I have several relatives who don’t really understand the entire story behind Voter ID laws. Periodically, they post something like this:
And since I’m an avid reader who tends to keep better informed than about 98% of the population, I always feel compelled to set the record straight.
The fact is, we do not have a problem with voter fraud in the United States. Between 200 and 2010, a total of 649 million votes were cast, and there were only 13 actual cases of voter fraud.
If you want an excellent peer-reviewed analysis of voter irregularities with proper documentation, I recommend The Myth Of Voter Fraud by Lorraine C. Minnite.
Out of the 197 million votes cast for federal candidates between 2002 and 2005, only 40 voters were indicted for voter fraud. Only 26 of those cases, or about .00000013 percent of the votes cast, resulted in convictions or guilty pleas.
So why are Conservatives pushing so hard to instill laws requiring more stringent identification to vote? The truth is that most of them are intended to disenfranchise elderly and/or destitute eligible voters who may tend to voter for liberal politicians and causes. 
In the 13 southeastern Pennsylvania counties — from Philadelphia in the south to Dauphin in the west and Schuylkill in the north — that account for close to half of the state's 8.3 million registered voters, about 15 percent of those over 65 may not have valid ID. It's even more pronounced in the Lehigh Valley, where seniors make up 21 percent of registered voters in Lehigh and Northampton counties but 33 percent of voters the state has identified as lacking state-issued photo ID.
Meanwhile, one of my conservative relatives (we’ll call him “Pops”) attempted to defend voter ID laws, claiming there are actually a lot of cases of voter fraud:
The complete voting and election system allows for loads of unchecked illegal voting and hence fraudulent elections. Yes the real issue is not fraud in elections but even more imprtantly the refusal by those that benefit from it agreeing to any plan to stop it.-- Pops
Before I dissect his arguments, let’s make sure we have a clear definition of what voter fraud actually is:
Voter Fraud: when a person attempts to participate in an election when they are not qualified to do so, usually through misrepresentation of their status or falsification of their identity.
Please note how specific this is. There have been several attempts to re-define it to include other kinds of fraud, but do not be fooled: election fraud and electoral fraud are different animals altogether.
PROJECT VERITAS
So, on to Pops and his claims:
James O' Keefe's Project Veritas shows how easy voter fraud is without Identification: When an undercover conservative reporter can vote as Ben Jealous, Bill Maher, or David Brock if he wants, there's a hole as wide as the Grand Canyon in the system.-- Pops
It’s distressing that the first “proof” comes from such a disreputable source. Project Veritas isn’t a non-partisan organization, it’s a conservative effort to bolster claims made by the far right politicos. They’ll create a scenario where they will attempt to trick victims in to saying or doing something on a video recording that can later be edited to make it appear if that victim had done something incriminating.
Here’s a recent story that uncovers their skullduggery:
A controversial conservative activist is being accused of trying to incite anti-police protesters by saying, “I wish I could kill some of these cops,” to provoke them into making outrageous statements.A former top staffer with Project Veritas, Richard Valdes, said the incident occurred in January, when an undercover operative assigned to infiltrate the protest groups was given a script that included the startling comment.Valdes said he was fired by the group’s founder, James O’Keefe, for not following through on the bizarre assignment.
James O’Keefe is not a tireless researcher; he is a con man who has been caught lying on many occasions.
MediaMatters takes a look at the video that O’Keefe made that purports to prove that his associates were able to vote under assumed names.
O'Keefe then explains, "First, there was Ben Jealous. The poll worker recognized the name and rightly identified him as head of the NAACP, but went ahead and offered us to vote by special ballot."As the video at the polling place cuts in, O'Keefe's associate is spelling "Jealous," as is one of the poll workers.It's hard to tell what exactly is happening from the footage, which is broken up by edits: The male poll worker is holding out a sheet of paper at the end of the scene. But nobody in the video clearly identifies what it is -- again, you can't really tell what's going on because of the edits.
MediaMatters provides the original video and a complete transcript, as well as the analysis.
James O’Keefe and Project Veritas didn’t actually prove that it was easy to vote under someone else’s name. But they got a lot of attention by claiming they did.
I can’t give this one to Pops.
9/11 HIJACKERS
What If Mohammed Atta had been the deciding vote in an election? As John Fund has noted, even the 9/11 hijackers were registered to vote. (All Non Citizens)-- Pops
I have not been able to find a single credible source for this claim. John Fund of the Wall Street Journal seems to be the first to make this claim. All subsequent claims refer back to him. And here is what he said:
After 9/11, the Justice Department found that eight of the 19 hijackers were registered to vote.
And that’s all he seems to say on the matter.
So, when did they find that? What report is it published in? No one seems to be able to provide that, although every conservative website on the planet seems to be repeating John Fund’s claims as if they had merit. But they don’t. Why? Because I can’t find a single “Justice Department Report” that backs him up.
It’s not in the 9-11 Commission Report. I know that, because unlike most people, I’ve actually read the report. Here’s what the report actually says about identification papers:
KSM and Abu Zubaydah each played key roles in facilitating travel for al Qaeda operatives. In addition, al Qaeda had an office of passports and host country issues under its security committee. The office was located at the Kandahar airport and was managed by Atef. The committee altered papers, including passports, visas, and identification cards.106Moreover, certain al Qaeda members were charged with organizing passport collection schemes to keep the pipeline of fraudulent documents flowing. To this end, al Qaeda required jihadists to turn in their passports before going to the front lines in Afghanistan. If they were killed, their passports were recycled for use.107 The operational mission training course taught operatives how to forge documents. Certain passport alteration methods, which included substituting photos and erasing and adding travel cachets, were also taught. Manuals demonstrating the technique for "cleaning" visas were reportedly circulated among operatives. Mohamed Atta and Zakariya Essabar were reported to have been trained in passport alteration.108
KSM told potential hijackers to acquire new "clean" passports in their home countries before applying for a U.S. visa. This was to avoid raising suspicion about previous travel to countries where al Qaeda operated. Fourteen of the 19 hijackers, including nine Saudi muscle hijackers, obtained new passports. Some of these passports were then likely doctored by the al Qaeda passport division in Kandahar, which would add or erase entry and exit stamps to create "false trails" in the passports.106
Several also obtained new photo identification, first in New Jersey and then at the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, where Hazmi and Hanjour had obtained such documents months earlier, likely with help from their Jordanian friend, Rababah.138
The hijackers made extensive use of banks in the United States, choosing both branches of major international banks and smaller regional banks. All of the hijackers opened accounts in their own name, and used passports and other identification documents that appeared valid on their face. Contrary to numerous published reports, there is no evidence the hijackers ever used false Social Security numbers to open any bank accounts. While the hijackers were not experts on the use of the U.S. financial system, nothing they did would have led the banks to suspect criminal behavior, let alone a terrorist plot to commit mass murder.116
Note that “voter registration cards” aren’t mentioned. Legitimate or otherwise. Pops is merely parroting someone’s whopping lie.
LOOK MA – NO FELONS
You can thank illegal votes from felons for Al Franken: Absolutely. If it wasn't for fraudulent felon votes, Al Franken would be doing his obnoxious stand up routines in a comedy club right now instead of the U.S. Senate.--Pops
Factcheck.org took a look at this, and of course Pops is wrong again.
The complaint that was filed by Franken’s opponent (Norm Coleman) never claimed that felons voted, or even that voter fraud occurred: they claimed election fraud. Specifically, the claim that 150 ballots were counted twice, 133 ballots were missing, and that 654 absentee ballots were never opened or counted because they were rejected by their precinct’s election judges.
The Coleman campaign brought up those absentee ballots, and Franken’s campaign suggested that since Coleman was concerned, why not examine them more closely to see if any of them were actually eligible? The state election board and Coleman’s campaign objected to this. But the judge hearing the case filed by the Coleman campaign thought that this made perfect sense – after all, if Coleman was claiming that their incorrect labeling cost him the election, then they should be counted if they were found to be valid.
In fact, there were a total of 1,350 absentee ballots that had been rejected. And of the ones found to be legitimate:
It took only an hour Saturday afternoon for election officials to count 933 absentee ballots that all sides had agreed were wrongly rejected. Franken won 52 percent of them and Coleman captured 33 percent (the rest went to other candidates or cast no vote in the Senate race). It was a surprisingly muscular margin that was reflected in the glum looks of Coleman staffers and the satisfied appearance of Franken's staff.
…various panels of judges and even former Sen. Coleman’s lawyer in court said there was no widespread fraud in the election.
In fact, Fox “News” is the most credible source reporting that Al Franken won his election because felons carried the day; and of course, we don’t find that a credible source at all, given that the facts simply do not support this claim.
3RD PLACE POL FORGES TWO VOTES
Albany mayoral candidate Paul Etheridge commits voter fraud: Etheridge finished third in the Democratic Party mayoral primary in 2011, and it was during that election cycle the alleged fraud occurred, Floyd County Prosecutor Keith Henderson announced during a Thursday press conference. Arrested on the same charges for the alleged incidents — which all involved the handling and casting of absentee ballots.-- Pops
This race actually took place in New Albany, Indiana. This is a strange choice of an argument on Pops’ part: the person he accuses of committing voter fraud lost the election – by a lot. And he also points out “which all involved the handling and casting of absentee ballots.” That makes it sound like a pretty major case, doesn’t it?
According to the indictment, Paul Etheridge, a candidate in the New Albany Democratic mayoral primary, knowingly forged or falsely made the official endorsement of the ballots of two women in March 2011. The indictment also alleges Etheridge solicited one of the women to complete the ballot, knowing she was ineligible to register to vote or to vote.
That’s right, a whopping two votes. And he got caught. So how, exactly, does this justify more stringent ID at the ballot? After all, these were absentee ballots, so the ID requirement doesn’t actually come into play. At all.
Etheridge plead guilty and was formally sentenced on March 28, 2013, for Forgery of Official Ballot Endorsement, a Class D Felony. He received a suspended sentence of 1 year and 180 days, in addition to his requirement to complete 24 hours of community service.
I, for one, am relieved to learn that they threw the book at this master criminal. But his crime would not have been prevented by the Voter ID laws being proposed.
A PRISON SENTENCE AND A HUGE PROMOTION
A NAACP official is headed to jail for 5 years over voter fraud: While NAACP President Benjamin Jealous lashed out at new state laws requiring photo ID for voting, an NAACP executive sits in prison, sentenced for carrying out a massive voter fraud scheme. In a story ignored by the national media, in April a Tunica County, Miss., jury convicted NAACP official Lessadolla Sowers on 10 counts of fraudulently casting absentee ballots.--PopsMathew Vadum
Oh, hey, turns out that Pops is a plagiarist! I know this because it turns out that this entire paragraph is the lede from Mathew Vadum’s article in The Daily Caller.
Yes, Lessadolla Sowers was indeed convicted of those 10 counts: but she wasn’t an “NAACP executive.” She may have been on the Board of Directors for the Tunica, Mississippi chapter of the NAACP, although I’ve been unable to confirm that. The only non-partisan news source with the story describes her as a “community activist.”
After two days of testimony and an hour of deliberation, a Tunica County jury returned a guilty verdict in the case against community activist Lessadolla Sowers. Sowers was convicted of 10 counts of voter fraud and was sentenced to five years for each count. Circuit Court Judge Charles Webster ordered Sowers to serve her terms concurrently with no possibility of parole
And she also didn’t commit voter fraud; she didn’t show up at the polling place, and try to pass herself off as someone else. She committed election fraud, and the new voter ID laws would not have stopped her from doing it.
So far, Pops has a lousy batting average, and it only gets worse with his final claim.
THE CLAIM THAT DEBUNKS ITSELF
Also - the heavy illegal populations in California have tilted the population counts and thus the number of Representatives in that area - thus 4 votes in the electoral college go to California due to inclusion of illegals who cannot vote (but do reflect in populations counts)!-- Pops
Remember, this is a discussion about Voter Fraud, and about whether we need more stringent identification at the polling stations. So this claim has absolutely no merit in the context of this discussion whatsoever.
Heck, it doesn’t even have merit on its own merit.
This argument originates with an article in Politico Magazine entitled “Illegal Immigrants Could Elect Hillary,” by Paul Goldman and Mark Rozell. And it’s rife with flaws.
For starters, the Electoral College isn’t directly apportioned by Census population. It’s apportioned by seats in Congress. And while 436 of those are determined by Census population, 102 aren’t: Each state (plus DC) gets two extra electoral votes regardless of their size because of the Senate. This means that states with tiny populations get more representation in the Electoral College than population alone would warrant… All this is to say that the Electoral College is already skewed to give representation to small states that they wouldn’t have under a system that simply divided electoral votes up based on population, and those small states skew Republican by more than enough to offset what Goldman and Rozell estimate to be a four electoral vote advantage this year’s Democratic nominee will enjoy over their Republican opponent as a result of illegal immigration.
This argument is really an argument against the Electoral College and its role in elections. And while I think it would be great to get rid of the electoral college, I do have to point out that Al Gore won the popular vote, but George W. Bush won the electoral vote. Conservatives should be very careful about what they wish for.
CONCLUSION
- Pops claimed that Project Veritas proved that it was easy to vote illegally; but in fact they did not.
- Pops claimed that the 9-11 hijackers had valid Voter Registration cards; there is no evidence of this.
- Pops claimed that Al Franken won his election because felons voted for him; this is not true.
- Pops claimed that an Indiana mayoral candidate committed loads of voter fraud; but in fact coerced two women to falsify their absentee ballots – not voter fraud.
- Claims an NAACP executive went to jail for voter fraud; she was convicted of election fraud, not voter fraud, and there is no documentation that she was a member of the NAACP, let alone an executive.
- Claimed that all the illegal immigrants would create Electoral College votes that could change the election: deemed false by experts.
While there is election fraud in this country, none of the cases cited by Pops would be affected by adoption of voter ID laws, and none of his cases change the fact that voter fraud is actually exceedingly rare in this country. Pops needs to stop reading all those right-wing pundit pages.
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