Breathtakingly bad argument

In a HuffPo post entitled "'Disenfranchised'? When Words Lose Meaning," Alex Keyssar, "Stirling Professor of History and Social Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard" no less, complains that right-wingers are using the term "disenfranchised" to describe the possible distortion of election returns by voter fraud:

. . . it is both interesting and disturbing that advocates of the new voter ID laws have begun to borrow the word "disenfranchisement" and deform its meaning. Again and again, defenders of these laws have claimed that legitimate voters would be "disenfranchised" if illegal voters were able to cast ballots. Disenfranchised? How so? If huge numbers of imposters voted and illegally changed the outcome of an election, legitimate voters would have been cheated, but not disenfranchised. The election would have been stolen, but no one would have lost their right to vote.

Let's paraphrase this argument: "If your vote was rendered meaningless in a rigged-election, you would still have the right to vote." If that is a good argument, why not argue that someone discouraged from voting by an ID requirement (what Keyssar is worried about) still has the franchise, the right to vote? Don't both arguments depend on making a distinction between thwarting the exercise of a right and removing the right itself?

Tags: HuffPo, voting rights, voter fraud, IDlaws