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Ask Republican policymakers why they support voter-ID laws, and they'll occasionally admit it's because they're trying to rig elections and prevent voters they don't like from participating in their own democracy. But most of the time, they hide behind a talking point: "voter fraud."
At the surface, a reasonable person might find the argument credible if he or she weren't aware of the facts. To hear GOP officials tell it, there's a legitimate fear that someone might show up at a voter precinct under false pretenses, perhaps pretending to be someone they're not. If, however, voters are forced to obtain, purchase, and show a voter ID card for the first time in American history, the threat of fraud effectively disappears.
Whenever this comes up, someone like me rudely points out, "Voter fraud is imaginary," to which Republican respond, "No, this actually happens." Who's right? Well, it turns out, fraud does occur -- it's just extraordinarily infrequent.
A new nationwide analysis of more than 2,000 cases of alleged election fraud over the past dozen years shows that in-person voter impersonation on Election Day, which has prompted 37 state legislatures to enact or consider tougher voter ID laws, was virtually nonexistent.
The analysis of 2,068 reported fraud cases by News21, a Carnegie-Knight investigative reporting project, found 10 cases of alleged in-person voter impersonation since 2000. With 146 million registered voters in the United States, those represent about one for every 15 million prospective voters.
The News21 report is based on a national public-records search in which reporters sent thousands of requests to elections officers in all 50 states, asking for every case of alleged fraudulent activity -- including registration fraud; absentee-ballot fraud; vote buying; false election counts; campaign fraud; the casting of ballots by ineligible voters, such as felons and non-citizens; double voting; and voter impersonation.
So, in the most comprehensive investigation that I've even heard of, there have been 10 cases of someone trying to cast an improper, in-person ballot -- exactly the problem Republican voter-ID laws hope to eliminate.
In other words, Republicans are imposing the most sweeping voting restrictions since Jim Crow laws to combat fraud that happens, on average, less than one vote nationwide per year. To put that in perspective, the odds of finding a legitimate case of in-person voter fraud are one in 15 million. The odds of you getting struck by lightning in any given year are one in 1 million.
GOP officials are fighting like crazy to impose a solution to a problem that does not exist because they're afraid Mitt Romney and other Republicans will lose a fair fight. It's a national scandal unlike anything we've seen in a long while.
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Pardon me if I'm skeptical. Here's an account that argues Franken got his Senate seat via vote fraud. So far 177 have been found guilty. Not indicted, found guilty. As in "busted".
http://washingtonexaminer.com/york-when-1099-felons-vote-in-race-won-by-312-ballots/article/2504163#.UCpUl6OZh8E
It's always easy to be certain when you live in a little self-contained epistomological universe with its own facts and its own sources that are unaffected by objective reality.
Citing to a write up of a "a new book by conservative journalist John Fund and former Bush Justice Department official Hans von Spakovsky" in the Washington Examiner. Lol. Got any investment advice from Bernie Mehdoff to go with that?
And pardon me if I'm skeptical of your claims, as well:
http://www.alternet.org/gop-voter-fraud-hucksters-latest-lie-felons-made-franken-us-senator
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/lets-play-voter-fraud-whack-a-mole/2012/08/08/99f9b66c-e18e-11e1-89f7-76e23a982d06_blog.html
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/07/right-wing-howls-felons-put-franken-over-the-top-um-not-really.php
Even if the story were true, voter ID laws would not have prevented it, and furthermore due to the fact that we have a secret ballot in the US, there's no way to know who those felons voted for, if they ever even voted at all.
And here's the debunking.
http://www.alternet.org/gop-voter-fraud-hucksters-latest-lie-felons-made-franken-us-senator?akid=9186.102169.TnMJb9&rd=1&t=1
Basically, Fund and Von Spasovosky, per their standard M.O. have just made these numbers up out of thin air and the fact that they can't be substantiated, and thus prosecuted, is proof positive of the corruption of the D.A.'s in Minnesota. Because that's how it works in the land of circular logic wingnuts inhabit. Every piece of evidence debunking what wingnuts just know has to be true is only evidence of how deeply rooted the conspiracy to hide that truth really is.
Here's some very good links on the manufactured voter fraud. Tells you pretty much everything you need to know about what's going on.
Summary: Republicans want this election to be like 2010 and not 2008, and they're not encumbered from disenfranchising citizens to get it. Just more sickening proof of just how nauseating the GOP is.
Voting Law Changes in 2012: Comprehensive Brennan Center study
RNLA's New Voter Fraud Map Provides Little Evidence Of Voter Fraud | Political Correction
The GOP War on Voting | Politics News | Rolling Stone
Doonesbury got his swipes in:
Doonesbury Comic Strip, July 26, 2012 on GoComics.com
Doonesbury Comic Strip, July 23, 2012 on GoComics.com
Doonesbury Comic Strip, July 24, 2012 on GoComics.com
Doonesbury Comic Strip, July 25, 2012 on GoComics.com
To those who are skeptical of this report, President Bush did a 5 year investigation into Voter Fraud and they found 86 cases. When the prosecutors and others further investigated these 86 cases they found most were from human error.
Funny the only ones being charged with voter fraud, some already found guilty, and one who resigned over allegations, are Republicans:
Rep Charlie White, Indiana Election Chief, Found Guilty Of Voter Fraud
John Enright, a Republican running for Supervisor of Pinal County, Arizona, ended his campaign after allegations that his former companion — who has been deceased for five years — has been voting by absentee ballot since her death.
Four staffers for former U.S. Representative and Republican presidential candidate Thaddeus McCotter were charged in connection with an election fraud investigation. While no charges were brought against McCotter himself, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette slammed the former Rep. for being “asleep at the switch.”
I know its probably not worth the effort to confront Shooter with facts but here goes:
The original number of felons accused of voting illegally was 341. I figure I know where Shooter pulled that 1,099 figure.
The 341 figure was broken down into three groups: mistaken identity of eligible voters for a felon with the same name, felons whose voting rights had been reinstated (we do that in Minnesota) and registered felons who did not actually vote in the election.
The Hennepin County Sheriff's office investigated 110 fraud allegations, not 1,099: of those investigations, six charges were filed which is nowhere near 177 convictions. Once again, I think we all know where Shooter got his numbers.
It took months to finish the recount. Coleman's appeals lost unamimously at the Minnesota Supreme Court.
I read the first cite...
Well, except for the 177 convictions that were mentioned by York. Did your boy forget about them, ignore them, or what?
Hennepin County authorities have charged six convicted felons with illegally voting in the 2008 election.
The charges, filed this week, separately accuse the defendants of fraud for voting or registering to vote.
The charges followed an extensive investigation by the county sheriff's office, which looked into 110 allegations of fraud.
Fardus Hassan Osman, 22, of Minneapolis, and John Joseph Sesin, 45, of Eden Prairie, are charged with registering to vote while ineligible and voting while ineligible, both felonies.
Others charged with voting while ineligible include David Christian Schmeisser, 40, Deephaven; Kristina Jane Mossberg, 44, Minneapolis; Andre Von Rose, 50, Minneapolis, and Cassidy Cole Schuster, 27, Minneapolis.
Each defendant allegedly signed a Voter Registration Card before or during the Nov. 4, 2008 election, indicating they had the right to vote because they had not been convicted of a felony or had been discharged from their sentence.
http://www.startribune.com/templates/Print_This_Story?sid=105492918
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said Wednesday, “In Hennepin County, 650,000 people voted. The Minnesota Majority presented us with 1,500 cases that they felt there were problems with voting. Our own election bureau gave us 100. At the end of the day, we charged 38 cases. And all but one of them are felons voting who were still under the penalty [of not legally applying to regain individual voting rights]. There was no fraud.”
“The numbers are a complete lie,” Freeman’s spokesman said before the Hennepin County Attorney came on the phone. “They keep going on television and repeating this lie, even though we debunked this with the work we had to do.”
Their conclusions are consistent with research done by Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota, following the 2008 senatorial recount. Her November 2010 report found only 26 voter fraud convictions across the state at that time. They were all ex-felons who registered to vote but never voted (32 percent) or who voted (68 percent) before restoring their voting rights.
A spokesman for The Minnesota Court Information Office, operated by its Supreme Court, last Tuesday said there were 14 voter fraud convictions across the state in 2009, 11 in 2010, and 132 in 2011. The Court records did not say when, or in which election—before 2008, during 2008, or after 2008—the illegal registrations or voting occurred.
In contrast, York erroneously states that 1,099 felons voted illegally in 2008, and that 177 have been convicted, while another 66 are awaiting trial.
Tell you what guys I'm going to back off this one a bit, until MM details their claims. I've been looking and apparently there is no one crime called "voter fraud". Instead it's - “ineligible voter knowingly votes” under Minnesota Statute 201.014.
I would think that's a pretty easy fact check for someone that knows the system.
Shooter, did you not read the previous posts? Your standard MO is to back off and troll a different comment when your worldview is challenged. The fact that you're fighting back is just..weird. The 177 cases are unsubstantiated claims - as in, that guy made it up. He's either playing some very interesting math and language games, or he's lying.
Here's the deal, shooter. I don't like you. I don't like that you troll constantly, you never give in, even when you're objectively wrong, and you have that infuriating habit of basically spamming every comment in the thread with crap that was debunked right after you first posted it. You're dishonest and represent every reason rational discourse doesn't occur on the internet like it should.
But come on now. We can at least agree that every American citizen has a right to vote? And that it should be relatively easy to do so? This is such a basic, fundamental part of democracy, are you really against it just because your chosen pundits are? Jesus.
This is why the Ryan pick scares the hell out of me. Under ordinary circumstances, I think Romney would be doomed at this point. Given today's circumstances, however, between this and Citizens United, I don't see how anything like a "fair fight" is remotely possible.
It's also another messaging failure for the Democrats, though. The thing people point to all the time as "evidence" for voter fraud is actually voter registration fraud (people registering to vote as Mickey Mouse or Archie Bunker, etc.), which is not the same thing. Unless someone actually goes to a polling place and tries to vote using a fake registration, this is not going to affect the results of an election. But for far too long now, Dems have allowed this to be conflated with actual voter fraud without trying to correct that false perception, until now people believe they actually are the same thing.
The ruling is supposed to come down in the PA voter ID case in the next few days. I'm hoping the judge sees reason.
By far the greatest voter suppression is not being talked of or even mentioned except maybe on election day after a third party split the vote.
It is the genuine sense that you only ever have one of two choices and if you don't like those choices your vote doesn't matter- that though double digit percentages of the US population subscribe to your views, because it is in the minority in every community in the country, that it will always lose in an election, so why bother.
That is voter disenfranchisement numbering not in hundreds of thousands, but tens of millions. Yet we are silent about this problem.
Hayes has an advertisement that points out how voter id cuts at a fundamental principle of democracy- that citizens must feel that have agency in our society- the power to alter political outcomes. I would go further and point out that any system that prevents citizens from having that power to change outcomes in elections is ultimately doomed.
Tell me. Does the Dem voter in a deep Red state have agency? How about a Green or libertarian voter? There are significant percentages of the electorate both left and libertarian that think that Wall Street have rigged the game and their power must be directly confronted. Yet our system of local representation does not allow candidates to run on such views because majoritiarianism in local elections suppresses that view.
This will not be the first election where voters think that they have been railroaded into a narrow set of choices that really are not true choices- That both the Dem and GOP candidates for president are not serious about the crucial challenges facing our country.
There are a number of proposals that would allow voters true agency in our society.
Well, if the fundemental tenet of your faith is that government trying to solve actual problems only makes the actual problems worse, then clearly, the only problems you should allocate vast amounts of government time, labor and money toward solving are those that don't exist. Because hey, if you make a nonexistent problem worse, who'll notice?
What happened to all those jobs, jobs, jobs the GOP was promising? I guess the voter fraud issue was a bigger, more immediate problem that had to be tackled. So glad they're taking care of that first.
The only evidence of blatant voter fraud I've heard about is Minn. republican Thaddeus Mccotter's staff.
While we're on the topic of voter fraud:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/brendancoffey/2011/06/15/did-mitt-romney-live-in-his-sons-unfinished-basement-last-year/
Yeah, because multi-millionaires with multiple homes in various states often live in their son's unfinished basements...
In a world where facts mattered this report would be devastating to the GOP efforts.
Unfortunately the GOP has built a self contained reality in which facts can be negated and replaced by desired opinions.
Just as research into quantum reality violates our current understanding of reality so does the GOP alternate reality.
We who live in reality keep shouting these facts against the same fortress lies and we keep expecting them to make a difference. We must realize that we are dealing with zealots and their dupes.
At some point we must realize that reason will not work here anymore than trying to reason religious fanatics does.
Voter ID laws are a solution to a 'real' problem of too many blacks and other groups participating in the ballot process who historically vote for democrats. Pretending that the voter ID laws are otherwise is sort of like insisting that anti-sharia laws are passed for reasons other than formenting hatred of Muslims.
Your 'modern' republican party of hate and fear used to keep politicians in control who have no 'sellable' policies.
Voter ID laws have an obvious pattern.
Minorities vote Democratic by large margins? Make it tougher for them to vote.
Poor people vote Democratic by large margins? Make it tougher for them to vote.
Those two have been reported on extensively, but potentially more explosive, especially in this election and especially given what is happening with abortion rights on so many state legislatures:
Women vote Democratic by large margins? Make it tougher for them to vote.
There is a short but useful article on this from American Prospect: http://prospect.org/article/new-voter-id-laws-target-women I think maybe this deserves more airtime.
OK....I have to admit it. I'm absolutely a supporter of Voter ID Bills in all 50 States. But, I'm also willing to admit when I'm wrong.
Let's repeal any law that requires a Picture ID to cash a check. Remember, the old, infirm, and poor need to be able to access Banks too.
Come to think of it, why should we have a picture ID to drive?
Oh, and that stupid Picture ID requirement just to board an airplane...Talk about a waste of effort there! In a study commissioned in July of 2004, of all the people flying on US Air Lines 33 months earlier, only 19 people had falsified documents.
Thanks Guys! Live and learn, huh?
Jon-David Wells
The Wells Report
Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX
In that I agree wholeheartedly the voter ID laws are intended to suppress democratic leaning votes (especially in swing states), and that lawsuits should go forward to challenge them, I have another idea I think may be worthy of consideration for the Democratic Party.
Perhaps the party should identify those individuals who would be affected and organize several whole day events featuring bus trips to the various state places to secure the necessary ID. It would of course, overwhelm the issuing sites and totally disrupt persons seeking the ID for other reasons and legitimate business, but could you imagine the media coverage such resultant scenes would engender? Much like getting seniors on a bus to head for Atlantic city, get them to the state DOT. Serve them lunch and drinks. Pay for their ID fees if necessary.
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em :)
Can't believe nobody has mentioned that Ann Coulter is a serial illegal voter. I knew about the case in Florida, but just discovered she did it in Connecticut too.
You can see Florida details here: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=2684
And Connecticut details here: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8124
Not sure how she manages to get away with this. Probably something to do with her being famous or something...
OK...I've alwys thought that proving you were the actual person on the Voter Registration Card was a no-brainer.
Thank goodness Rachel Maddow's blog is here....Because not only has it made me see the error in my ways, but it has opened up an entire new way of seeing this entire picture ID thing....
For example....
Laws sure do make things tougher for Democrats, don't they?
Jon-David Wells
The Wells Report
Dallas/Ft. Worth
What garbage. I personally have been a victim of voter fraud. I went in to vote and found that I already had. Someone had used my name to cast their vote. Whether it was intentional or not it could have been prevented if ID had been shown. It was never included in the fraud numbers because there was just no way to know who did it so nothing was ever done even though it was reported by me. With tax records on-line, phone records on-line, etc it is extraordinarily easy to pick a name and go say you are that person and vote as them...after all nobody has to show ID. It will never be prosecuted as they do not have a clue who to file a case against. In most states a provisional vote and still be cast without ID an in other states a state issued ID is provided for FREE...one that can be used later to get a job.