# Election Assistance Commission gags co-author of "Voter Fraud" report from speaking **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 28, 2007, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-assistance-commission-gags-co-author-of-voter-fraud-report-from-speaking/401969 "2007-04-28T18:25:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-assistance-commission-gags-co-author-of-voter-fraud-report-from-speaking/401969/21 "2007-05-01T18:13:18Z")
I’m having a bit of difficulty here. Aren’t the Democrats the ones who are always crying “Fraud!”? Except when they win, of course. And here we have a report which says that there’s little evidence of fraud and a Republican-appointed committee tries to alter it to make it ‘suitably vague’ - something that Democrats would love, and yet they’re up in arms about it? I’d expect people here to be saying how brave the committee was for doing this. ---
**Author:** ![duality72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duality72/32/3910_2.png) [@duality72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duality72)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-assistance-commission-gags-co-author-of-voter-fraud-report-from-speaking/401969/22 "2007-05-01T18:35:02Z")
[QUOTE=Bricker] Ifthat loses 2.7%, then we need to work on fixing whtever underlying fears or problems cause that. In short: not giving much of a fuck here. Documenation of identity is perfectly valid for voting. That 2.7% can suck it up. [/QUOTE] So you would combat a 0.01% problem by introducing a 2.7% problem? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-assistance-commission-gags-co-author-of-voter-fraud-report-from-speaking/401969/23 "2007-05-01T18:47:56Z")
[QUOTE=Quartz] Aren’t the Democrats the ones who are always crying “Fraud!”? Except when they win, of course. [/quote] It depends on the **kind** of fraud in question. Dems are up in arms mainly about “vote fraud” by the officials running the elections – rigged voting machines, miscounted ballots, lost ballots, discarded ballots, or people being improperly turned away from the polls [as they were in Florida in 2000](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Central_Voter_File#Pre-election_cleansing); also, about [voter intimidation](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=277079) – people being frightened or deceived away from voting by nonofficial Pub volunteers pretending they have the law on their side. Pubs are up in arms about “voter fraud,” that is, people voting illegally, people who are legally ineligible to vote because they are not U.S. citizens, or (in some states) because they have felony conviction records (see [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=418876) ongoing thread), or simply because they have not been in the precinct long enough to establish legal residency. IOW, each party is against what hurts its own electoral prospects. In general, high voter turnout is good for Dems and low turnout is good for Pubs. The difference is, vote fraud is a **real** problem and voter fraud almost never happens; which you should know if you have been paying any attention at all to this thread. Why would it happen? Why risk getting caught and punished, just so you can vote illegally? Few people care about elections **that** much. Vote fraud, OTOH, has a much more tangible payoff. [QUOTE=Quartz] And here we have a report which says that there’s little evidence of fraud and a Republican-appointed committee tries to alter it to make it ‘suitably vague’ - something that Democrats would love, and yet they’re up in arms about it? [/QUOTE] Don’t you see? This is like a committee of scientists being commissioned by the government to study the evolution-creation controversy, producing a report that says in essence, “We can be almost completely, absolutely certain a non-guided process of biological evolution produced all living organisms on Earth, including humans,” and seeing the government agency alter the report to read, “The jury is still out on how God made the world; creation and evolution are both theories.” ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-assistance-commission-gags-co-author-of-voter-fraud-report-from-speaking/401969/24 "2007-05-10T18:05:19Z")
[Here](http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/05/10/voting_rights/)’s an excellent article about the “voter fraud” fallacy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/election-assistance-commission-gags-co-author-of-voter-fraud-report-from-speaking/401969.md?page=1)