There's gold - or is it fraud? - in them thar hills. (Cui bono in action.)

There is virtually NO evidence of 2020 election fraud. Zero. Zip. Nada. Zilch.

The handful of cases of fraud that have been found mostly seem to involve folks who didn't realize that, as convicted felons, they weren't eligible to vote. (In the most noted instances,a couple of Black people have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for this outrage.) Or the cases involved Trump voters who knowingly and deliberately cast ballots on behalf of dead relatives who would have voted for DJT. If only they were alive. Or who chose to vote in both Florida and their home state.  (In all the instances I'm aware of, all the fraudsters were white. I think one of them was jailed for a

couple of days. For the others: zero, zip, nada, zilch.)

But the lack of evidence hasn't prevented Trump, his cultists, and many members of the GOP who know better, from trumpeting about election fraud. (A stunning 70% of Republicans - 70%! - claim to believe that Joe Biden didn't win, Trump did.)

All this we wuz' robbed nonsense, and the accompanying phoney baloney braying about the need for election integrity is resulting in all sorts of state laws aimed at voter suppression, i.e., laws that suppress voters who are most likely to vote Democratic. 

And, naturally, all this fake alarm is creating opportunities to cash in.

Special ink designed to be sensitive to temperature changes. Nearly invisible “stealth numbers” that can be located only using special ultraviolet or infrared lights.

Those are among the high-tech security features that would be required to be embedded on ballots under measures proposed in at least four states by Republican lawmakers — all promoters of false claims that the 2020 election was marred by mass fraud — in an attempt to make the ballots as hard to counterfeit as passports or currency. (WaPo)

As it so happens, these security approaches require special paper. And, as it so happens, there may be just one company - Authentix, out of Addison, Texas, that makes this paper. And, as it so happens, Authentix has been buddying up to GOP lawmakers to make sure they know all about how their product can be used to combat non-existent fraud.

The proposals face stiff battles before they can become law, but they demonstrate the potentially lucrative business opportunities created by suspicions that Donald Trump and his allies have spread about the security of elections. They also vividly illustrate how a loose network of die-hard Trump supporters is coordinating to push concerns about mass electoral fraud, including through conference calls that one participant said has included regular discussion of the nearly identically worded anti-counterfeit bills.

"Identically worded" is how a lot of laws being pushed by special interests get slipped into actual laws for all sorts of awful things. The groups who want a law passed hand lazy legislators prewritten bills (generally accompanied by a political donation), and away we go. 

All this foolishness, if it ever gets put into action, is going to cost taxpayers plenty. Special ink. Special papers. Special machines to read the special ink on the special papers.

But, hey, as long as someone can make a buck. And as long as the right-wingers can keep their 'we wuz robbed' narrative going, undermining Biden, undermining democracy, undermining every election result that doesn't fall in their favor. 

Very similar to when the for-profit prison companies (and prison guard unions) lobby for stricter sentencing guidelines. Build, baby, build more prisons! Hire, baby, hire more guards!

And so many other sordid situations, too numerous and disheartening to count.

There may be no fraud in our elections, but there's gold in them thar hills.

But before we go bulk ordering special inks, special paper, etc. - in the name of preserving election integrity - surely we need to ask the age-old cui bono question: just who benefits from this????