, that warned that "emigrados" could go to jail for voting. The mailing was written on letterhead similar to that of an anti-immigration group in California.

News of the letter and subsequent state investigation broke just weeks before the 2006 election. Sanchez won by 24 percent.

Sanchez was lucky - such voter-supression election fraud usually goes undetected and succeeds.

But now you have hard proof of republican crime to throw in the face of the next rethuglican who foams at the mouth about "voter fraud."