The recall election happening today has caused a lot of talk about voter fraud. All over the country, the specter of voter fraud has been raised by Republicans. Bills have been passed to supposedly protect the public and the integrity of the election process from voter fraud. Voter ID bills have been debated, with many in support of the bill insisting we show ID at airports and buying beer, so what is the problem of showing ID when you vote. Those opposed to voter ID talk of the difficulty of some to get the proper ID to prove who they are.

The first question I would ask would be is voter fraud so rampant in this country that we need laws to fix it? If you ask someone from the RNC, they would say voter fraud is rampant but they have little data to prove this to be the case. They will site ‘some people say’ and will talk of possible fraud cases, but the court cases and investigations don’t support a massive amount of fraud. Let’s use as an example Wisconsin. State Senator Glenn Grothman stated on the Ed Show yesterday, when asked about specific voter fraud cases, said he heard of police in Milwaukee having things that are concerning about voter fraud, specifically about people not eligible to vote or voting more than once.

The Brennan Center for Justice actually did an investigation on voter fraud in Wisconsin and other states within the last 8 years. Their conclusion was true voter fraud, meaning people who may have purposefully tried to perpetrate voter fraud, was incredibly low, like in lower than ten. Not tens of thousands but ten. There were errors that occurred because of data entry errors, where an apartment number might be missing or put in wrong, a street being made an avenue or the like. As far as people voting that are dead, well there were a few, again fewer than 10, but this was because the persons died before the election was held and they had put in absentee ballots. Essentially, the number of possible true fraud cases was so low it would be of little consequence to an election.

However, let’s really look at what you would have to do to effect an election of state scale. If you are talking about the type of voter fraud the Republicans have people afraid of, which would be undocumented people, convicted criminals and people voting twice, what type of numbers would you need to sway a state election such as Wisconsin. If you listen to the RNC chair, he predicts that to make sure voter fraud is covered (remember he is telling people fraud is rampant in the state, Milwaukee in particular) Walker would have to get about 3% over his opponent to counteract the fraud. The numbers add up to something like 35,000 people or more would have to vote irregularly to cause a change in the vote in a state election like Wisconsin.

OK, think about that for a moment. Let's even use a lower, easier number like 10,000 people would have to vote illegally. How would you mount something like that? We're not talking a lone person going around voting illegally. You would need a coordinated effort of a lot of people en mass going out and doing this. We're not talking some prank by a supposed documentary person going and faking one person's name. So, if you believe the Republicans about the rampant voter fraud, something they have yet to prove in any sort of large numbers, it would take a lot of people with a lot of organization, and secrecy, to pull it off.

While the Republicans focus the voters angst on this highly unlikely scenario, real voter blocking plans go on and it is difficult to get the public up in arms over it. I'm not even talking about the voter suppression issues that are going on in a lot of states like Florida. On a small scale, look at the Iowa caucus. First, Mitt Romney won by 8 votes, then it turned out some counties weren't counted or the numbers were called in but written down wrong. Mind you, this is the Republicans running the caucus; it has nothing to do with voters giving their votes but the officials not counting the votes. How about the infamous JoAnne Kloppenburg/ David Prosser judge race of April of this year. Kloppenburg, in unofficial tallies, looked like she would win against Prosser with a slim lead of 204 votes until Kathy Nicholas, the county clerk of Waukesha County, said she 'found' 14,315 votes that hadn't been reported and were stored on her personal computer! Prosser, the Republican incumbent won because of the 'error in reporting' by Nicholas, also a Republican.

How about the reports, coming out this morning, about robocalls going to Democrats that have been traced to Republican call centers telling some voters that if they signed the petition for the recall they have already voted, which isn't true. These are tricks done by Republicans that are verified and documented. There isn't a 'some people say' scenario attached to it, yet people are more willing to believe in a mass group of 'others' descending down to the polls to cast false ballots rather than look at voter suppression, questionable ballots produced by officials and outright misinformation in calls being the real problem with clean elections.

<< PREVIOUS
NEXT >>

Copyright © Chaotic Fringe LLC. All rights reserved.

Voter Fraud Not at the Ballot Box - June 03, 2012
Home | News | Entertainment | Blog | Podcast | IMVN | Everquest 2 | Links | Photos | V-Blog