There’s very clearly a way to be on “the wrong side of the law”, but can you be on the wrong side of “the media” in the way that you don’t necessarily have a defensible position? James O’Keefe, self-styled guerrilla conservative and sham documentarian, has now placed himself firmly on the wrong side of the media, going from possibly controversial issues that he further “controversializes” (a word that needs to be created for people like this), to manufacturing controversy around a non-issue.

You may have heard of O’Keefe’s work in the scandal around federally subsidized welfare agency ACORN, in which he planted individuals posing as pimps and prostitutes seeking government aid and recorded their interactions with ACORN employees. The result was a massive embarrassment to the agency and the ultimate loss of federal funds nationwide. ACORN, and welfare agencies of its kind around the country, have been a common target for conservatives that believe welfare agencies are the sloth-inducing bane of a capitalist democratic society.

O’Keefe’s latest work was to highlight the issue of voter fraud in New Hampshire during the New Hampshire primary. Again, using plants, he placed people at different polling stations across the country. These “actors” gave polling officials names of voters that were recently deceased (within several weeks) as their identity, including addresses and other identifying information, and would take the ballot. However, if the worker did not ask for identification (which they never did), the person would return the ballot and tell the worker that they were returning to their car for identification, never to return.

The problem with O’Keefe’s latest work is two-fold. First, voter fraud in New Hampshire is a non-issue. In a study reported on by Think Progress called “The Truth About Voter Fraud”, the Brennan Center investigated voter fraud in the 2004 election and found that it is virtually non-existent. Four incidents of voter fraud, including one in which a domestic abuse victim did not want to give her real name and address, would bring the occurrence of voter fraud nationwide to .0006%. In other words, on a roadtrip around the country you will run in to more people that have been struck by lightning than have committed voter fraud.

Nonetheless, O’Keefe persisted in his efforts, which brings me to the second problem. Under O’Keefe’s direction, the documentary’s “actors”, according to New Hampshire law, illegally provided a false name and physically took a ballot. In other words, to prove that people were breaking the law when they weren’t, this sham documentarian actually broke the law himself. The only people committing voter fraud in the state of New Hampshire (or anywhere, for that matter) are O’Keefe and his goons. It seems that he’s found himself, this time at least, both on the wrong side of the media AND the wrong side of the law.