A far greater danger.
Sometimes, when I’m feeling paranoid, I think the rumors that voting machines are rigged are floated to distract progressives from old-fashioned voter suppression tactics. I mention this, because there seems to be a trend lately of pushing for voter ID bills that are directly aimed at diverting legal voters from the polls, and now there’s one up in Missouri. I saw a presentation on this at the Texas ACLU conference, and the speaker Nina Perales from MALDEF really impressed upon me how many voters can be purged from a roll using these kinds of tactics. Often the types of ID required to prove citizenship are things that people don’t carry on them, or documents that native born citizens might easily acquire but naturalized citizens don’t have. I’m sure the document requirements vary from law to law, but the general rule of thumb is that it’s about putting obstacles between predominantly Democratic voting blocs and casting a ballot. A lot of people in targeted groups have reasons to want to minimize their contact with officials, so they will be rebuffed easily by the first person who turns them away at the polls, because they’re afraid to fight for their rights.
The voter ID bills are based on a faulty premise, which is that there’s widespread problems of people imitating others to vote. It’s a flimsy excuse, as Shark-Fu notes.
The Missouri Supreme Court has stated that there are no known instances of people trying to impersonate voters at the ballot booth. So Republicans who argue that there is a perception of voter fraud are full of shit.
If there’s a “perception” of voter fraud, it’s a manufactured one and has no basis in reality.
What I don’t get about the voter fraud alarmists is that they never explain why someone would commit this particular kind of fraud. The fraud these bills are supposed to guard against are illegal immigrants who register to vote, even though they aren’t citizens. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I were living abroad illegally, I would probably minimize the opportunities of the authorities to get my name, my address, or any of the other things that you provide when you register to vote. Maybe .0001% of undocumented immigrants is crazy/stupid enough to try it. Most incidences that get bandied around, according to the presentation I saw, were far more innocent—easily clarified matters when people who hadn’t yet obtained full citizenship wrongly thought they could register to vote, but certainly not fraud and no reason to institute ID initiatives. The number of undocumented immigrants who will be blocked from voting by this is probably zero. But the numbers of legal citizens who will get thwarted from the polls is in the thousands. So I’m forced to conclude that it’s those citizens that are the intended target, and the bogeyman of “illegal immigrants” is just a distraction.
41 Responses to ““Voter fraud” is a fraud”
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Isn’t it also a concern when the recently dead vote? (Or rather, someone votes for them?)
The phenomenon is probably small enough that it doesn’t impact national elections, but could be influential in close local races.
Donate to the Red Cross The International Red Cross is providing funds to women and men in Myanmar, and I assume in China relatively soon if not today. In the past few days, we’ve seen tens of thousands of dead, and very quickly life threatening diseases will break out affecting women, children, and men.
Sometimes, when I’m feeling paranoid, I think the rumors that voting machines are rigged are floated to distract progressives from old-fashioned voter suppression tactics.
Are you saying that I’m paranoid?
“Now, I don’t know about you, but if I were living abroad illegally, I would probably minimize the opportunities of the authorities to get my name, my address, or any of the other things that you provide when you register to vote. Maybe .0001% of undocumented immigrants is crazy/stupid enough to try it.”
You’re just not thinking like one of those evil MexicoIslamoFascists that are trying to get Obama elected so America will be ruined forever.
You’re just not seeing things the “right” way…
Let’s face it. If the Reichwing had their druthers, no one but the landed gentry (white, male, and protestant, of course) would be allowed to vote. They think god wants it that way, or something…
A while back, I attended a workshop given at the National Academy of Sciences on voter registration and the Help America Vote Act. Everyone was very, very worried about voter fraud and how to prevent people from registering fraudulently, voting twice, etc.
Even after one panelist pointed out that while there were something like four cases of fraudulent voting found in 2006 (not four elections or anything like that, but four votes, nationwide), over 200,000 people were wrongfully kicked off of voter rolls and wound up having to vote with provisional ballots, with no way of knowing whether their votes were counted, everyone just sort of shrugged and went back to talking about how important it was that we make sure no illegal immigrants or dead people or anything are voting, instead of, you know, making sure people who have the legal right to vote actually get to exercise it.
Sometimes, when I’m feeling paranoid, I think the rumors that voting machines are rigged are floated to distract progressives from old-fashioned voter suppression tactics.
With the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, the accusations of Bush “stealing” the election came off to me as being sour grapes, kind of like how in middle school when one team lost in dodgeball, they would always accuse the other team of cheating.
Isn’t it also a concern when the recently dead vote? (Or rather, someone votes for them?)
The phenomenon is probably small enough that it doesn’t impact national elections, but could be influential in close local races.
That’s not that big of a problem, really, just shoot them on the head before they bite you.
Do you have any statistics to back up this assertion? How big of a problem is voter fraud? Are problems of voter fraud larger than problems of voter suppression?Of course it’s important to keep fraudulent votes out of the system, but you’d think with the Diebold Quality being what it is, people would realize that physically signing up individual liars is not exactly the wave of the future in voting fraud. That’s so last century.
As with everything else, the Republican party is irrevocably stuck in the 1950s on this issue. And in this particular case, they’re stuck in Louisiana and east Texas, where and when voter fraud really was de rigeur for a short period. But even then, contrary to the paranoid fantasies of those who advocate these ID-required voting statutes, said voter fraud wasn’t some kind of grassroots action by the populace in general (or immigrants, legal or not, in particular), it arose from direct attempts by those already in power to maintain said power by blatant cheating.
But, then again, voter disenfranchisement is a feature of ID requirements, not a bug, for those who advocate them. It’s just another example of how those of us who are relatively normal don’t even live in the same reality as fascists.
I think the rumors that voting machines are rigged are floated to distract progressives from old-fashioned voter suppression tactics.
You’re not the first…
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2004/10/voter-fraud-for-dummies.html
Two Words.
Poll Tax.
Older and blacker people were more likely to be born at home and not have birth certificates.
Shoot, I’ll blogwhore, since I follow Elections in Texas, and it nearly comes to blows every hearing. Last year keeping voter suppression at bay led to a state senator near death sleeping in a hospital bed set up in the Senate by his ideological opponent. We barely won, and it’s going to come back next year with a vengeance.
http://writhesafely.wordpress.com/2008/01/26/welp-its-that-time-again/
>>Now, I don’t know about you, but if I were living abroad illegally, I would probably minimize the opportunities of the authorities to get my name, my address, or any of the other things that you provide when you register to vote. Maybe .0001% of undocumented immigrants is crazy/stupid enough to try it.
Sure, I can believe this is true. The problem, however, is the activists from the Democrat Party, La Raza, the Rainbow/Push Coalition, etc. who seek out these people and fradulently register them to vote, telling them that it’s perfectly legal.
I heard something that your state senate is insane, where the elected officials would literally vote and then turn around and press the button to vote for people who aren’t even there.
There is a youtube video somewhere of people rushing to do it
Did somebody say “Poll tax”?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdVquOmFJ0U
I read Shark-fu’s rundown on the proposed MO voter ID and felt just sick.
My grandma, who was born in a one room shack–to an illiterate 15 year old mother and the 21 year old man who had purchased her from her indentured servitude (my sister did a family history project last year, and I’m still reeling from what the written records showed), attended by an illiterate midwife– could not comply. So that’s a Republican vote left un-cast.
However, in 10 years my kid will be old enough to vote and the idea that she will be required to carry the literally irreplaceable documents that prove her citizenship to register and then every time she votes is repulsive too.
So yeah, ‘voter fraud’ is an unproven and unprovable charge that translates into ‘be born rich and white to vote’.
If someone is denied the right to vote based on inability to prove US elibability, shouldn’t they also be relieved of the duty to pay taxes? Seems fair to me.
Voter fraud = a ploy to deflect attention away from stealing elections. It’s a canard. It’s an ex-parrot. Remember how we never used to hear about it, before elections started getting stolen so much? And remember how, when we used to talk about voting rights, we were talking about getting more people to vote, yet now we talk about who’s eligible, who’s entitled, and preventing people who are ineligible… who the hell are these people? There shouldn’t be such a push to get people off the voter rolls. It’s ridiculous and undemocratic.
Having worked in an election office for the 2004 election I saw first hand how easy it would be to steal an election. A little organization by a dozen or so people could probably be enough to swing a county… scary but true. I’ve yet to hear a good solution. Balancing access and security for elections is something we haven’t yet figured out.
You’re just not thinking like one of those evil MexicoIslamoFascists that are trying to get Obama elected so America will be ruined forever.
And on the alternative side of the Godwinizing (via SadlyNo) …
(Warning - rude, occasionally misogynist language and blatant anti-Hillary propaganda. But very funny.)
1. It’s “Democratic Party,” asshole.
2. I’ve never heard of any of these groups doing what you describe them as doing. One would assume that if there were any substance to these accusations, they would have come out during the hearing or the recent SCOTUS case. As they have not, I’m just going to assume you, like all right wing shills, are full of shit.
Evidence? There have been, to date, no significant cases of voter fraud or solicitation of illegal voter registration. That is why the Indiana program was so controversial: there was no actual problem that the law was addressing in the first place.But even then, contrary to the paranoid fantasies of those who advocate these ID-required voting statutes, said voter fraud wasn’t some kind of grassroots action by the populace in general (or immigrants, legal or not, in particular), it arose from direct attempts by those already in power to maintain said power by blatant cheating.
Ya think? I don’t understand why people who occasionally get caught breaking the law to distort the vote, like those Florida Republicans, don’t get long prison sentences. That would probably strike fear into the hearts of others who’d want to imitate them, as well as any scheming activists from La Raza. Even Crazy McTroll doesn’t believe in private individuals taking it into their heads to distort the vote. Who thinks campaign or party officials would risk it if it carried a real penalty?
Actually, I think naturalized citizens are far, far more likely to have the proper documentation for their citizenship than birthright citizens are. Birthright citizens tend to take their citizenship for granted, and naturalized citizens, unless they were children when they naturalized, had to go through a major process to get their citizenship, complete with loads of paperwork.
However, another layer of documentation checking provides for a lot more potential for mischief, because it involves a certain amount of “discretion” on the part of poll workers. And certainly, as a white, accent-less, middle-class voter, albeit one registered in the wrong party, I am far less likely to be harassed on this even though the state and my parents have both managed to lose my birth certificate.
I work the polls most every election. I’m not one of those outside passing out sample ballots, but one of those folks who ask you for an ID and who give you the “I Voted Sticker.” Given this experience I wanted to make 2 points.
1) I have no objection to asking for an ID, but Virginia has pretty reasonable requirement. The state mails a voter card to everyone who registers, but we also accept driver’s licenses, any government ID card, utility bills, etc. Even if you don’t have an ID on hand you can sign a statement swearing that you are who you say you are. I’ve not yet seen anyone who didn’t have some sort of acceptable ID, and I live in a very diverse area, not an upper middle class lily white suburb. The key is to have a wide enough list of acceptable ID’s that you’re not cutting out entire groups of people.
2). The poll workers are all local residents and both major parties are represented. If any one came in and tried to vote for someone else there’s a very high chance they’d be caught. It’s not worth the risk.
When I hear republican fantasies about mass voting fraud I always roll my eyes. (and then I get mad). When a republican says “voter fraud” what he means is someone who is not a conservative white Christian is trying to vote.
Isn’t it also a concern when the recently dead vote? (Or rather, someone votes for them?)
The recently dead usually vote absentee and — surprise surprise — there are virtually no controls on absentee ballots. All of the “voter fraud” laws are restricted to in-person voting. Absentee ballots require no documentation whatsoever beyond the voter’s signature.
Given that absentee ballot fraud is much more widespread than in-person fraud, you’d think some legislature somewhere would be interested in stopping it, but since most absentee ballots are cast for Republicans, somehow it never comes up.
“Given that absentee ballot fraud is much more widespread than in-person fraud, you’d think some legislature somewhere would be interested in stopping it, but since most absentee ballots are cast for Republicans, somehow it never comes up.”
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. After all, fine, upstanding people like Republicans would never do anything like ignore fraud that happens to be in their favor. Right? They’re not doing now are they? Are they? Bueller?…
My state recently passed a voter ID bill. At the November election, just to be contrary, I brought my passport with me. They wouldn’t take it, because it didn’t have my address on it. However, if I’d claimed to be Bob Pseudonym, and I’d snatched Bob’s recent utility bill out of his mailbox, I could have voted in Bob’s stead.
Utter bunk, all of it.
Absentee ballots disproportionately go Republican because active assigned military personnel make up a huge portion of the demo and that bloc tends to lean right. Shennanigans with those ballots were believed to have hurt Bush in both of the last 2 elections. Not sure is that is voter fraud or supression or both. But certainly both sides tip the scales whenever they can.
The voter fraud cries get fed by cases like the 32 people convicted of felony voter fraud in 2003 in the East Chicago primaries. The Justice Department has statistics that show only 87 ballot-fraud convictions obtained since the department launched its “voter integrity” initiative in 2002. 17 were for noncitizen voting and another six were for multiple voting. Not really an epidemic. A consultant group hired by the US Election Assitance Committee issued finding supporting the same conclusion - that this was really not a problem. They also find vritually no evidence of voter intimidation at the polls either, refuting some of the voter supression talking points as well.
“I have no objection to asking for an ID, but Virginia has pretty reasonable requirement. The state mails a voter card to everyone who registers, but we also accept driver’s licenses, any government ID card, utility bills, etc. Even if you don’t have an ID on hand you can sign a statement swearing that you are who you say you are. I’ve not yet seen anyone who didn’t have some sort of acceptable ID, and I live in a very diverse area, not an upper middle class lily white suburb. The key is to have a wide enough list of acceptable ID’s that you’re not cutting out entire groups of people.”
While I understand that the worries about voter fraud are pretty goundless, I do not understand the objection to showing an ID to vote. As stated by Woodrowfan, if the list of acceptable IDs is wide enough, who would be left out? We have to show ID for nearly everything so who are the people who don’t have at least one form of ID or at least a utility bill with their name on it?
By the way, 12 nuns in South Bend, IN were turned away from the primary because they didn’t have an ID. That sucks, but given that there were at least 6 months in which the Voter ID law was advertised and free state IDs were being issued at the BMV, why did they not get one?
ho are the people who don’t have at least one form of ID or at least a utility bill with their name on it?
Off the top of my head… Homeless people. People who live in places where their utilities are included in their rent and have just had their wallets stolen. People whose utility bills are in their spouse’s/roommate’s name and who don’t have good ID.
At one point, I would have been hard-pressed to comply with these laws because I couldn’t have produced a utility bill with my name on it (no utility account in my name) and all the ID I had was a birth certificate and social insurance card (no address).
Also, there’s the objection that most of the forms of ID required (aside from if the state is mailing you voter ID cards) cost money to get. If you specifically have to pay money in order to exercise your right to vote, that is an infringement of your rights. It is a poll tax in everything but name.
You mean other than the fact that it’s difficult to get 12 handicapped and elderly nuns transported 10 miles away to stand in line for an hour to get an ID?
I’m sure it’s nice for you to be able-bodied, young, and have several hours to kill during which you don’t need a tube feeding or to have your adult diaper changed or colostomy bag emptied, but believe it or not, not everyone is like you. Some people even have jobs that run the same time as DMV hours and have trouble getting time off to wait in line, or have to take a bus for an hour to get to the closest DMV.
The MO Supreme Court stated that there has not been a case of voter identification fraud in the state. In other words, there is no empirical evidence for the law. The same situation pertains in other states.
Election fraud exists, and it is carried out at the counting level. The practice of paying ordinary voters for votes has declined to insignificance - bribing is now restricted to the legislator level.
“You mean other than the fact that it’s difficult to get 12 handicapped and elderly nuns transported 10 miles away to stand in line for an hour to get an ID?”
Wouldn’t an absentee ballot serve people who have a difficult time leaving their residence better?
“Also, there’s the objection that most of the forms of ID required (aside from if the state is mailing you voter ID cards) cost money to get.”
As I said, in my state IDs were being provided for free. Although transportation could be a problem for some, but if it’s a problem to get to the BMV then isn’t it also a problem to get to the polls?
Voting machine reliability is not a smokescreen, but just another branch on the democracy disenfranchisement tree.
We’ve had the same problem in Canada - apparently there are hordes of veil and burka wearing Muslim women who go from polling station to polling station casting double - triple - quadruple votes each.
Despite Elections Canada telling politicians that instances of voter fraud is very low - now everyone needs id with photos and addresses. Cause of course, all the parties got on the stupid ID bandwagon.
The only funny part is that the Conservatives have recently discovered that this disenfranchises rural voters - their voting base. Hopefully that means that these new rules will get thrown out.
Sure, there’s vote fraud, but it’s by those who count the votes, not those who cast them.
The nun story is being bandied about because nuns are being turned away because of the possibility of fraud. Olivia, there are many more precincts than DMVs (the nuns weren’t given provisional ballots because it was known they woulcn’t be able to get to a motor vehicle branch in the 10 day period). If the state was really serious about getting IDs to everyone, why didn’t they have a mobile van that would go to lots of locations?
The bigger group that was affected was students at private universities (students at state universities got state ID). There were dozens of students who weren’t allowed to vote (and many were not given a provisional vote) because they had the wrong type of photo ID (they had their state’s ID instead of Indiana’s).
If a politician is trying to commit fraud, the best way to do it would be have a precinct captain (and …) in your pocket. How does a voter ID law help with this? Also, remember that voter fraud is a felony so it’s unlikely an individual would try it on their own.
I’m afraid I have been rather dense regarding the seriousness of this law. I thought it was just frivilous pandering, but I see there are groups of people for whom it can cause problems.
You must not be in Indiana with the nuns, then, because the Indiana BMV says on their website that the cards are not free:
IOW, they could have gotten free IDs if they’d gotten all of the proper documentation in line and presented the right forms. Gosh, I can’t imagine why elderly and disabled nuns who may not have been born in Indiana would have any trouble getting their documentation together and trundling down to the BMV to get their free cards, can you?
Mnemosyne: They were free for a time before the primary. A couple weeks, I think. Anyway, I get it. For some people getting an ID is difficult. My opinion about the voter ID law was wrong/incomplete, and that’s why I posted my comments. I wanted to learn more about why this is an issue. Please don’t question whether I’m telling the truth about where I live and reply to my comments in such a sarcastic way is quite rude. Is this not a forum for learning? If I was a student in a classroom would you respond to my questions in such a manner?