In the wake of the 2010 elections, numerous GOP-controlled states have adopted so-called “voter ID” laws to target the entirely fabricated problem of in-person voter fraud. Such voter fraud is so uncommon that a voter is 39 times more likely to be struck by lightning than to actually commit fraud at the polls. Yet because these laws also disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters in demographics that tend to support Democrats, they have become the darling of GOP lawmakers.

So it is much more disappointing than surprising that Pennsylvania’s Republican Gov. Tom Corbett is now pressuring lawmakers in his state to enact one of these vote suppressing laws, despite the fact that a top GOP lawmaker admits that there is no proof that these vote suppressing laws are needed:

Republicans continued Monday to press legislation to require Pennsylvanians to show photo identification before they vote, despite resistance from Democrats who say it is intended to suppress turnout of poor and black voters and Republicans acknowledging they lack proof of voter fraud.

Senate State Government Committee Chairman Charles McIlhinney said he has seen no proof that people are casting illegal ballots, but he also said he’s seen no proof that tightening the requirements would deny anyone the right to vote. He called the requirement a “security check.”

“It was put upon us and asked for by the governor and by the House, who passed the bill, and they asked me to take it up,” McIlhinney, R-Bucks, said after the committee vote. “I made the changes based upon what I felt I would accept to come out of the committee.”

So the GOP has no evidence whatsoever that voter fraud exists in Pennsylvania, yet they are pushing this bill through anyway. Sadly, America has seen this movie before.

Earlier this year, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) announced a plan to essentially rig the 2012 presidential election by giving away up to a dozen of the state’s electoral votes to whoever gets the Republican nomination. Under Corbett’s plan, each of the state’s 18 congressional districts — which are being gerrymandered so that as many as 12 of them favor Republicans — would choose how to allocate a single electoral vote rather than having all of the state’s votes go to the winner of the state. Democrats won Pennsylvania in every presidential election since 1992 — but Corbett’s plan would all but ensure that the GOP candidate received more electoral votes from the state even if the state’s voters decisively prefer to reelect President Obama.

Since Corbett announced this election rigging plan, numerous Republicans have opposed it on the grounds that it could endanger a few Republican House seats by causing the Obama campaign to shift resources into those districts (no Republican seems bothered by the fact that rigging elections is wrong). For now, these dissenters appear to be carrying the day:

Republican-sponsored proposal to change how Pennsylvania’s electoral votes are counted in next year’s presidential election appears to be running out of steam. [...] “I see no movement on it. I’m not going to push for movement, but I still support it,” Corbett, a Republican, told a Pennsylvania Press Club luncheon. [...]

Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, the bill’s sponsor, responded to Corbett by saying that advancing the bill would require a considerable effort by the Senate, the House, and the governor.

“At this time, my primary focus is completing our work on legislation regarding education reforms, the Marcellus Shale industry, and transportation funding,” wrote Pileggi (R., Delaware). “When those items are finished, we can revisit the Electoral College reform legislation, although I do not believe there will be sufficient time to advance it this year.”

So the good news is the plan is probably dead. The bad news is that it can be revived at any time. Unlike many other states engaged in drastic GOP overreach, Pennsylvania has no provision for citizens to repeal laws by referendum, and no provision to recall manifestly unfit elected officials such as Tom Corbett.

In other words, there is nothing other than sheer public outrage preventing Corbett from reviving this plan in late 2012 if it looks like President Obama is headed towards a close victory that could be prevented by some creative election rigging tactics.

Conservatives can normally rely on George Will to provide a gloss of pseudo-intellectual legitimacy to their worst policy proposals. Will is a passionate global warming denier. He called Americans upset about the 2008 economic downturn the “crybabies of the western world.” And he even spent an entire column praising the Supreme Court’s discredited decision in Lochner v. New York, which struck down a state worker protection law largely because five justices felt like it.

Yet, for all of Will’s willingness to carry water for the most repulsive and out of touch ideas, even he is offended by Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett’s (R) plan to rig the Electoral College in order to elect a Republican president in 2012:

Republicans supposedly revere the Constitution, but in its birthplace, Pennsylvania, they are contemplating a subversion of the Framers’ institutional architecture. Their ploy — partisanship masquerading as altruism about making presidential elections more “democratic” — will weaken resistance to an even worse change being suggested.

Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled Legislature may pass, and the Republican governor promises to sign, legislation ending the state’s practice — shared by 47 other states — of allocating all of its electoral votes to the candidate who wins the statewide popular vote. Pennsylvania would join Maine and Nebraska in allocating one vote to the winner in each congressional district, with the two remaining votes going to the statewide popular vote winner. [...] The Electoral College today functions differently than the Founders envisioned — they did not anticipate political parties — but it does buttress the values encouraged by the federalism the Framers favoured, which Pennsylvanians, and others, should respect.

As with most Will columns, there is also a lot to not like in his rejection of the Pennsylvania vote rigging plan. Among other things, the “even worse change” Will refers to is the entirely sensible National Popular Vote compact, which would ensure that the person who gets the most votes actually gets to be president of the United States. Nevertheless, Will’s break with Corbett on Corbett’s plan to rig the presidential election is a hopeful sign that establishment conservatives are turning against that plan.