The crazy thing about voter fraud is that voting is a fairly deliberate act that takes time and effort. Most eligible people don’t vote period and yet “voter fraud” legislation (purportedly) worries about the unicorn like criminal or non-citizen who 99.999% of the time would not be bothering or risking trying to vote anyway stealthing in to cast their illicit ballot.
Exactly.
Which is why it has always seemed to me to be a massive redirection effort.
The more anyone is thinking about fraudulent voters voting, the less they’re thinking about fraudulent campaign officials stuffing ballot boxes and fraudulent election officials buggering counts.
Correct. For instance, in Florida in 2000, the official with overall responsibility for certifying the presidential election was the Florida Secretary of State, not the counties or municipalities who actually ran the voting.
The fact that the Secretary of State at the time was a Republican and the co-chair of the state committee to elect George Bush had nothing to do with her decision to halt recounts and certify the votes in favour of … George Bush.
Really, if people are worrying about voter or elections fraud, one of the first steps is to make the administration of the elections non-partisan, not run by elected officials with clear links to one or the other parties.
I’m not seeing how this is not a case where proof of identity wouldn’t have made this particular shenanigan more difficult to perpetrate.
Not having particularly delved into the issue, I’d still venture to guess that many proponents of voter IDs are looking to reduce “fraud” not “voter fraud”, so it’s a No True Scotsman to only consider the voter fraud side of things.
In any case where you have a clear identity attached to a vote, it’s easy to confirm that:
- No one person voted more than once.
- That the vote recorded for me, matches the vote I cast (e.g., by sending notifications to people after the voting cycle).
- The vote recorded was actually made by voter X (by calling them up and confirming or waiting for them to raise a concern when they receive their notification).
Voter fraud is only addressed by #1, but #2 and #3 do address (some forms of) electoral fraud.
I’m willing to believe that much or all of the play around voter IDs, between the parties, is over party goals to enfranchise/disenfranchise people and has little to do with fraud prevention. Similarly, I’m willing to believe that it may be the case that voter IDs would disenfranchise more people than it helped to prevent against fraud, so even if effective, it’s still a net loss for democracy. But it’s clearly not true that voter IDs are only useful against voter fraud.
I’m sure there are people who vote fraudulently in person by using the fact that they don’t have to show ID to vote. [There kind of have to be a few.]
But it’s really complicated to carry out, the impact isn’t large, and there are many things that can go wrong.
In my state, if I walk into a polling place and make up a fictitious name and address (voting early and often), I won’t be in their poll book. They’ll probably let me cast a provisional ballot if I look earnest enough. But when that name and address don’t match anything at the Board of Elections, they’ll toss out my ballot. I suppose there may be places where pollwatchers don’t actually check registrations, etc., or where registrations are so hopelessly disorganized and backlogged that officials simply count all the ballots, but I’ve worked for candidates in a bunch of election districts in several states and never experienced this. Barring that, well, making up an identity is a lot of trouble to go to for a very limited possible payoff.
So I have to pretend to be an actual registered voter. Okay…
I can get a list of registered voters and their addresses–through a political campaign, if not as a private individual. I can then go to the polls. “Hi,” I’ll say, “I’m William T. McKinley of 1312 Garden St., and I’m here to vote.” (In my state, party registration is a matter of public record, and I’ve chosen Mr. McKinley because he is a member of the opposition party–which of course doesn’t mean he’s going to vote that way, but there’s no point in pretending to be someone from my own party.)
Okay, this might work. As long as a) William T. McKinley hasn’t already voted; b) William T. McKinley isn’t personally known to the election worker(s); c) William T. McKinley hasn’t been known to have just, you know, died, or moved out of state, or been sent to prison; or d) William T. McKinley isn’t standing right behind me waiting for his turn.
So I’m in luck and all those things work out. Now I forge Wm’s signature (I have to sign in, in my state at least, and the model signature is upside down, which makes it hard). I vote. Now what? I certainly can’t do it again in the same precinct (Hi! Now I’m William H. Taft, and I’m here to vote…). I might travel to a new precinct and repeat, but the odds of getting busted increase with every visit, especially as the day goes on.
Not to mention I can’t pretend to be just anybody. I’m a middle-aged white guy, tall and fair-haired and fair-skinned. I’m going to raise eyebrows if I pretend to be Takeyuki Fujikama, or Rajiv Singh. LeVon Jackson or Orlando Gonzales would probably be a stretch. Even some name that’s identifiably Greek or Italian might cause problems.
As I say, it’s theoretically possible. I’m sure it’s happened. And of course one vote could change the outcome of an election, we all know that; I have a friend, a city council member in my community, who did win election by exactly one vote the first time he ran. But the risks are big, the time involved is enormous, and the payoff isn’t all that impressive.
Stuffing ballot boxes, making honestly-cast votes disappear, fiddling with electronic voting machines, intimidating opposing voters so they’ll stay away from the polls–now THAT’'s where the money is where voter fraud is concerned. So to speak.
Individual voter fraud is rare, and there has never been a case in the US where it made a difference in elections. As Ulf points out, it’s only going to work for a handful of voters, and if you’re going to commit fraud, you’ve got to go full throttle.
Supposedly, in the days of Tammany Hall, men would grow beards before election day and then shave it off bit by bit to vote multiple times. If that happened, it only worked because there were no voter registration laws. Once New York adopted registration, Tammany started losing power and influence.
To be sure, I did once have a platinum blonde female neighbor whose name was Mrs. Kobayashi. That was her married name, of course.
Oh, absolutely can happen…I’ve known a few myself. You’re right that it happens more commonly with women, but it can be the case with men as well.
It’s just that in this circumstance I don’t want to draw any attention to myself at all–and using a name that isn’t quite consonant with my features is a good way to get people to remember me in a way I’d prefer they didn’t.
(I realize you’re not saying otherwise!)
#2 and 3, however, require that somewhere there be kept a record of exactly who voted for which candidate, which entirely defeats the purpose of the secret ballot (and opens the process to all sorts of other shenanigans: e.g., bring me your notification that you voted for My Favorite Candidate and I’ll give you $20, or show me that you voted against this ballot measure and I won’t make up an excuse to fire your ass, etc.).
Moreover, in cases of absentee ballot fraud, it is usually true that the person in whose name the ballot was cast had perfectly good ID; it’s just the person in whose name the ballot was cast wasn’t actually the person who cast it. Absentee ballots, by definition, pass through multiple sets of hands going from the election office to the voter and back again, so proving the identity of one of those sets doesn’t in any way make the shenanigan of altering the ballot any more difficult. (Besides, who is verifying this proof, given that no election official actually sees the voter?)
Many cases of absentee voter fraud involve people who need or desire assistance marking their ballot (nursing home residents, e.g.). Suppose you send a notification of votes cast to Mrs. Dementia Patient: will she even understand what it is? will she make a believable witness in a case against the fraudster? Mrs. Patient has perfectly good proof of identity, but that ID does zilch to prevent Nursing Attendant or Campaign Helper, or even Patient Son, from committing fraud.
I agree that some of the people advocating for voter ID are really wanting to reduce election fraud generally, but the sorts of election fraud that actually happen can’t be prevented by voter ID laws. It’s entirely the wrong solution for the problem of election fraud; the “problem” it solves is too many of those people voting for the opposition. Meanwhile, real solutions such as nonpartisan election officials are ignored, because they DON’T yield partisan advantage.
No the difference was anything all wrong with the votes cast,
vs manipulating the desire to cast a vote, by paying for votes, by a targetting your vote buying to be sure of its success, by manipulating the press (paying for opinions), by manipulating the counting of votes (so as to mislead the public about interim results), by manipulating opening and closing times and other booth operations…Not actually directly faking votes, but all possible due to the system having to allow for optional voting … booths may be opened and closed based on demand…
The Florida claim was debunked. Many counties in Florida had crowded ballots going on to two pages. The BALLOTS cast were more than the number of voters. Each page of the ballot was counted separately. Some voters didn’t turn in or fill out the second page. The same “extra votes” meaning ballots occurred in heavy Republican districts/counties as well. Just a sometimes malicious confusing of votes vs. ballots put out on a Facebook page/Faux News/Drudge report.
Here is the debunking of most claims from 2012 election.