Voters in Alabama got this robocall last week from “Bernie Bernstein”:

I’m a reporter for The Washington Post calling to find out if anyone at this address is a female between the ages of 54 to 57 years old, willing to make damaging remarks about candidate Roy Moore for a reward of between $5,000 and $7,000. We will not be fully investigating these claims however we will make a written report.

This anti-Semitic travesty would violate Maryland law.

It is a crime to “influence or attempt to influence a voter’s voting decision through the use of force, threat, menace, intimidation, bribery, reward, or offer of reward.”

Shortly before the 2002 general election in Maryland, a flyer was distributed in neighborhoods of color urging people to vote on the Thursday after Election Day and implying that you couldn’t vote if you owed rent, child support, or parking tickets.

I responded by sponsoring the bill that made it illegal to “influence or attempt to influence a voter’s decision whether to go to the polls to cast a vote through the use of force, fraud, threat, menace, intimidation, bribery, reward, or offer of reward.” (emphasis added)

This is the fraud that is degrading our election process. Not the fake fraud that is the basis for Republican efforts to limit access to the ballot.