GOP Lawyer: New Yorker Ran 'Hit Piece' on Me

With election day looming, a Republican lawyer is accusing New Yorker writer Jane Mayer of penning "a journalistic hit piece" about his support for voter ID laws. Hans von Spakovsky accuses her of maligning his character and ignoring many instances of voter fraud in her article "The Voter-Fraud Myth"—like the nearly 200 non-citizens registered to vote in Florida. Writing in the National Review, he says she also misrepresented a Georgia report that uncovered 5,412 registered voters whose names matched those of people who had died.

What's more, Mayer didn't mention that black and Latino voter turnout rose in Georgia and Indiana in 2008 despite voter ID laws. "Like many liberals, Mayer resists reporting on voter fraud because it upsets her narrative," writes von Spakovsky. And "some of Mayer’s slams against me are just odd." In her article, Mayer portrays the national group True the Vote—and its members, like von Spakovsky—as the purveyors of a "voter-fraud myth" that's unsupported by substantial evidence. Click for her full article, or his. (More voter ID laws stories.)