Should I be fair to Ann Coulter? Should I even write about her? Sure, why not? It’s fun.
Ann Coulter bought a house in Palm Beach County last year. Apparently, she left Manhattan because she was concerned about stalkers. I can understand that. I would not feel very comfortable walking around Manhattan if I were Ann Coulter and it is probably a good thing that she got a clue that she wasn’t welcome.
The thing is, when she got to Florida and it came time to register to vote down there in that hotbed of Buchananism, she gave a phony address. In fairness, she was concerned about stalkers and she probably wanted to protect her privacy. I can’t think of any other motivation. But the problem with giving a phony address on your voter registration application is twofold. First, it’s illegal. And second, it can result in unfortunate things like this:
Coulter, who owns a $1.8 million crib on Seabreeze Avenue, should have voted in Precinct 1198. It covers most homes on her street. Instead, records show, she voted in Precinct 1196, at the northern tip of the island.
Ah, blast it! She should have thought of that. You use the wrong address, chances are pretty good that you are going to need to vote in the wrong precinct. That’s a shame. So, what are the penalties for committing this type of twofold election fraud?
Florida statutes make it a third-degree felony to vote knowingly in the wrong precinct. Lying on a voter’s registration can cost up to $5,000 and five years behind bars.
That’s pretty stiff punishment. And it’s ironic. Back in the aftermath of the 2000 election, Ann Coulter had a few choice things to say about Floridians that can’t figure out how to vote. Like this one, in the context of Hillary’s criticism of the electoral college.
Indeed, the current crisis foisted on the nation by Gore illustrates with some clarity the sort of mischief the Electoral College sought to prevent. The late Yale law professor Alexander Bickel argued that by tallying presidential votes state by state, the Electoral College would isolate the effect of voter fraud in any one state, legitimizing the election results.
If the entire raw national total were up for grabs, the whole country would have to be initiated into the vote-stealing customs now being seen in Florida. Hapless old people nationwide would be taking to the airwaves to claim they really were trying to order a Whopper but were tricked into voting for Pat Buchanan.
Ann Coulter isn’t a hapless old person. She’s just a criminal.
