If you want to see someone on the progressive left blow a gasket, talk about voter fraud. They will all you it doesn’t exist or it’s so small, it’s immeasurable. I say they can’t see the forest for the trees.

The hard part about voter fraud is, you have to prove the person knew what he was doing was illegal. Imagine hearing this at the polls:

Poll worker: Hello, your name?

Fraudulent voter: John Smith.

Poll worker: Sign here, Mr. Smith, and I’ll give you your ballot.

Poll worker: Sir, do you know that if you are not Mr. Smith and you are voting for him, it’s a federal offense punishable by fines and jail time?

Mr Smith: Yes, Mr. Poll Worker, and I assure you I’m Mr. Smith.

Have you ever heard this at the polls? Never.

One state assembly person voted 19 times and yes, she finally got caught. She tried to say she didn’t remember voting – 18 extra times?

In Florida, major cases of voter fraud go back to 1984 when it became so bad that it was hard to miss. According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, types of voter fraud included:

• Someone voting on behalf of someone else.

• Purchasing or selling absentee ballots or someone’s vote.

• Non-city residents voting in municipal elections.

• Changing of ballots.

• Voting by absentee ballots under the name of deceased persons.

• Voting in the election by non-U.S. citizens.

• False statements or information being provided with regard to address information or changes of addresses on voter registrations.

• Possible use of certain addresses within the city limits as the “new address” for persons not residing within the city; done with the apparent sole purpose of permitting voting in the municipal election.

Andrew Ladanowski, owner of a computer software company, suspected the Florida’s Division of Elections wasn’t really verifying any information.

There were more than 700 voter ID cards in Florida that seemed to have been duplicated. He verified his suspicions by dong a quick analysis of Miami-Dade’s voting systems where, it turned out, there were 44 voter ID’s issued to the same person. Elections officials admit 42 of those 44 were duplicates.

But what I want to know is, can’t the computer systems find these issues? Can’t we divert some of the millions of dollars wasted on the Obamacare site (or any one of the hundreds of other government programs wasting good tax money) to cleaning up voter registrations?

When finished, he found more than 762 Florida voters have more than one county-issued voter ID card. Some are registered with the same address, and others are registered in different counties.

And a computer can’t flag this information? Why?

But hey, voter fraud doesn’t really exist. If you Google “voter fraud cases,” the first two pages come up with articles basically saying voter fraud doesn’t exist. Knowing how Google has been caught rigging search results, I kept digging. Guess what? Further back in the search results, you can find the truth. Unfortunately, most people don’t dig that deep.

I found tidbits like this all over left-leaning loon sites: “Voter Fraud Fact: Opponents of the Democratic Party like Fox News and opponents of government in general like the Koch brothers and are just some of the powerful groups behind the voter fraud controversy in the United States. They stand to lose the most money and power if Republicans lose elections.” (http://voterfraudfacts.com/)

If there’s really no voter fraud happening, I fail to see how expending the effort to clean up voter rolls (which supposedly don’t have a problem) will change the outcome of an election. If there’s no fraud, there won’t be anything to fix. So what’s the problem?

There are more than 81,000 voter irregularities on the Los Angeles County voter rolls. That includes duplicate names at the same address with one name simply missing a middle initial or typos of a name (such as “Connors” versus “Conors”) with the same birth dates, sex, etc. Another 3,100 are dead or are registered out of state. But liberals would have us just look the other way. There’s no fraud going on here.

North Carolina is looking into nearly 800 cases of voter fraud. In 2010, out of 7,500 votes cast, more than 2,600 were cast by people ranging in ages from 110 to 140. I guess if you want to live a long life, move to North Carolina. Don’t worry, there’s no voter fraud here.

There are about 28 states now that share voter registration information. It’s not automatic. The Secretary of State has to request updates and data dumps to cross-reference voters. North Carolina is one of the states cross-checking voters. In the first year of doing it, they found more than 36,000 registered voters had voted in more than one state. Yup, no voter fraud here.

Iowa recently referred more than 80 cases for investigation. Texas is investigating 311, with 51 convictions so far, and they are still moving through them. Ohio has 19 documented cases with one case being an elected official who said she voted twice for Obama. Her granddaughter also voted twice (her first time voting). Both used the absentee and poll voting methods. Georgia is investigating 301 cases.

Most states report investigations of suspected voter fraud. Massachusetts, Oklahoma, South Carolina and South Dakota don’t release information as to whether there are investigations into alleged voter fraud or not. Hmm? That doesn’t sound very transparent.

In Maricopa County, Ariz., The Blaze reports: “A person wearing a Citizens for a Better Arizona T-shirt dropped a large box of hundreds of early ballots on the table and started stuffing the ballot box as a poll worker watched in amazement.” When questioned by a poll observer, his response was, “none of your business.” No fraud here, right?

Fraudulent voting activity is all over the place, including double voting, impersonation, vote buying and selling, ineligible voting, voter registration issues, and absentee voting issues.

So let me see if I have this right. You guys on the far left are good with…

Same day registration and voting. No ID. No proof of residency. No proof of citizenship. And you think none of that can easily lead to voter fraud? Are you serious?

Unfortunately, voter fraud is next to impossible to prove, and it must be done on a ballot-by-ballot basis, which is costly and is also why you don’t hear much in the way of prosecution.

But if you left-leaning folks really want a “victory” instead of a hollow win under the suspicion of cheating, then start requiring ID to vote, stop same-day registration and voting, and institute mandatory voter registration verification between counties and states. And poll workers need to be English-speaking United States citizens who are trained properly on how to operate the polls.

Otherwise, the right will eventually get its turn – and let’s see you try to cry foul then.

Joe Messina is host of The Real Side (TheRealSide.com), a nationally syndicated talk show that runs on AM-1220 KHTS radio and SCVTV [here]. He is also an elected member of the Hart School Board. His commentary publishes Mondays.