I’ve brought this question up many times in threads on voter ID cards and in otherthreads on election-reform issues, and I’ve never yet gotten a straight answer backed up with cites.
What evidence is there that voting by “false voters” (noncitizens or persons otherwise legally ineligible to vote) has been a real problem in any American election in the past 20 years? Has there been any election anywhere where that is documented to have happened, in numbers significant enough to affect or potentially affect the outcome? Many Pub/conservative Dopers seem to just assume it, but they never offer any proof.
(N.B.: Urban machine politics are mostly a thing of the past in this country. Please don’t bring up the old horror stories about dead people “voting” in Chicago or wherever, unless you can come up with a cite for it happening within the past 20 years. Captain Amazing, in post #46 of this thread, did come up with a newspaper article, but the link is now dead and I can’t remember the details.)
You might find this interesting…here’s a report by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement from 1998, looking at voter fraud (as part of an analysis on “Motor Voter”). It comes to the conclusion that the biggest form the fraud takes in Florida is absentee ballot fraud:
I don’t believe that anyone provided anything much more than unsubstantiated rumors about voter identity fraud in the U.S. Dr. Paprika brought up an interesting result about the inability or unwillingness (or apathy) of voters in Toronto to provide documentation of citizenship in response to a mail request.
There’s about as much proof of voter fraud as there is of Diebold-induced election fraud. Lots of claims that it “can” happen, not a lick of proof that it ever did.
Won’t stop people from complaining about it, though.
I’d like to see a nationwide audit of the voter registration rolls. Pick a sample large enough to be statistically significant, and verify that they are eligible to vote. That would provide some real information.
Even if we had voter IDs, it wouldn’t solve the problems with absentee ballot fraud. There were good reasons for the old restrictive rules on absentee ballots.
I’ve always believed that most “fraud” is simply people voting in a district where they used to live, but haven’t updated their registration. For example, when I was in college, I’d move frequently yet not update my address with the registrar of voters. I’d just go back to the polling place I’d always gone to and vote. Was that ‘fraud?’
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. It just makes good sense to have a secure voting system. I don’t think it’s a matter of “prove this is a real problem first”.
How is that possible if poll workers are doing their jobs? They have a list of registered voters. You come in, vote, your name gets crossed off the list. How is it possible to end up with more than the amount of registered voters?
OK, how about this - it may just be an anectdotal Wyoming issue but I doubt it.
Convicted felons are not allowed to vote or serve on juries in Wyoming. The jury lists are pulled from voter registrations. In my last three Jury Trials, there were between 6 and 13 people called for jury duty from the voter rolls who were convicted felons.
I have prosecuted illegal aliens who have voted. (just to clarify, I was prosecuting them for something else such as DUI, and a records search indicated they were on the votor rolls).
Three weeks ago I had a court hearing concerning the purging of voter from the rolls because they were voting in the wrong state (they don’t live here, but want to appear to be Wyoming citizens in order to hunt here.)
Yeah, something is obviously missing in that. I do recall some scattered local cases of “voting tombstones” in Virginia: but they all happened in overwhelmingly Republican districts where the contest was between two Republicans and the abuse likely only happened because the election board was run by an arm of the powerful local Republican party machine. Even so, we’re talking small potatoes.
OK, BG, tell me what you think about this: A few weeks ago, I voted in the Maryland primary election. I walked into my polling place, was asked my name, address and birth date, was given a card and allowed to vote. The polling place workers didn’t personally know me from Adam, and what they did was exactly what they were told to do by Maryland law. IOW, nowhere in the process was I required to produce any ID to prove that I’m me. Maryland has decided, in the name of not “discriminating” against anyone, to eliminate the “burdensome” and “unfair” requirement of ID to vote. ANYONE who knows my name, where I live, and my birth date can walk into the polls and cast my vote, and nobody would ever know until I walked in after them and, whoops!, looks like I’ve already voted! If I know my neighbor is out of town, I could go vote as him, easy as pie, assuming I know his birthday. Does this not strike you as a problem? It bugs the shit outta me.
When I park my car in a lot that I’ve never been to before, I lock my doors and roll up my windows. I don’t need to see incontrovertable proof that cars have been stolen from that lot. I don’t care if none have before. It makes sense to take sensible precautions.
It’s nuts to not ask for any ID from voters at the polling places. I usually find my name on the list before they do, and simply point to it for them. They have no way of knowing if it’s actually me or some random person off the street.
I’m curious how many of the phantom addresses are the result of hard to read voter registration forms. Isn’t it fun trying to fill out a voter registration form on a clipboard in front of the supermarket? Many times, there is very little space given.
As far as the phony names such as Mary Poppins or Snow White, unfortunately I think some of those are probably from college kids or other volunteers who get bored/frusterated when working on a voter registration campaign. Some of them may have been ‘urged strongly’ to participate.
