The left likes to argue that since there’s no significant amount of voter fraud there’s no need for voter ID laws, and that those who support them are inherently racist.
But wouldn’t even one case of voter fraud be an abomination that should offend all liberty-loving people of both parties and all races? And aren’t loose voting regulations a temptation for an increase in the amount of fraud? Voter ID would appear to be a reasonable way to deal with the phenomenon, for all the reasons that common sense would dictate.
But seeing that this is the left we’re talking about, it’s not likely that they even believe their own arguments about the lack of voter fraud. The claim is also illogical on its face, a sort of “what we see is all there is” assertion that makes no sense. It’s a bit like the people who say, “I always can tell when a guy’s wearing a hairpiece.” Maybe yes and maybe no, but how would they know? Really good, undetectable hairpieces would be really good and undetectable, wouldn’t they? The same with voter fraud.
However, the number of cases of voter fraud that have been found and prosecuted are certainly more than one or two. And there’s little question that those cases are certainly not anywhere near 100% of the ones that have occurred; a 100% prosecution rate would make them unique in the annals of crime.
It’s not hard to come up with links to documented voter fraud cases, such as this, this, this, and this. Not all of them are of the type that would have been prevented by voter ID laws, but many of them are.
Here’s another, and here’s one of my personal favorites:
The 2004 Washington State gubernatorial election was decided by 133 votes while 1,678 illegal votes, mostly by felons, were cast. The election was upheld because there was no accurate way to determine which candidate was the recipient of the illegal votes.
This reasoning ought to make sense to anyone not blinded by partisanship and demagoguery [emphasis mine]:
But the push for voter ID laws is not all about preventing fraud, said Pennsylvania state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, who sponsored his state’s voter ID law.
“The driving factor is common sense,” Metcalfe told ABC News. “It only makes sense that when you show up to vote, to exercise that very important right and responsibility, that you prove you are who you claim.”
Metcalfe said the number of voter fraud cases that are prosecuted are only a sliver of the fraud taking place because there is no system in place to detect fraud. His voter ID law aims to do just that.
Voter fraud is hard to prove in the absence of ID laws, and adds to the paucity of cases. So the argument against voter ID laws is a form of circular reasoning. Lack of ID laws and difficulty of conviction makes voter fraud hard to prove, and the relatively low number of convictions is then used by people to argue against implementing voter ID laws. The following quote refers to Wisconsin, but it or something similar is true in many other states as well:
Because prosecution of election fraud falls on the shoulders of county district attorneys already strapped for resources, Bernier said such cases are rarely investigated, and hardly ever prosecuted. D.A.’s also must consider the high threshold of proving election fraud, weighing against the demands of other higher profile cases.
There are cases of voter fraud such as this one, where over a hundred people were convicted but the actual number of violations was thought to be in the thousands (there was a book written about that fraud and others perpetrated in the 2008 election of Al Franken and probably contributing to his close win, which was certainly “significant” since it was instrumental in giving the Democrats a majority in the Senate).
Of course, no matter how many cases one could come up with, the left won’t be considering those frauds “significant” enough—“significant” no doubt being defined as more than whatever the evidence might show.
Then there’s this, about how easy it is (and how likely it is) that illegal aliens vote in rather large numbers in certain states, and how hard it is to prove.
As for whether voter ID laws actually act to suppress black votes, see this for some evidence that they do not.
[Featured image: WRAL.com video]
[Neo-neocon is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at neo-neocon.]
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Comments
It is important to understand that when 30,000 illegal votes are cast it is not 30,000 people coming in and voting. After the doors are closed – partisan poll workers start voting for everyone who did not show up.
All those dead people aren’t coming to the polls to vote!
The democrats are aware of the existence and extent of voter fraud, because they are fully involved in it. They fight reforms because if voter fraud was reduced by even 20% the democrat party would be on the ash heap of history.
I can’t remember exactly but sometime during the Scott Walker recall effort “True the Vote” got involved and found that in one small county in northern Wisconsin 125% of the population had been registered to vote. Democrats recognized True the Vote for the existential threat to them that it is, and acted accordingly.
This article would be really useful if all the crucial details weren’t one or more clicks away. Without the clickery, it’s just another assertion, useless in backing up arguments or proposals.
Sort of like, ‘Build your own Eiffel Tower! Here are the toothpicks and some glue’.
No, it’s not “useless assertions.” You know, and we know that voter fraud is real, it’s just that your side has no morals or ethics and believes the “end justifies the means.”
I’m with you Insufficiently Sensitive. I want blog entries to be a minimum 15,000 words. I personally do not like having the option to delve further into a particular assertion, or to verify its veracity. The author should include every possible detail to bolster his claim, and then include a complete and accurate bibliography. Why should the author simply provide links when proper citations are far more time consuming and complicated? It really is quite lazy of the author.
Well, if you support Obama, it is hardly surprising you are lazy, but you could brush up on internet etiquette and copyright laws, so that you don’t come across as just another obnoxious buffoon.
when areas show 125 to 135 % of registered voters voting you have issues.
Here in NC, each ballot cast is linked to the voter for who cast it for audit purposes.
My understanding is that one of the more common ways that fraud is introduced is that poll workers put aside a number of legitimate votes in Democrat strongholds.
They then replace them with fraudulent ballots…and this is why you will regularly see 100% of votes in various Democrat precincts go to their candidate.
Then, if the vote is close they later “find” said ballots. The found ballots are legitimate so they can’t be shown to be fraud. And since they are from Democrat strongholds they will be 80-90% in favor of their candidate.
This makes it almost impossible to prove fraud and easy for the left to add a few percent to their totals.
If we ever get a conservative President again, I would suggest an FBI task force specifically charged with investigating fraud.
We also need to increase the penalties significantly. Arguably this is one of the most serious offenses a citizen can commit as it corrupts our system of government and disenfranchises EVERYONE voting in that election…
This is THE issue that is central to our system of government. That is why “motor voter” (pushed by Cloward & Piven, signed by Billy Clinton), and the race card are essential tools in the Democrat’s war against this nation. I helped True the Vote in WI with the recall voter registration validation, and believe me – voter fraud is rampant; these leftists have NO qualms about lying, cheating, or breaking laws…..it’s all about winning, by any means necessary.
The establishment Republicans who refuse to do anything about it are either knowingly in cahoots, or ignorant and foolish, if not naively believing the Dem pap. Either way, they are complicit.
That’s why just voting “R” isn’t enough – to truly clean up the mess and get our Constitutional republic back, we need both Conservative representation in House, Senate, and Executive positions, and a Constitutional Convention of the states to propose amendments to reign in this out-of-control tyranny.
Does anything think George Soros has been promoting his “Secretary of State Project” because he believes that Republicans in that office are all incompetent or dishonest?
Yes, the Motor Voter Act would have been more accurately entitled “the Enabling Democratic Voter Fraud Act.”
Repealing this horrendous law should be the first order of business once Republicans regain control of the Senate. Obviously, they’ll need enough votes to override the inevitable veto of the repeal law by one of the chief beneficiaries of Democratic voter fraud — Barry Obama — but with enough public attention directed to the issue, getting enough votes shouldn’t be a problem. The majority of Americans support common-sense measures to protect the integrity of our electoral process. It’s long past time we had some!
You need a photo ID to:
adopt a pet
purchase a home
purchase an automobile
purchase a gun
obtain a bank account
obtain a credit card
obtain a passport
write a check
make a credit card purchase
apply for a loan to purchase anything
to prove your age
to get married
to receive a marriage license
to drive
to buy a house
to close on a house
to get medical care
to get on a plane
to get insurance on anything
to get a job
to get a post office box
to get a hunting license
to get a fishing license
to get a business license
to cash a paycheck
rent an apartment
rent a hotel room
rent a car
rent furniture
rent tools and equipment
receive welfare
receive social security
receive food stamps
buy cigarettes
buy alcohol
buy a bus ticket
buy a cell phone
buy any antihistimine
go in to a casino
go in to a bar
go to college
have your water turned on
have your electricity turned on
have your cable turned on
have your gas turned on
obtain trash pick up service
pick up a package from the post office
pick up a package from fed ex
pick up a package from ups
pick up a prescription
In my polling place (Iowa) I walk in and go to the table where they have a large list of registered voters’ names and addresses. I tell them my name, and the person at the list asks, “Still at (address)?” I say, “Yes.” She then says, “Sign here.” The only way that anyone there could know if I am who I say I am is if they know me personally.
The most BASIC way to verify ID is to ask me to recite my own address. But they don’t; they read it to me right off of the voter rolls, which, by the way, I can see when they open the page.
It is a system with no safeguards against fraud. I could walk into a dozen polling places and vote early and often.
I read that in the 2012 elections a bunch of international observers came over here expecting to find the “voter suppression” they’d been reading about in the leftist press. Instead, they were stunned to see how lax the process is.
Normal countries — even those advanced, sophisticated European countries — understand that the integrity of the vote matters. I think the Dems know it matters too. They know it doesn’t help them.
The Democrat candidate for government in Washington 2004 (Christine Gregoire) made a striking statement that probably revealed more than she intended. She was demanding a second recount after Dino Rossi (the Republican) had won the first two counts.
Speaking to a crowd of supporters, she noted how Rossi’s margin over her had shrunk from the first count to the second, and she said “We can make up that difference!”
People have said to me that of course she didn’t really mean the Dems were going to “make up” votes. But at the very least, her words revealed that she saw a recount not as a way to discern the voters’ intent more accurately, but as an instrument for wresting victory from defeat.
Why was she so sure that another recount would swing her way and not back in Rossi’s direction?
“Why was she so sure that another recount would swing her way and not back in Rossi’s direction?”
Because she knew the fix was in, they just needed more time to manufacture the necessary votes. The first 2 recounts didn’t give enough time.
This is so backwards — like everything about the Left.
If vote fraud weren’t significant the Dems wouldn’t care about efforts to stop it. It is because they rely on it so heavily that the issue is for them existential.
My response to the progressives who always say that there is no voter fraud is this: great, then you won’t mind us asking for photo ID to be sure.
That usually starts them back-pedaling.
When they yammer about how photo IDs cause voter suppression, I tell them the virtually every adult needs a photo ID just to conduct ordinary live. Roy Rogers, above, has a (partial) list of the things for which one needs a photo ID.
Then I ask them: explain to me how it is that an elderly, or poor, or minority person can’t get a government-issued photo ID. Virtually everyone drives. A non-driving state ID is free, or almost free, in every state. An FOID card is cheap ($10 in Illinois). You spend in fees for a government issued photo ID about what you spend for a meal at Mickey-Ds.
That usually keeps them back-pedaling.
Then I hit them with the winner: fine, I say, let’s add one small step to the voting process, a bottle of purple ink. You vote, you dip your finger in the ink so that you can’t vote again that day. That right there would stop the well known practice of “professional Democratic voters” going from precinct to precinct.
That usually provokes sustained splutter.
Securing 99% of the vote is easy. Photo ID. Limit early voting to necessity and not to convenience. Purple ink. Paper ballots and scanning. Purge the vote registration rolls every election of deceased and moved residents.
This isn’t rocket science.
I voted democrat once in my life. I was sixteen my brother seventeen. It was a democrat district and everyone there knew I was underage. One person objected everyone else shouted him down.
The woman in charge said, “If I could bring my cat in I’d take his vote.”
Now I know I’ll be voting Democrat again after I die until the final trump. and I am not joking.
North Carolina recently conducted its first audit of voter rolls. They found that over 30,000 questionable votes had been cast in 2012. The majority of these were people registered in NC and another state which also reported them voting there. Most of the rest were dead people who voted – even after eliminating those who died after early/absentee voting began.
One of the tricks Democrats use in some cities is to have a pool of “voters” in vans and mobile. When the precinct workers are sure Citizen A or B isn’t going to vote, they bring in the van and strangers vote for them. Then they get back in the van and ride to the next polling place. This is how places like Philly get over 100% participation, because some of the people the teams “vote for” have actually cast absentee ballots that hadn’t been recorded yet.