Voter ID Laws

Politics and religion
601

There was a organization that was keeping a database of election fraud reports from about 2000-2012, they had ~2,000 documented reports of election fraud 24% of which were absentee ballot fraud. I do suspect that the database might not be completely comprehensive, I think most of the organized efforts are in fairly small elections that might not have gotten reported up to them.

In terms of headline grabbing anecdotes, there’s the 1997 Miami mayoral race which saw the election overturned due to absentee ballot fraud. I also collected a couple of reports here, but those links are all rotted to hell and back. For more recent anecdotes, just Google News “absentee fraud” and you’ll get a slew of more recent mayors, commissioners, and dog catchers like this guy or this guy who thought they could keep their schemes on the down low.

602

Australia does it and it works for them. I think Belgium does as well.

603
604

We had an instance of absentee voter fraud here a couple years ago. Turned out a woman in the elections office was faking absentee ballots for someone (unknown to them) in a local race. I don’t remember what happened to her other than losing her job and being charged for the act.

605

If this is anything like the last debunked report you posted, I will certainly question your sources.

606

Writing for the Nation, Ari Berman describes elderly, longtime voters who were blocked from the polls for want of the right papers. “Others blocked from the polls include a man born in a concentration camp in Germany who lost his birth certificate in a fire; a woman who lost use of her hands but could not use her daughter as power of attorney at the DMV; and a 90-year-old veteran of Iwo Jima who could not vote with his veterans ID.”

Lazy bastards!

607

It’s not, but if your dismissal of it is anything like your “debunking” of the other report, I will certainly question your reading comprehension.

To be clear, one of the conclusions of the report was “In-person voter impersonation on Election Day, which prompted 37 state legislatures to enact or consider tough voter ID laws, is virtually non-existent.”

608

You presented that report like there were not concerns attached to that report voiced by the very people who created it. I didn’t just pull that part out of thin air. Don’t you think it’s valid to point out that a person who collected the data questioned the use of the report your using as a source?

609

First of all, Tova Wang was questioning this report, I was citing this report by the same commission.

Secondly, it would be a valid point if the actions of the commission she was questioning were related their conclusions I was citing. “Absentee balloting is exactly where fraud occurs” is not a controversial statement. No less than Justin Levitt, author of the Brennan Center for Justice’s report “The Truth About Voter Fraud” criticizes voter ID efforts because they will “drive more voters into the absentee system, where fraud and coercion have been documented to be real and legitimate concerns.”

610

Information like this?:

In Michigan in 2005, 132 votes were alleged to have been cast by deceased voters.93 The allegations
were premised on a flawed match of voter rolls to death lists. A follow-up investigation
by the Secretary of State revealed that these alleged dead voters were actually absentee ballots
mailed to voters who died before Election Day; 97 of these ballots were never voted, and 27
15
were voted before the voter passed away.94 Even if the remaining eight cases all revealed substantiated
fraud, that would amount to a rate of at most 0.0027%.95

Which sounds like they even if the 8 were fraud that’s a minuscule percentage of absentee votes.

And I tried to clarify the report, but you didn’t really respond to the question.

611

So after linking to a database of verified reports of actual absentee ballot fraud, you’re going to just cherry pick one and dismiss them all? Great, Miami mayoral election, 1997, at least 400 fraudulent absentee ballots and the election results thrown out. We can debate the numbers if you like, but what’s not really debatable - or at least what you’ve done nothing to substantively challenge - is that “absentee balloting is exactly where fraud occurs.”

Since you got the wrong report, I didn’t even really know if you were talking to me or someone else. Even so, her complaints didn’t apply to my “absentee balloting is exactly where fraud occurs” statement, which a plain reading of her complaints made clear. Especially since that statement is uncontroversial and repeated by a number of other election officials and experts, both on and external to the EAC.

612

I don’t have time in the middle of the work day to read entire reports. If there was something specific in a report you want people to see, quote it and point to it. I went to the report you provided and found information about absentee voters you said would show me where all the fraud is at, except the report you linked too doesn’t show it. Okay. Whatever makes you happy.

613

First off, I need to make a couple of corrections:

I was incorrect, Tova Wang was raising concerns about the report I was citing. Take your victory lap now Nesrie, because the crux of my argument that her concerns don’t apply to the point I’m making remains the same.

Wang was brought in to study in-person fraud and voter intimidation. From “A Rigged Report on U.S. Voting?” by Tova Wang: “Two years ago, the commission approached me about doing a project that would take a preliminary look at voter fraud and intimidation and make recommendations for further research on the issues. (my emp.)”

The concerns she raises about the report are regarding the handling of their findings, “We said that our preliminary research found widespread agreement among administrators, academics and election experts from all points on the political spectrum that allegations of fraud through voter impersonation at polling places were greatly exaggerated.” and “We also raised questions about the way the Justice Department was handling complaints of fraud and intimidation.” She notes that “claims about voter fraud and efforts to advance the cause of strict voter identification laws were at a fever pitch,” implying that there may have been a political motive to the commission’s presentation of her and her partner’s work. That seems like a reasonable suspicion to me.

Lacking from her criticism of the report is any mention of the report’s discussion of absentee balloting. You would think that if she had any concerns about that portion of the report, she would call out such statements and recommendations as: “One point of agreement is that absentee voting and voter registration by nongovernmental groups create opportunities for fraud.” (pg. 7), “For example, the interviewees largely agreed that absentee balloting is subject to the greatest proportion of fraudulent acts, followed by vote buying and voter registration fraud.” (pg. 9) and “Because absentee ballot fraud constitutes a large portion of election crimes, a stand-alone study of absentee ballot fraud should be conducted.” (pg. 18) Statements that you apparently missed because you don’t have time to read. Such statements imply general consensus, and her op-ed would have been the opportunity for her to challenge it. (Which is not to say that she joins the consensus, just that she is not challenging it.)

But enough about the “Election Crimes: An Initial Review and Recommendations for Future Study” report, my argument that “absentee balloting is exactly where fraud occurs” does not stand or fall on that one source.

We have (as previously cited) Justin Levitt, author of the Brennan Center for Justice’s report “The Truth About Voter Fraud”, criticizing voter ID efforts because they will “drive more voters into the absentee system, where fraud and coercion have been documented to be real and legitimate concerns.” He also wrote to the Washington Post, which quoted him as, “In an e-mail to The Post, Levitt made clear that absentee ballots can be a threat to the integrity of elections. He pointed to instances in a Pennsylvania state Senate race in 1994 and the Miami mayor’s race in 1998 as examples. Fraud in absentee balloting is “unfortunately quite real,” he said. … “The thing about voter fraud isn’t that it doesn’t exist,” Levitt told The Post on Monday. “It does exist, and all responsible observers both know and say that. The question is whether the proposed policy solution (invariably tighter ID requirements at the polls) is tailored to the problem that actually exists, and at the same time not sufficiently severe that it creates more trouble than it solves.””

There’s Ion Sancho, the Supervisor of Elections for Leon County, Florida who seems to be quoted in almost every voting news story, saying, “Where there is fraud is voting by mail, where the votes are cast not in front of any election official — and with the individual (voter), you don’t know whether they’re intimidated or not. Are they somebody’s parents that have gotten absentee ballots, and the children are voting them? Those kinds of things happen — which is one of the reasons I like in-person early voting and election-day voting. I actually like people coming to an official, presenting basic identification, and then the process moves on from there. You don’t have any safeguards with mail ballots, and that’s the problem.” (Note: By “basic identification” he’s talking about a voter registration card or similar. He also says in the same article, “So the idea that you must have IDs to prevent fraud is laughable.”)

Bill Moyers, critizing WSJ/National Review writer John Fund’s book Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy, says, “Fund’s book does include some genuine examples of election misconduct. Generally these involve absentee ballots — the most susceptible to manipulation by candidates or their backers. Rarely do they involve in-person impersonation.”

University of California–Irvine professor and election law specialist Rick Hasen says, “When you do see election fraud, it invariably involves election officials taking steps to change election results or it involves absentee ballots which voter ID laws can’t prevent.”

Salon published an except of Professor of American Social Thought and history at the University of Pennsylvania Dr. Mary Frances Berry’s 2016 book Five Dollars and a Pork Chop Sandwich: Vote Buying and the Corruption of Democracy, quoting “Joe Novak, a longtime Chicago political operative who knew the intimate details of the election system, explained in 2002 that election fraud still worked the way it had for years. “Precinct captains still like to control the vote by pushing absentees.” The captain goes to a retirement center or other places where the elderly gather and gets a signed statement from a voter that they can’t make it to the polls on Election Day. The captain can tell the voter how to vote. The idea is “Captains like to be ranked No. 1” in their ward organization. Alderman Joseph Moore from the Forty-Ninth Ward added, “The captain will offer to take (a completed absentee ballot) downtown for you.” “Until they tightened the rules a few years ago,” Moore said, “it was common to see captains bringing in buckets full of ballots.”” Lest you think the 2002 date of Novak’s comments or Moore’s comments about tightening the rule made Chicago’s election pure, Chicago Alderman Bernard Stone defended two of his campaign workers convicted of absentee ballot fraud in 2007 by comparing the fraud to “spitting on the sidewalk.”

One of the reasons your unread dismissal of absentee ballot fraud is so frustrating is because I’ve seen it pretty close up. Although it pre-dates my local paper’s online archives, in a municpal election where I was working for a mayoral candidate, an aldermanic candidate was convicted of absentee ballot fraud involving something on the order of 35-50 absentee ballots requested from one single-family address (fortunately, she wasn’t very good at it, not only did she get caught, she lost anyway.) So when I see people dismiss the consensus of experts in the field by parroting the (correct) arguments that in-person fraud is very rare, it hits a little close to home.

Now if you really want to discuss raw numbers, we can start again with News21’s, a liberal-leaning student journalism project, database. Since I have argued that your dismissal of the EAC statements on absentee ballots was misguided, and since you dismissed News21 on the same grounds, perhaps you would consider reconsidering.

Not that I expect you to read it. Whatever makes you happy.

614

I think you misunderstand my approach here. I am not after a victory lap or any sort of in your face confrontation. I’ve heard for years about this mysterious mass amount of voter fraud happening all over the country that we just have to stop or, or something terrible will happen. It might also be helpful to know I come from a state with 100% mail voting. I see this accusations year after year after year, and at best there are these minuscule examples of some places that saw tiny percentages, sometimes fractions of a percentage issues with some ballots.

The information you’re presenting isn’t really telling me differently. So what if a large percent of voter fraud is from absentee voting if that fraud itself is such a tiny percentage? If you are looking at 10 people doing something, and 6 of them have something in common then oh my gosh that’s a huge percentage… except the number 10 is like 10 out of 10,000. That makes a difference.

I mean this statement is crazy:

“It doesn’t matter if there’s one, 100 or 1,000,” he said during a gubernatorial debate. “Amongst us, who would be that one person who would like to have our vote canceled out by a vote that was cast illegally?”

Yeah if there is one person committing voter fraud, the answer is not to make it more difficult for 100,000 people to vote. These are numbers and ideals coming from the reports you’re providing. And that 2013 case in Oregon wasn’t really voter fraud in the way most people discuss it; that was a government employee gone rogue… who was caught.

23.8 million votes, and 13 people prosecuted for voter fraud. And I have had my ballot double checked twice because of a slightly different signature. So you think you know the reason I have my position on absentee ballots, but you didn’t.

So you can try and stop making this so personal or just agree we don’t see eye to eye on this, and that’s fine.

615

If you didn’t want to make it personal, then why are you dismissing sources that you haven’t read just because you think you debunked another source that you haven’t read with a critique you misread? Why are you cherry picking one example to try to prove absentee fraud is insignificant?

Can we at least agree that when voter fraud happens, it disproportionately happens in absentee ballots?

If so, then I would again direct you to News21’s database. It’s certainly not comprehensive, for example it doesn’t include this 2007 case or this 2011 case, but it does document at least a floor on the amount of fraud. The 2011 case involved at least 5% of the total votes being absentee ballots sent to candidate-controlled addresses and flipped the result, so while it may only be one or two people casting numerous fraudulent absentee ballots, it can easily involve election changing numbers of votes. There’s plenty of other examples, but I’m not sure what sort of proof you’d accept or even read.

Now there are trends in most of the cases listed in News21’s database, Heritage’s database (which I haven’t bothered to link since I’m sure you’d dismiss on the source alone,) and the various examples I’ve listed. They tend to be low-turnout election for relatively small elections. That makes sense because larger elections would require much larger and noticeable effort to commit fraud. It’s also more efficient for large campaigns to use an ad, direct mail, or other legitimate tool to influence an outcome-changing number of votes. Another trend is the brazenness of the perpetrators. In the 2007 case linked above, the alderman defended his workers that were convicted by comparing their crime to “spitting on the sidewalk.” Boleteras, campaign workers who “collect” numerous absentee ballots in various Florida elections, are practically institutionalized. But if your position that fraud only matters if it enough to effect federal elections or it effects elections you personally participate in, then we can agree that we disagree.

This is why it’s personal. That is not “the numbers and ideals coming from the reports you’re providing.” The full quote you pulled out of context from the source I found for you was:

Despite how rarely in-person fraud could determine an election, even if it were common, Republican politicians and conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation have put an emphasis on new voter restrictions. After the Supreme Court blocked Wisconsin’s law late last week, Gov. Scott Walker (R) defended the law by saying, in essence, that its effect on outcomes didn’t matter. “It doesn’t matter if there’s one, 100 or 1,000,” he said during a gubernatorial debate. “Amongst us, who would be that one person who would like to have our vote canceled out by a vote that was cast illegally?” (my emp.)

That is a newspaper article doing their “reporting on both sides of discussion” shtick, and what you quoted is Scott Walker advocating for voter ID, which not anything I, nor any of the people I’m citing are advocating for. At this point, with such a absurd characterization of my “numbers and ideals,” I have to wonder if you’re arguing in good faith.

With the fraud discussion hopefully closed, let’s move on to absentee/mail-in ballots in general, especially since you’re in a 100% mail-in ballot state. While absentee balloting is a vital option for voters, it has a much higher rejection rate than in-person balloting:

In the last presidential election, 35.5 million voters requested absentee ballots, but only 27.9 million absentee votes were counted, according to a study by Charles Stewart III, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He calculated that 3.9 million ballots requested by voters never reached them; that another 2.9 million ballots received by voters did not make it back to election officials; and that election officials rejected 800,000 ballots. That suggests an overall failure rate of as much as 21 percent.

Some voters presumably decided not to vote after receiving ballots, but Mr. Stewart said many others most likely tried to vote and were thwarted. “If 20 percent, or even 10 percent, of voters who stood in line on Election Day were turned away,” he wrote in the study, published in The Journal of Legislation and Public Policy, “there would be national outrage.”

616

What about this is personal to you? You listed a report. I read it, pulled a quote from it, then you turned around asked me to search a database, none of which explains your reaction. In fact I pointed out a report that questions your report, you got angry, said it was the wrong report, came back and then seemed even more angry when you were wrong.

You don’t seem to want to have a discussion. You want a target. You’ll have to find another.

617

I stated what I understood to be a common knowledge and cited a report to substantiate the statement, you dismissed with with a critique that didn’t find any fault with the portion I cited. I cited several election experts and scholars to back up the statement, and you come back comparing their and my stance with Scott fucking Walker. russellmz00 wanted numbers (you’ll note that he wasn’t dismissive as you were,) I cited a database of cases which you dismissed sight-unseen based on your previous, inaccurate dismissal. You cherry picked an example to make absentee ballot fraud look insignificant, I cited elections that were overturned due to absentee ballot fraud and you hand wave it away because someone double checked your absentee ballot a couple of times. Buddy, it’s you who doesn’t want to have a discussion.

Can we at least agree that when voter fraud happens, it disproportionately happens in absentee ballots?

618

I thought the same thing when I moved to Australia for a few years (2002 - 2005). Forced voting!? But there is sense to the idea. It will cause at least some people to become a bit more informed and active in the process. Not everyone, but some. It also reduces the incentive for parties to engage in voter suppression.

As for the “threat and fear,” we do that all the time. Jury Duty and the US Census are similar examples.

619

And here’s Kansas, which is about a half-inch from simply declaring that minorities are not permitted to vote:

Kansas Sec State Provides Wrong Voting Information in Spanish

These guys don’t believe in Democracy. Just power.

620

Texas Voter ID law struck down, sort of: U.S. Appeals Court Finds Texas Voter ID Law Discriminates Against Minority Voters : The Two-Way : NPR

A federal appeals court has ruled that a Texas voter ID law has a discriminatory effect on minority voters, and has ordered a lower court to devise a remedy before the November elections.

A district court had found not only that the law discriminated, but that it was intentionally designed to do so. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals saw some flaws in that conclusion, and instructed the lower court to reconsider that element of the case and rule again — preferably after Election Day.

The judges also ruled that the law is not a poll tax, and declined to consider whether the law puts an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote.