Posted on 10/19/2016 12:07:35 PM PDT by Beautiful_Gracious_Skies
Data suggests millions of voter registrations are fraudulent or invalid. That’s enough to tip an election, easily.
This week, liberals have been repeating their frequent claim that voter fraud doesn’t exist. A recent Salon article argues that “voter fraud just isn’t a problem in Pennsylvania,” despite evidence to the contrary. Another article argues that voter fraud is entirely in the imagination of those who use voter ID laws to deny minorities the right to vote.
Yet as the election approaches, more and more cases of voter fraud are beginning to surface. In Colorado, multiple instances were found of dead people attempting to vote. Stunningly, “a woman named Sara Sosa who died in 2009 cast ballots in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.” In Virginia, it was found that nearly 20 voter applications were turned in under the names of dead people.
In Texas, authorities are investigating criminals who are using the technique of “vote harvesting” to illegally procure votes for their candidates. “Harvesting” is the practice of illegally obtaining the signatures of valid voters in order to vote in their name without their consent for the candidate(s) the criminal supports.
These are just some instances of voter fraud we know about. It would be silly to assume cases that have been discovered are the only cases of fraud. Indeed according to a Pew Charitable Trust report from February 2012, one in eight voter registrations are “significantly inaccurate or no longer valid.” Since there are 146 million Americans registered to vote, this translates to a stunning 18 million invalid voter registrations on the books. Further, “More than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters, and approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state.” Numbers of this scale obviously provide ripe opportunity for fraud.
Don’t Let Data Contradict My Narrative: Yet in spite of all this, a report by the Brennan Center at New York University claims voter fraud is a myth. It argues that North Carolina, which passed comprehensive measures to prevent voter fraud, “failed to identify even a single individual who has ever been charged with committing in-person voter fraud in North Carolina.” However, this faulty reasoning does not point to the lack of in-person voter fraud, but rather to lack of enforcement mechanisms to identify and prosecute in-person voter fraud.
The science of criminal justice tells us that many crimes go unreported, and the more “victimless” the crime, the more this happens. The fact is, a person attempting to commit voter fraud is very unlikely to be caught, which increases the incentive to commit the crime.
The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is a sophisticated, comprehensive effort to catalog “the number and types of crimes not reported to law enforcement authorities.” However, it tends to deal mostly in violent crimes. As complex as the NCVS is, gathering accurate data for unreported victimless crimes such as voter fraud is even harder, since 1) outside of the criminal, no one may know a crime has taken place, and 2) there is no direct victim to report the crime in the first place. Yet we are expected to believe that, unlike violent crime, voter fraud is limited only to the cases that are actually reported and prosecuted? This is a senseless position.
Further, the Brennan Center report argues that because prosecutor Kris Kobach’s review of 84 million votes cast in 22 states found only 14 instances of fraud referred for prosecution (which amounts to a 0.00000017 percent fraud rate), voter fraud is so statistically small that it’s a non-issue. Let’s follow this logic. Does the fact that 109 people were cited for jaywalking in Seattle in 2009 mean that only 109 people jaywalked in Seattle that year? Does the fact that 103,733 people were cited for driving without a seatbelt in Tennessee in 2015 mean that only that many people were driving without seatbelt in Tennessee in 2015?
Absolutely not. This can be proven easily because in 2014, the previous year, only 29,470 people were cited. The disparity is largely due to increased enforcement efforts in 2015. In other words, increasing enforcement of the crime revealed a much larger number of people committing the crime.
The exact same is true for voter fraud. We have no reason to believe that the low number of prosecutions means only that exact amount of voter fraud is happening. Rather, it could mean a lack of enforcement is failing to reveal the bulk of the violations that are occurring. Thus, as with many types of crimes, especially victimless crimes, the real number of cases is likely significantly higher than the number reported.
How to Effectively Target Voter Fraud So now that we know voter fraud is a serious issue, what are some solutions to this problem? States like Michigan have Poll Challenger programs, where observers from both parties may be present at voter check-in tables at precincts. They check each voter’s ID against a database of registered voters for that precinct to ensure the person attempting to vote is actually legally qualified to vote in that precinct. If there’s a discrepancy, the poll challenger may officially challenge the ballot. Other states should implement similar programs.
States should sponsor initiatives to remove dead voters and correct the registrations of people registered in multiple states (make them choose just one state). Since many local jurisdictions are reluctant to clean their voter rolls, federal or state oversight with teeth may be necessary.
Further, voter ID laws, such as the one implemented by North Carolina, but (wrongly) struck down by three liberal judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit— one appointed by Bill Clinton and the other two appointed by President Obama—are needed to ensure there’s no cheating with votes. States should continue to press the issue regardless of recent setbacks by liberal activist judges.
Finally, some have claimed that strong voter ID laws are racist, because they disproportionately impact minorities and would prevent minorities from voting. As a black person, I’m naturally interested in this claim. Thankfully, it turns out to be false. The Heritage Foundation has shown that black voter turnout actually increased after North Carolina passed its voter ID law.
Not only was the claimed negative outcome false, but the reasoning was faulty as well. The fact that the law disproportionately impacts minorities does not mean that it is discriminatory. It means, unfortunately, that fewer minorities are in compliance with common-sense safeguards to protect the integrity of our elections (i.e., having a driver’s license or photo ID).
To mitigate this concern, states can offer a service that will take people without valid ID to their local government office to apply for proper ID, free of charge. Users could schedule the pickup with their smartphone or a phone call. That way there will be as few barriers as possible to those who want to vote and are capable of obtaining a valid ID, but cannot due to transportation concerns (a reason often given by those who claim voter ID laws hurt minorities).
So let us not believe false claims that voter fraud doesn’t exist. It’s real, and we must work to stop it, while making sure those who are eligible to vote but without proper ID are accommodated fair
“More than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters, and approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state.
Vote fraud is undeniable and yet the Ministry of Propaganda continues to deny it.....
How difficult would it be to determine how many of these confirmed deceased registered voters voted?
They simply cite the number of voter fraud convictions as the number which actually occur. And this is one of the hardest crimes to solve, since the process is so anonymous.
That's like saying we should alter our crime statistics to include only solved murders, rapes, burglaries, robberies which resulted in convictions to convey our societal ills. Wow! That would be a massive drop.
How does voter ID keep minorities from voting? Maybe they aren’t legal citizens and shouldn’t be voting in the first place.
It's that bad.
Just look at their record and their ideology. Who believes any of their crap?
Look at all the municipalities that have had Democratic leadership for decades... want to be in THEIR shoes?
Voter fraud conviction stats are misleading, most whom are caught plea down to misdemeanors.
If these numbers are even remotely accurate, then I would guess the 2008 election was much more close even as far as a defeat for Obama. Election fraud is very real. It is like a revolution without firing a single shot.
Exactly...
I know it’s been said time and time again, but here goes again:
You need ID to drive, to bank, to use EBT cards, to collect and cash welfare checks, among many other tasks that require ID...
Why, then, is requiring ID to vote keeping anyone from voting???
“How difficult would it be to determine how many of these confirmed deceased registered voters voted?
As I write this, I’m sitting in the county clerk’s office as a poll challenger for early voting. At the end of each day we have an agreement with the clerk to receive a list of everybody who voted that particular day. So at the end of the day, myself and a few others will be researching those names to look for any anomalies. It can be difficult to know if somebody voted in place of a dead person, especially since there is no voter ID required to vote here.
You’re my hero. Seriously.
Why do these stories never identify what party the deceased voted for? Or what party they registered for? Is that data not available?
Mainly because none of the activities you listed are in the Constitution.
"I have never seen in my lifetime or in modern political history, any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections and the election process before votes have even taken place. It is unprecedented. It happens to be based on no fact. Every expert regardless of political party... who has ever examined these issues in a serious way will tell you that instances of significant voter fraud are not to be found. Keep in mind elections are run by state and local officials."
- Barak Obama (Oct. 18, 2016)
How can he stand there and say this with a serious face? Does he think we have forgotten his involvement with ACORN?
What a silly question. The same way it keeps minorities from flying. You know...you've never seen a 'minority' on an airplane right?
Please list all the actions of the United States Government that aren’t listed in the Constitution....
The board of elections also needs to take people off when asked.
My daughter moved out of state some years ago and has requested that her name be removed from this state’s election lists and as of yet, it hasn’t happened.
She could be engaging in voter fraud is she wanted to, but fortunately, she was raised right and wouldn’t do anything illegal.
Vote in person with paper ballots on Election Day only and your finger is dunked in indelible ink and the fingerprint put on your ballot. That is the only way to clean up the corruption the Democrats have brought to our elections. Everything these evildoers touch is ruined.
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