In-person voting fraud is rare, doesn’t affect elections
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s first-of-its-kind campaign ad begins with a warning: “In Hillary Clinton’s America, the system stays rigged against Americans.”
WASHINGTON >> Donald Trump’s newest campaign ad begins with a warning: “In Hillary Clinton’s America, the system stays rigged against Americans.”
The commercial, which aired Friday as part of his $5 million swing state ad buy, harkens back to a claim Trump has been hammering for weeks — that the general election is rigged against him. The questionable claim looks to mobilize Republicans, with the all-important start of early voting in some states just weeks away.
The presidential nominee has voiced strong support for North Carolina’s stringent voter ID law — struck down as discriminatory, but to be appealed — saying without it, voters will cast ballots “15 times” for Democrat Hillary Clinton. He also launched a new effort on his website last week seeking volunteers to root out fraud at the polls.
Things to know about voting fraud:
WHAT ARE VOTER ID LAWS?
That ID law Trump referred to had involved a broader package of restrictions — among them, reducing early in-person voting, which is popular among blacks in particular. At the same time, it exempted tough photo ID requirements for early mail-in voters, who were more likely to be white and Republican.
In all, 17 states were set to have restrictions for the first time in a presidential election, pending final appeals, such as voter ID or cuts to voter registration or early in-person voting. Among them: the battlegrounds of North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Wisconsin and Georgia. Florida and Iowa had restrictions in place since 2012.
The potential impact is significant: Barack Obama’s strength among early voters in 2012 helped him capture Florida and Iowa despite losing the election-day vote in those states, according to voting data compiled by The Associated Press. He narrowly lost North Carolina by 92,000 votes; in 2008, Obama had won all three states plus Colorado, thanks to early voters.
IS VOTING FRAUD A PROBLEM?
Not the type that Trump is referring to.
While fraud can occur, the number of cases is very small and the type that voter IDs are designed to prevent — voter impersonation at the ballot box — is virtually non-existent.
News21, a reporting project affiliated with Arizona State University, in 2012 found 2,068 cases of election fraud nationwide since 2000. Of those, just 10 involved voter impersonation — or one out of every 15 million prospective voters. More common was absentee mail-in ballot fraud, with 491 cases. None affected the outcome of an election.
Lorraine Minnite, a political science professor at Rutgers University-Camden, says voter impersonation fraud is rare because it’s difficult to do on a large-enough scale to tip an election.
“It’s so irrational to even try just for one or two more votes,” said Minnite, author of “The Myth of Voter Fraud.”
In court cases that temporarily invalidated some of the ID laws, including North Carolina, Wisconsin and North Dakota, election officials could barely cite a case in which a person was charged with in-person voting fraud.
But Trump continued his warnings, calling last week for “election observers” on his official website to “stop Crooked Hillary from rigging this election.” Volunteers who sign up are directed to a donation page.
A new Pew Research Center report released Friday found that 38 percent of registered voters who support Trump are very confident their vote will be accurately counted. This view stands in contrast to the 2004 and 2008 elections, when substantial majorities of voters who backed Republicans George W. Bush and John McCain expressed confidence in the count of their votes.
The survey found that 67 percent of Clinton supporters have a high degree of confidence that their vote will be counted accurately.
WHAT CAN WE EXPECT WITH EARLY VOTING?
North Carolina is the first to kick off early voting on Sept. 9, when its residents may request and submit mail-in absentee ballots through election day for any reason. It will be followed by Georgia, Wisconsin, Virginia and Iowa.
A total of 37 states also offer in-person early voting, typically in mid to late October.
Over the years, mail-in early voters usually have been older, better educated and more likely white, while in-person early voters were often young people and black Americans, according to University of Florida professor Michael McDonald, an expert in election statistics.
As a result, early voting will likely be concentrated heavily among registered Republicans initially before turning in the Democrats’ favor in late October to early November. Those initial numbers will offer clues as to the depth of Trump’s support among his biggest partisans, who vote right away, McDonald said. Meanwhile, in North Carolina, a potential wild card is its voter ID law. An appeals court recently invalidated restrictions that cut in person early voting from 17 to 10 days, but the governor has vowed to appeal, creating uncertainty about the extent of early voting this fall.
Voter mobilization is a key part of Clinton’s strategy to winning North Carolina, as it was for Obama.
WILL RULINGS INVALIDATING VOTER ID INCREASE THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE?
Not necessarily. More likely, it will prevent a net loss of would-be Democratic voters — the black Americans, young people and the poor, whom recent rulings said would be less able to vote if newly passed state voter ID laws remained.
Based on rulings as they stand now, voters in North Carolina and North Dakota are ultimately unlikely to face new ID requirements, while those in Wisconsin and Texas will in some form.
A number of factors can influence voter turnout, beyond ID laws, such as voter excitement for a candidate, as was seen in 2008 and 2012, when voters rushed to the polls to help elect the first-ever black president, said Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California at Irvine.
24 responses to “In-person voting fraud is rare, doesn’t affect elections”
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California has legal voting fraud, Governor Brown signed into law this year that all you need is a drivers license to register to vote. so all the non-U;S.citizens can vote now illegal or not. so Hillary already has the California Electoral votes.
You are completely wrong. A fragment of truth in your otherwise false statement does not make your whole statement about alleged voter fraud true.
California AB 1461 does NOT mean that “all the non-US citizens can vote,” even though you’ve been told that by conservative outlets like Breitbart and Fox News. Here’s how it works: When a person applies for a driver’s license or a state ID card, they provide their name, address and date of birth, as usual, and then they will also be asked to affirm their eligibility to vote. If they affirm their eligibility, they will be given the choice of whether they wish to register or opt out. Then, the information of those who choose to be registered will be sent from the DMV to the Secretary of State’s office, where citizenship will be verified and names will then be added to the voter rolls.
Bsdetection, I have read California AB 1461 and could not find where the Secretary of State verifies citizenship. Where did you find it?
well, bsdetection?
California Legislative Information (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160AB1461):
“This bill would require the Secretary of State and the Department of Motor Vehicles to establish the California New Motor Voter Program for the purpose of increasing opportunities for voter registration by any person who is qualified to be a voter. Under the program, after the Secretary of State certifies that certain enumerated conditions are satisfied, the Department of Motor Vehicles would be required to electronically provide to the Secretary of State the records of each person who is issued an original or renewal of a driver’s license or state identification card or who provides the department with a change of address, as specified. The person’s motor vehicle records would then constitute a completed affidavit of registration and the person would be registered to vote, unless the person affirmatively declined to be registered to vote during a transaction with the department, the department did not represent to the Secretary of State that the person attested that he or she meets all voter eligibility requirements, as specified, or the Secretary of State determines that the person is ineligible to vote. The bill would require the Secretary of State to adopt regulations to implement this program, as specified.”
bsdetection – They’re both still batting .000
It’s sad.
If you seriously believe that a California law can override the Constitution with regard to eligibility to vote in Federal elections, I recommend “The US Constitution For Dummies” — http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/us-constitution-for-dummies-cheat-sheet.html
News21, a reporting project affiliated with Arizona State University, in 2012 found 2,068 cases of election fraud nationwide since 2000. Of those, just 10 involved voter impersonation — or one out of every 15 million prospective voters. More common was absentee mail-in ballot fraud, with 491 cases. None affected the outcome of an election.
So 10 plus 491=501. What happened in the other 1567 cases?
If I were a democrat I’d be clamoring for stringent voter ID laws in every state. It’s well known that “Weird Al” Gore would have won Florida back 2000 were it not for massive republican voter fraud.
there was no fraud, all Al Gore had to do was win his home state of Tennessee and he would have been president, but they went for Bush.
I was being a little sarcastic about republican voter fraud. But thanks for reminding me that “Weird Al” couldn’t even carry his home state.
sorry I guess misunderstood your statement.
Or they could just use Soros’ SoS Project “graduates” and use administrative “devices” to get their chosen candidate into office. Kind of like Scott Nago’s problem with math and ordering and supplying ballots to precincts.
The fact is that Mr. Trump is lying about the effects of imaginary voter fraud to explain his inevitable loss in November. He is incapable of accepting that he’s going to lose because he’s a psychotic and people don’t want him as President. So he needs to make up something to try to lessen the damage to his brand.
He must have short circuited.
Trump = Loser
Trump = Loser
Trump = Loser
Trump = LOSER
Trump = LOSER
Trump = LOSER
TRUMP = LOSER!
I used mail-in voting for the first time this year and it does seem that there might be more of an opportunity for manipulation. I recall allegations concerning a local candidate who would visit people’s homes and “help” them fill out their ballots. As far as visiting polling places, it seems that ID laws that were truck down are a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
Yet another load of cr@p from the Associated Press. ONE vote can swing an election. A tiny fraction of a state’s vote can swing a presidential election.
President Lincoln was recently interviewed from the grave, he said:
“Yes, it is true that I formed the Republican Party. And, yes, it is true that I created the dynamic that outlawed slavery while reconciling the North and the South into what has become the greatest nation on earth. Yet, not that I am dead, I will be voting Democrat!”
Individual voting is NOT the problem in most districts —-> IT IS HACK THE VOTE THAT IS THE REAL EVIL. Hacking the system is relatively easy and impossible to track.
Not even the worst natural disaster since Superstorm Sandy could pry President Obama away from the golf course Wednesday.
With 11 people dead and 40,000 homes damaged by floods in Louisiana, Mr. Obama did speak with Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate Wednesday from his vacation spot in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
“But Trump continued his warnings, calling last week for ‘election observers’ on his official website to ‘stop Crooked Hillary from rigging this election.'” If this is the case, Trump guys also vote numerous times and rig the election too right? So he’s only saying that the election will be rigged if he loses? Or is he doing this so his guys will vote numerous times?
He’s struggling through his psychosis to explain a crushing loss. He’s obviously mentally ill, and is using this ridiculous excuse to explain the inevitable.
90 days to the election and Trump’s campaign is in a historically unprecedented free fall. His closest advisors, daughter Ivanka and her husband, are vacationing in Croatia on David Geffen’s $200M yacht; and his hapless sons are off killing large animals. It looks like Trump is trying to lose. The best explanation for his campaign is that he entered the race with the hope that the best that he could do would be 3rd or 4th place with 10% of the primary vote. That would have been a marketing coup for his reality television brand. He was surprised as anyone else when he won the Republican nomination and was trapped into running a general election race that he doesn’t want to win.