Clarence Mingo is a black delegate to the Republican National Convention. Yesterday, he participated on a panel that formally adopted support for Voter ID laws in the Republican Party platform. Here’s what Mr. Mingo had to say:

“I think it is very important and critical that this language not be used for strategic political purposes,” Mingo, an African-American, said. “Our efforts in this regard must be sincere, and that’s to prevent voter fraud. Any other message or any other suggestion that the party or this platform is attempting to suppress votes for political gain I don’t think will help our cause much, and that’s certainly not the intent of this body.

“But I do think it’s terrifically important that we demonstrate sincerity in this regard in that we highlight the fact that this is about voter fraud and not political gain,” Mingo added.

I present the following for Mr. Mingo’s consideration:

A new nationwide analysis of 2,068 alleged election-fraud cases since 2000 shows that while fraud has occurred, the rate is infinitesimal, and in-person voter impersonation on Election Day, which prompted 37 state legislatures to enact or consider tough voter ID laws, is virtually non-existent.

In an exhaustive public records search, reporters from the investigative reporting project “News21” sent thousands of requests to elections officers in all 50 states, asking for every case of fraudulent activity including registration fraud, absentee ballot fraud, vote buying, false election counts, campaign fraud, casting an ineligible vote, voting twice, voter impersonation fraud and intimidation.

Analysis of the resulting comprehensive News21 election fraud database turned up 10 cases of voter impersonation. With 146 million registered voters in the United States during that time, those 10 cases represent one out of about every 15 million prospective voters.

With ten cases of confirmed in-person voter impersonation over a ten year period, that’s two cases nationwide per election cycle. By contrast, under the new Pennsylvania Voter ID law, there are 758,000 Pennsylvanians and 186,830 Philadelphia residents (18% of the population) who do not have the requisite identification to vote.

Now, Mr. Mingo is concerned that the Voter ID laws not be perceived as designed to provide some kind of political advantage. He wants to have free and fair elections, not to change the outcome through chicanery. Taking Mr Mingo at his word, I hope he would agree that a vote wrongly denied is just as much of a distortion of the political will as a vote wrongly cast. A law that disenfranchises 186,830 Philadelphians is just as bad as a computer virus that adds 186,830 make-believe votes to the overall tally. The Voter ID laws won’t actually disenfranchise that many voters because people can take steps to obtain identification between now and the election, but the laws will surely cost more than two people their right to vote.

To knowingly take tens of thousands of people’s votes away just to try to prevent a one in fifteen million chance of in-person voter impersonation cannot be justified. And, given the demographic profile of the people who lack identification, it cannot be seriously argued that the laws don’t give the Republicans a political advantage. Mr. Mingo must be able to see this. His first clue is that only Republican-controlled legislatures are passing these laws.

Voter ID laws may make a lot of intuitive sense, but they are really just latter-day Jim Crow laws passed to change the outcome of this November’s election. It’s cheating under the pretense of preventing cheating. It’s dishonest and dishonorable, and it’s an affront to the people who fought during the Civil Rights Era to win the vote for African-Americans.

Mr. Mingo should be ashamed to have anything to do with these laws. He should not want to win this way.