Myth of Voter Fraud
It is important to protect the integrity of our elections. But we must be careful not to undermine free and fair access to the ballot in the name of preventing voter fraud.
The Brennan Center’s ongoing examination of voter fraud claims reveal that voter fraud is very rare, voter impersonation is nearly non-existent, and much of the problems associated with alleged fraud in elections relates to unintentional mistakes by voters or election administrators. Our report “The Truth About Voter Fraud” reveals most allegations of fraud turn out to be baseless — and that of the few allegations remaining, most reveal election irregularities and other forms of election misconduct.
Voter fraud is not acceptable in our elections, but we must find a balance and not impose solutions that make it harder for millions of eligible Americans to participate in our democracy.
Here’s the problem. Republicons don’t care about truthy stuff like this. They go right on claiming to fight voter fraud, evidence be damned, and what exactly do they do to fight it? Commit voter fraud by preventing minority voters from voting. The facts is nice, but when your whole frame of mind is the End Justifies The Means, then they become a minor nuisance.
Here's the problem. Republicons don't care about truthy stuff like this. They go right on claiming to fight voter fraud, evidence be damned, and what exactly do they do to fight it? Commit voter fraud by preventing minority voters from voting. The facts is nice, but when your whole frame of mind is the End Justifies The Means, then they become a minor nuisance.
Did you hear Trump filed a case in Nevada because they left the polls open after closing time? (Early voting last Friday)
The rule is, if you are in line at closing time, you can vote, they must stay open. Isn’t there some rule about frivolous lawsuits?
Judge Tosses Donald Trump Lawsuit Over Early Voting
By Colin Miner (Patch Staff) - November 8, 2016 4:45 pm ET
http://patch.com/us/across-america/donald-trump-sues-nevada-over-early-voting
An impatient Nevada judge on Tuesday threw out a lawsuit by Donald Trump's legal team over early voting, saying their action was premature and questioning whether they understand basic law.
"This is not how it works," Clark County Judge Gloria Sturman said in dismissing the suit filed late Monday by Trump's lawyers. They had argued that Clark County polling sites were kept open two hours late on Friday night. Officials have said that was done to guarantee people already in line would be able to vote.
The judge had little to say about that but informed the Trump team that the county was already required to preserve ballots.
"I can't obligate him to do something that he's already obligated to do," said the judge.
"There has been a failure to exhaust administrative remedies," she said, adding that Trump's team needed to first go to the Secretary of State's office, file integrity complaints and let that process play out before returning to the court.
Sturman repeatedly asked Trump's lawyer, Brian Hardy, and his team why they were in her courtroom, pointing out - as the registrar had - that the law already requires them to preserve all the ballots.
At one point, Hardy seemed to ask the judge for permission to get the names of people who were working the poll sites.
"Why would I order them to make available to you information about people who work at polls when it's not already a public requirement to do so," she said. "So that those people can be harassed for doing their civic duty?"
When Trump's team suggested they would make sure people were not subjected to harassment, Sturman was skeptical.
"Do you watch Twitter?" she asked. "Do you watch cable news?"
At one point, Trump's lawyers seemed to suggest that they wanted access to the actual ballots, which would allow them to see who voted when. They also wanted access to names of who worked at each polling site. ...
By MICHAEL TACKETT and MICHAEL WINES JAN. 3, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/us/politics/trump-voter-fraud-commission.html
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday abruptly shut down a White House commission he had charged with investigating voter fraud, ending a brief quest for evidence of election theft that generated lawsuits, outrage and some scholarly testimony, but no real evidence that American elections are corrupt.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump called for requiring voter identification in a pair of Twitter posts because the voting system “is rigged." “Push hard for Voter Identification!" Mr. Trump wrote.
Mr. Trump did not acknowledge the commission’s inability to find evidence of fraud, but cast the closing as a result of continuing legal challenges.
“Despite substantial evidence of voter fraud, many states have refused to provide the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity with basic information relevant to its inquiry," Mr. Trump said in a White House statement on Wednesday.
“Rather than engage in endless legal battles at taxpayer expense, today I signed an executive order to dissolve the commission, and have asked the Department of Homeland Security to review these issues and determine next courses of action," he said.
In fact, no state has uncovered significant evidence to support the president’s claim, and election officials, including many Republicans, have strongly rejected it. ...
Dare we say LOSER
But will the Republican stop their assault on Open and Free voting for American citizens???
Trump may be stupid, but he is aware of an important phenomena. Very few people listen to the story about a commission being shut down. Fewer still listen to the reasons given by the people on the commission. In this case, the things being asked for were either not legal, like voter information, or if they could be supplied legally they would be useless, like everyone named “John Smith”. Just that sentence I just typed is beyond the attention span of the average American. Instead, Trump knows they listen to Trump. They listen to things in 140 character junks.
Myth of Voter Fraud
It is important to protect the integrity of our elections. But we must be careful not to undermine free and fair access to the ballot in the name of preventing voter fraud.
The Brennan Center’s ongoing examination of voter fraud claims reveal that voter fraud is very rare, voter impersonation is nearly non-existent, and much of the problems associated with alleged fraud in elections relates to unintentional mistakes by voters or election administrators. Our report "The Truth About Voter Fraud" reveals most allegations of fraud turn out to be baseless — and that of the few allegations remaining, most reveal election irregularities and other forms of election misconduct.
Voter fraud is not acceptable in our elections, but we must find a balance and not impose solutions that make it harder for millions of eligible Americans to participate in our democracy.
https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/voter-fraud
Further information is available from the site.
The far right use this issue as pure dog whistle, what it really stands for is the denial of a vote for their opponents.
What they are really saying is they don't think liberals have a right to the vote and that any vote that isn't cast for the right is fraud.
So in trump's "mind" there really were millions of Americans who cheated and didn't give him the popular vote. If you decide that half the country doesn't matter at all it follows that you'd also think they shouldn't have any basic rights such as voting for their leaders. republicans want to impose leaders on America, just look at Roy Moore who is still claiming he won the Alabama senate seat election.
In his mind Muslim Marxist revolutionaries stole his rightful place in Congress.
During the campaign, Trump warned that he might not accept the outcome of the election if he lost. But it turns out that even though he won, and secretaries of state from both parties have denied any significant voting irregularities, he's willing to question the legitimacy of the nation's electoral system. In the months since he first tweeted that millions of people voted illegally, Trump has provided no evidence for his absurd claim, and in a saner world it would be written off as the rantings of a habitual liar with a bruised ego. But Trump's lie or delusion concerning his popular-vote loss is built upon a myth of voter fraud that Republicans have carefully cultivated to justify regulations – such as voter-ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements – that make it harder to vote for Democratic-leaning populations like minorities, young people and low-income individuals.
Claim there are millions of people voting illegally for the other guys - but never for you - then enact measures that directly target your opponents voter base to "solve" the problem.
There has been some pretty systematic defrauding of the elections system, most notably in Florida in 2000 where thousands of mostly black voters were stricken from the voter rolls because they had names similar to convicted felons. It really helps when one of biggest local supporters is also the state's Secretary of State as Katherine Harris was in 2000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Harris
In Volusia country in Florida in 2000 Al Gore initially received -16,022 votes, the machines were counting his votes backwards but not Bush's meaning there was a hack.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0310/S00211.htm
DELAND, Fla., Nov. 11 - Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official in Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and learned that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000. But when she checked the county's Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore's count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000--all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters."
Sure there's election fraud, it's being carried out by the republicans constantly. This last election it involved the republican candidate working with the Russian government to fracture the Democrat base in the run-up to the election.
Here's trump directly asking the Russian government to release material he knew it had stolen from the DNC because his team had spent the week before in meetings trying to directly get the material. They didn't need to, they just needed Russian intelligence to dump the stuff on Wiki-leaks which is exactly what they did.
https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/elections/100000004554702/trump-urges-russia-to-locate-clinton-emails.html
That's not just election fraud, that's treason.
Here's the problem. Republicons don't care about truthy stuff like this. They go right on claiming to fight voter fraud, evidence be damned, and what exactly do they do to fight it? Commit voter fraud by preventing minority voters from voting. The facts is nice, but when your whole frame of mind is the End Justifies The Means, then they become a minor nuisance.
It’s funny how quick they are to claim voter fraud when they’re losing, but when they’re ahead, the elections are paragons of purity. Funny how that works,
Lois