# Voter fraud: Republicans supress report they don't want to hear **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 12, 2006, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232 "2006-10-12T19:19:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2006, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232/1 "2006-10-12T19:19:47Z")
[http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20061011/1a\_lede11.art.htm](http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20061011/1a_lede11.art.htm) To sum up: the U.S. Election Assistance Commission was formed to study voter fraud. What they found was that most fraud was plausibly conducted via absentee ballots, not in person voting, despite the huge Republican push to try and make it harder to vote in person based on claimed fraud. It’s of course no coincidence that Democratic voters are generally harmed by restrictions on in person voting, while Republicans are generally harmed by restrictions on absentee ballots. Republicans who supressed the report lamely complained that the report wasn’t valid because they have examples of dead people being registered… but of course, there are lots of reasons other than fraud for that to happen that do not include fraud, and it doesn’t directly result in any fraudulent votes. As Kevin Drum puts it: > [@](#): > > That’s a tough decision, isn’t it? Do the right thing, or do the thing that hurts Democratic turnout? Hmmm. What do you think happened in this case? Would it help if I told you that this report was written four months ago and that the Republican chairman of the EAC immediately decided not to release it? ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2006, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232/2 "2006-10-12T19:44:23Z")
Why are Republicans generally harmed by restrictions on absentee ballots? I’m not saying you’re wrong, I just wondered why. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2006, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232/3 "2006-10-12T19:49:02Z")
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold] Why are Republicans generally harmed by restrictions on absentee ballots? I’m not saying you’re wrong, I just wondered why. [/QUOTE] A huge number of absentee ballots are from the military, and the military vote is presumed to favor the GoP. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2006, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232/4 "2006-10-12T20:04:31Z")
Might quibble a bit with that word “presumed”. Been pretty well established, don’t you think? But this is marginal stuff. It is tougher to vote in an inner city environment, takes longer, more hassle. Which, necessarily, favors the affluent, suburban, Republican voter. Stinks. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2006, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232/5 "2006-10-12T20:32:25Z")
[QUOTE=Oakminster] A huge number of absentee ballots are from the military, and the military vote is presumed to favor the GoP. [/QUOTE] Is that still true? Absentee voting doesn’t mean what it used to mean-- ie, that you got a special excuse to vote by mail because you would be absent during the election. It’s really vote-by-mail that is the important, no? And lots of people vote-by-mail now. I have been doing so for years. For example, it’s being reported that 25% of Californians will vote by absentee ballot in the upcoming election. In OR, all voting is done by mail. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2006, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232/6 "2006-10-12T20:56:59Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] It is tougher to vote in an inner city environment, takes longer, more hassle. [/QUOTE] Really? For me it’s three blocks to the school. There’s almost never a line. It takes me about 15 minutes, all told. And that’s with about 6 minutes of walking, both ways. ---
**Author:** ![Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d07c76/32.png) [@Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Age_Quod_Agis)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2006, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232/7 "2006-10-12T21:06:17Z")
[QUOTE=Apos] Republicans who supressed the report lamely complained that the report wasn’t valid because they have examples of dead people being registered [/quote] Well, that’s not really what they said. They said that in person voter fraud actually is a problem, as evidenced by ineligible people turning up on the rolls in Michigan and Missouri. And there are plenty of other examples of voter fraud in this country, including the fact that [4,609 more votes were cast than registered voters in Milwaukee](http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=324933). > [@](#): > > … but of course, there are lots of reasons other than fraud for that to happen that do not include fraud, and it doesn’t directly result in any fraudulent votes. There are also alternative explanations for how absentee ballot voter fraud occurs, but I still think we should do something to prevent that. The mere fact that there are possible explanations doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything to prevent fraud. I’d much rather stamp out _all_ kinds of voter fraud, regardless of which party it helps or hurts. > [@](#): > > As Kevin Drum puts it: > > > [@](#): > > > > That’s a tough decision, isn’t it? Do the right thing, or do the thing that hurts Democratic turnout? Hmmm. Wait. According to Kevin Drum, “doing the right thing” involves _not_ suppressing voter fraud? “Hmmm,” indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2006, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232/8 "2006-10-12T22:13:10Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > A huge number of absentee ballots are from the military, and the military vote is presumed to favor the GoP. > [@John Mace](#): > > Is that still true? Yes, depending on what your definition of “huge” is. In the [2004 elections](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/29/politics/campaign/29military.html?ex=1254110400&en=bb18d7c4c5718420&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland), there were about 4.4 million eligible US voters overseas, about 0.5 million of which are military/DoD personnel and 0.1 million other governmental employees. The overseas military vote is apparently less solidly pro-Republican than it used to be, but still favors the GOP on the whole: > [@](#): > > There is little direct polling of soldiers, but Peter D. Feaver, a sociology professor at Duke University, says surveys have shown that while most officers are staunchly Republican, the rank and file newest to the military has been more closely divided between the parties. > > "Kerry will do better in this group than Gore did,‘’ Mr. Feaver said, “but he will not reverse the Bush advantage.” The trend among non-military overseas voters is inferred to be in the other direction, judging from the general trend among US voters who held passports: > [@](#): > > There is also little polling of the 3.9 million civilians abroad. But last month, a Zogby poll of Americans who had passports found that they supported John Kerry over Mr. Bush, 58 percent to 35 percent. However, absentee-ballot “turnout” among the military/government overseas voters tends to be [significantly higher](http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/05/03/both_parties_reaching_for_votes_from_abroad/?page=2) than among overseas civilians in general: > [@](#): > > According to estimates provided by the Foreign Voter Assistance Program, run by the Department of Defense to facilitate overseas voting, turnout among nongovernment American civilians abroad in the past four presidential elections has fluctuated between 31 percent and 38 percent of eligible voters. > > But military turnout has ranged from 64 percent to 69 percent; and turnout among government-employed civilians has ranged from 64 percent to 79 percent. The DoD’s Foreign Voter Assistance Program (FVAP) has made military turnout in recent years even higher, according to [this DoD report](http://www.dodig.mil/audit/reports/fy01/01145sum.htm): > [@](#): > > The 75 percent voting rate for military personnel in the November 2000 election showed the overall success of the program. The FVAP is supposed to assist both military/governmental personnel and private citizens in overseas voting, but it has been [alleged](http://vote2004.eriposte.com/overseas.htm) that its performance is somewhat uneven: > [@](#): > > Frustrated civilian advocates, however, say the FVAP remains biased and ineffective. Despite reforms, they attest, it still has not shaken its Pentagon roots: It spends the bulk of its energy getting out a heavily Republican vote among a half-million service people – but has failed the far greater numbers of civilians (an estimated 4 million, by most counts) who tend to vote a different way. So to sum up: overseas US military personnel are significantly fewer than overseas non-government-employed US civilians, but they are more than twice as likely to vote. How the military vote’s pro-Republican bias stacks up to the civilian vote’s pro-Democrat bias, I don’t know. It’s up to you to decide whether you think that meets the criteria for stating that “a huge number of absentee ballots” are pro-Republican military votes. (This information brought to you courtesy of the work I’m actually supposed to be doing right now, which I now have to go do. Bye all!) ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2006, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232/9 "2006-10-12T22:38:06Z")
[QUOTE=Age Quod Agis] Well, that’s not really what they said. They said that in person voter fraud actually is a problem, as evidenced by ineligible people turning up on the rolls in Michigan and Missouri. [/quote] Again: turning up on the rolls isn’t the same thing as turning up at the polls. > [@](#): > > And there are plenty of other examples of voter fraud in this country, including the fact that [4,609 more votes were cast than registered voters in Milwaukee](http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=324933). > [@](#): > > ]There are also alternative explanations for how absentee ballot voter fraud occurs, but I still think we should do something to prevent that. The mere fact that there are possible explanations doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything to prevent fraud. I’d much rather stamp out _all_ kinds of voter fraud, regardless of which party it helps or hurts.Wait. According to Kevin Drum, “doing the right thing” involves _not_ suppressing voter fraud? “Hmmm,” indeed. No, not according to him. According to him, Republicans are going after only the type of voter fraud that happens to also have the effect of supressing Democratic turnout… despite the fact that their own consultants found that fraud via absentee ballot is far easier and pervasive. In short, it’s as if there are two ways to rob a bank: one that’s easy and one that’s already fairly hard. The easier door is used more often, not surprisingly. Republicans are proposing to make the already harder, already less used door even harder… without doing the same for the easier door. It isn’t just the military part of the absentee vote that leans Republican: it does in many places just in general. ---
**Author:** ![Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d07c76/32.png) [@Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Age_Quod_Agis)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232/10 "2006-10-13T00:05:27Z")
[QUOTE=Apos] Again: turning up on the rolls isn’t the same thing as turning up at the polls. [/quote] Again, the mere fact that we can think up an innocent, alternative explanation doesn’t mean that voter fraud didn’t occur. And even if voter fraud didn’t occur in these cases, it doesn’t mean that we should not do something to make sure it doesn’t happen in the future. > [@](#): > > No, not according to him. According to him, Republicans are going after only the type of voter fraud that happens to also have the effect of supressing Democratic turnout… despite the fact that their own consultants found that fraud via absentee ballot is far easier and pervasive. In short, it’s as if there are two ways to rob a bank: one that’s easy and one that’s already fairly hard. The easier door is used more often, not surprisingly. Republicans are proposing to make the already harder, already less used door even harder… without doing the same for the easier door. Just because the door is used less frequently doesn’t mean that we we act like no one ever goes through it. For example, we should still lock that door at night. Regardless, the suggestion appears to be that Republicans aren’t trying to do anything about absentee voter fraud because they believe it will favor them. But as pointed out by **Kimstu** above, it’s far from clear that absentee ballots tend to favor Republicans. In addition, I see no evidence that _fraudulent_ absentee ballots tend to favor Republicans. Even if the legitimate absentee ballots tend to favor Republicans, the fraudulent ones won’t necessarily be proportional with the rest of the sample. So if voter fraud is going on in absentee/mail-in ballots, everyone should do something about that, too. Any suggestions? > [@](#): > > It isn’t just the military part of the absentee vote that leans Republican: it does in many places just in general. I think **Kimstu** ’s fantastic post above covers this issue very well. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232/11 "2006-10-13T00:11:32Z")
**Kimstu** : I wasn’t disputing the fact that the majority of the military voting absentee are Republican. I was noting that the number of absentee ballots from within the US is skyrocketing, and might be swamping that out. If half the people in CA vote, and 25% of them vote by mail, that’s ~5M right there. And CA votes largely Democratic in national elections. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232/12 "2006-10-13T02:42:59Z")
[QUOTE=Age Quod Agis] Well, that’s not really what they said. They said that in person voter fraud actually is a problem, as evidenced by ineligible people turning up on the rolls in Michigan and Missouri. And there are plenty of other examples of voter fraud in this country, including the fact that [4,609 more votes were cast than registered voters in Milwaukee](http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=324933) [/QUOTE] Well, that’s not really what they said. There were 4,609 more votes than they had **listed** , not more than had **registered** , the latter of which would have set off more alarms than Hillary being elected head of the National Rifle Association. There is nothing that I could see in that article that would cause me to believe that the difference was due to fraud, versus poor accounting. Basically, one method of counting says 277,000 voted, while the other method says that 281,609 voted, a difference of a little over 1%. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232/13 "2006-10-13T02:55:11Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] **Kimstu** : I wasn’t disputing the fact that the majority of the military voting absentee are Republican. I was noting that the number of absentee ballots from within the US is skyrocketing, and might be swamping that out. If half the people in CA vote, and 25% of them vote by mail, that’s ~5M right there. And CA votes largely Democratic in national elections. [/QUOTE] The Colorado mail-in/absentee vote is quite high as well. I’ve spent a fruitless half-hour at the Secretary of State’s website trying to find a cite, but I remember being astonished by seeing in the paper that ~20% of the voters in Colorado last election mailed it in. ---
**Author:** ![urban1a](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47c2d/32.png) [@urban1a](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/urban1a)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232/14 "2006-10-13T03:41:03Z")
Frank, there’s been a lot of reporting on voting machines here, as you know. For myself, I’m not satisfied that they are sufficiently error free or auditable and, for the first time, am going to use an absentee ballot. But, as was pointed out, correctly, above, using an absentee ballot is the easiest way to perform voter fraud, if you are interested in doing so. No picture ID is required to get the ballot or other proof of address. Bob ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232/15 "2006-10-13T04:55:03Z")
[QUOTE=Age Quod Agis] Again, the mere fact that we can think up an innocent, alternative explanation doesn’t mean that voter fraud didn’t occur. [/quote] But not only is the alternative explanation the most plausible… you don’t have any evidence of voter fraud. Did any of these fraudulent people actually vote? If they did, it would be VERY easy to know and to show it. Yet someone all the big talk peters out before we get to that easy test. > [@](#): > > And even if voter fraud didn’t occur in these cases, it doesn’t mean that we should not do something to make sure it doesn’t happen in the future. Well, yes. But most of the things that cause registrations to be on the books when they are not have nothing at all to do with what Republicans are proposing to make voting more complex. They are things like doing a better job of cleaning the books when people die. No one opposes that. > [@](#): > > Just because the door is used less frequently doesn’t mean that we we act like no one ever goes through it. For example, we should still lock that door at night. Sure. But again: it’s solutions to a problem that seems to be nowhere near as big of a problem as Republicans want to paint it as being, while meanwhile something else is a much bigger problem that they want to largely ignore. > [@](#): > > So if voter fraud is going on in absentee/mail-in ballots, everyone should do something about that, too. But that’s not what’s happening, no? Instead, the Republicans are burying results of their own studies on it. > [@](#): > > Any suggestions?I think **Kimstu** ’s fantastic post above covers this issue very well. ??? Kimstu only covers military and foriegn ballots regardless. But suppose absentee ballots don’t favor anyone in particular. Why is the fact that this form of voter fraud is far easier and even far more common something that seems to so deeply upset Republicans intent on painting voter id as the number one problem? Of course, all the examples I personally know of in modern times of dead people voting, absentee ballots were used, and it was Republicans who organized the scheme. For instance, Jerry Kilgore’s family political machine rigged a mayors race like this. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232/16 "2006-10-13T11:55:17Z")
Frankly, does it make any difference whether the absentee ballots actually favor Republicans. There are three issues I see here. The first is “we should tighten the more abused route to voter fraud before tightening the less abused route - or at least simulatenously.” The second is that the report was surpressed, possibly under the belief by the people who surpressed it that tightening absentee ballots would harm them. If that was their motivation, regardless of whether tightening absentee ballots would help them or not, thats kind of scary. The third is whether the ballots themselves favor Repubs or Dems - and that sort of really isn’t important. The important thing is we fix our voting issues. If that means that the party I don’t like wins, that’s part of democracy - but the tighter we make the elections, the more confident I feel in that democracy. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232/17 "2006-10-13T12:11:48Z")
I don’t see how absentee ballots are worse than voting in person. You request a ballot and it gets mailed to the address that you registered under. No registration=no ballot for you. Then they keep track of who they sent ballots to and if you vote absentee and then show up, they’re going to say “sorry, dude, only 1 vote per election”. Not to plug HBO, but I understand they have a show about voter fraud coming up on November 2. I don’t get it myself but if you do, you may want to take a look. Looks like the [Ohio vote](http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=12006) is going to be another mess this year. > [@](#): > > It took Cuyahoga County officials six days after the May 2 primary to come up with a tally of results. The Election Day chaos in Ohio’s most populated jurisdiction – and a heavily Democratic one – has been the subject of scathing official inquiries that found irregularities on such a grand scale they might make even Katherine Harris blush. Could this be a preview of November’s midterm elections? ---
**Author:** ![Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d07c76/32.png) [@Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Age_Quod_Agis)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232/18 "2006-10-13T22:20:17Z")
Ugh. I typed out a long response with cites and all, and lost to frenzied gerbils. Let me try this again. [QUOTE=DMC] Well, that’s not really what they said. There were 4,609 more votes than they had **listed** , not more than had **registered** , [/quote] I apologize. I believe you’re absolutely right. There were more votes counted than people who voted. So I might have been fine with “registered votes” or “voters,” but certainly not “registered voters.” I apologize for any confusion I’ve caused. But I still think it’s sufficiently shocking that there were 4,609 more votes in Milwaukee than people who voted. > [@DMC](#): > > There is nothing that I could see in that article that would cause me to believe that the difference was due to fraud, versus poor accounting. Basically, one method of counting says 277,000 voted, while the other method says that 281,609 voted, a difference of a little over 1%. I disagree. I had a huge post – complete with cites and figures – that’s now gone. But rather than spend another 45 minutes trying to come up with them all, I’ll just say that I disagree and try to explain why in short terms. First, it’s a huge error. Any firm charged with counting votes, that double counts more than one in every 100 votes, isn’t doing its job competently. When you consinder that they probably dropped some votes, too, that means that they would have needed to double count even more votes. Second, Kerry won the state by 11,000 votes. 4,609 votes isn’t insignificant next to that. Third, if you extrapolate the 1+% error rate over the entire state (about 3 million people voted), then the margin of error is almost three times larger than the margin of victory. Fourth, turnout in Wisconsin was over 75%, compared to the national average of 59-60%. So either people in Wisconsin were really motivated to vote (which is certainly possible, since it was a battleground state) or there were some extra votes slipped in there. I’m not saying this was certainly voter fraud. However, it was certainly big enough that we shouldn’t shrug it off as _de minimus_. ---
**Author:** ![Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d07c76/32.png) [@Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Age_Quod_Agis)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2006, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232/19 "2006-10-14T00:05:27Z")
[QUOTE=Apos] Of course, all the examples I personally know of in modern times of dead people voting, absentee ballots were used, and it was Republicans who organized the scheme. For instance, Jerry Kilgore’s family political machine rigged a mayors race like this. [/QUOTE] [spit take] Seriously? You didn’t hear about the [Al Gore supporter who offered homeless people cigarettes in exchange for votes](http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2000/12/10/loc_bronson_marlboros.html)? How about the [1993 Pennsylvania State Senate race between Democrat Mark Stinson and Republican Bruce Marks](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2519/is_n6_v17/ai_18535310)?: > [@](#): > > Marks received more Election Day votes (those cast in polling places on the day of the election) than his opponent - 19,691 to Stinson’s 19,127. Yet Stinson garnered an extraordinary proportion of the absentee ballots to turn the tide - 1,396 to Mark’s 371, yielding totals of 20,523 and 20,062, respectively. > … > While the board’s imprimatur ordinarily would have marked the conclusion of the election, in the case of the Second District it marked the beginning of a lengthy inquiry, by the end of which Stinson was indicted (though not convicted) and Judge Clarence Newcomer of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern Shore of Pennsylvania condemned the commissioners for permitting blatant violations of state election law and overturned the result of the special election. Stinson was eventually cleared of criminal charges of absentee ballot fraud, but in the civil proceedings, Newcomer found sufficient proof to implicate Stinson in a conspiracy to steal the election. Several Stinson staffers were less fortunate; their involvement in the fraud resulted in criminal prosecution and conviction. In that case, Democrats were _convicted_ of voter fraud. > [@](#): > > The vote fraud was documented beyond question. Despite Pennsylvania’s strict laws regarding application for, completion, and return of absentee ballots, the Stinson campaign and related organizations engaged in the systematic distribution and collection of absentee ballots, which circumvented the normal process. More remarkably, the Democratic members of the Board of Elections themselves were implicated in the conspiracy, despite the procedural safeguards they were legally required to observe to prevent fraud. The electoral process was corrupted not just by a campaign but by those charged with overseeing it. The cited article also discusses Democratic voter fraud by absentee ballot in Alabama, California, and Texas, all of which implicated Democrats (the article also notes voter fraud by Republicans). Here’s a Reader’s Digest article on [suspected voter fraud in Democrat Mary Landrieu’s victory over Republican Mark Jenkins for Louisiana governor](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-gop/796396/posts). (If you honestly believe that no Democrats have committed voter fraud, I strongly advise you to take a closer look into Louisiana elections, where voter fraud appears to be relatively common.): > [@](#): > > These are among the numerous allegations that constitute the core of Jenkins’s challenge to a very close election; Landrieu won by only 5788 votes out of more than 1.7 million cast. Even though Jenkins cried foul as soon as the election returns were in, his charges were not taken seriously at first. He was called “a sore loser” who need to “get on with his life.” > > Quietly, however, he and his volunteers began gathering evidence. In more than 8000 pages of affidavits and exhibits, they claimed to have identified 7454 phantom or illegal votes. > > No one has alleged that Landrieu herself participated in or knew about any illegal activities that may have benefited her candidacy. But a chorus of voices has pronounced the Louisiana vote suspect at best. Says Neal Hogan, an attorney who conducted an on-scene probe for the Virginia-based Voting Integrity Project, “Probable cause exists to believe that large-scale violations of federal and state election law have occurred. The most serious include the purchasing of votes, multiple voting and the casting of fraudulent votes.” (Note: This group is also studying the San Francisco stadium election.) > > Throughout Election Day last November, exit polls showed Jenkins and Landrieu in a dead heat. But at 9:45 p.m.–almost two hours after the polls had closed–Jenkins campaign finance director Mark Seifert discovered that some 70 of New Orleans’s 474 precincts had not yet reported their vote. > > “We’re dead,” he told campaign workers in Baton Rouge. “They’ve held precincts back and they’re voting them now. They’re stealing the election.” > > Indeed, outside New Orleans Jenkins won by 95,000 votes. Within city limits, however, he was buried by 100,000. In certain New Orleans precincts the computer voting-machine tapes bore incorrect dates; in those precincts Jenkins lost to Landrieu by a margin of nine to one. Here’s an extended excerpt from and article on Democratic voter fraud by absentee ballot written in 1996 by Rich Lowry (now editor of the National Review, and therefore a partisan source): > [@](#): > > – In California’s 36th Congressional District Republican Susan Brooks lost by 812 votes to Democrat Jane Harman, with absentees providing the margin of victory. Brooks workers compiled a detailed list of more than 2,000 apparently invalid votes. As Reader’s Digest put it, ‘‘findings indicated that of 5,292 absentee ballots from 20 Venice precincts that went overwhelmingly for Harman, 1,337 (26 per cent) had been cast by voters whose addresses on the rolls turned out to be abandoned homes, empty apartments, vacant lots.’’ Susan Brooks dropped her election appeal when it became clear it wouldn’t have been resolved until this year (she is running against Rep. Harman again). > > – In North Carolina’s 7th Congressional District in 1994, incumbent Democrat Charlie Rose beat Republican Robert C. Anderson by fewer than 4,000 votes. Anderson subsequently produced about a dozen affidavits alleging a variety of electoral misconduct, including voter intimidation and tampering with ballot boxes. The alleged fraud was concentrated in heavily Democratic Robeson County, which gave Rose his margin of victory. A House task force found ‘‘serious problems with the electoral process in Robeson County,’’ but ruled there were not enough irregularities to swing the result. > > – In July 1991, in the run-up to school-board elections in Fresno, Calif., the local chapter of the Black American Political Association of California launched its Voter Education Project. BAPAC’s president described it as ‘‘a highly selective process of both voter registration and absentee-ballot applications. With some $10,000 in cash, equipment, and materials, we are projecting a landslide in seven of the elections and comfortable wins in the others.’’ BAPAC workers went door to door registering voters and getting them to fill out applications for absentee ballots, which the workers illegally had sent directly to BAPAC offices. The ballots – roughly a thousand – were then taken to the voters, who would be pressured or duped into voting the right way. The California Supreme Court finally overturned these elections in 1993. > > – In 1994 in Laredo, Texas, Cynthia Zunigapuig, running for a Webb County judgeship, noticed during a recount that many of the mail-in ballots had votes for her erased. Texas has loose mail-in voting rules, permitting anyone age 65 or older to mail in his ballot without witnesses or a notary signature. In Laredo, it turned out, campaign workers had been visiting elderly people to get them to fill out an absentee application, then returning when the ballots arrived in the mail to ‘‘help’’ them fill them out. A judge granted Mrs. Zunigapuig a new election. ‘‘We have had a recurrence of voter fraud in Texas over the last seven or eight years,’’ says Austin attorney Buck Wood, who tried the Laredo case and attributes the rise to mail-in balloting. More recently, there’s also the [sons of Milwaukee Democrats who pled no contest to slashing the tires of Republican “Get Out the Vote” vans](http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110007864). And the DNC Manual suggesting that poll watchers [declare voter intimidation even when it doesn’t exist](http://www.drudgereport.com/dnc66.htm). For further reading, you might want to check out this [study by the American Center for Voting Rights detailing allegations of voter fraud in several states](http://www.ac4vr.com/reports/072005/default.html). The report details voter fraud allegations against both parties: > [@](#): > > Republicans have not been exempt from similar criticism in this area, as alleged voter intimidation and suppression activity by GOP operatives led the Republican National Committee to sign a consent decree repudiating such tactics in 1982. However, a careful review of the facts shows that in 2004, paid Democrat operatives were far more involved in voter intimidation and suppression efforts than their Republican counterparts. Examples include: > > – Paid Democrat operatives charged with slashing tires of 25 Republican get-out-the-vote vans in Milwaukee on the morning of Election Day. > > – Misleading telephone calls made by Democrat operatives targeting Republican voters in Ohio with the wrong date for the election and faulty polling place information. > > – Intimidating and deceiving mailings and telephone calls paid for by the DNC threatening Republican volunteers in Florida with legal action. > > – Union-coordinated intimidation and violence campaign targeting Republican campaign offices and volunteers resulting in a broken arm for a GOP volunteer in Florida. Or, you could do a Google search for ACORN, a liberal voter registration group that was apparently responsible for numerous improper tactics. To be clear, I’m not suggesting that only Democrats commit voter fraud, or even that Democrats commit more voter fraud than Republicans. But if you’re not aware of _any_ voter fraud by Democrats, then I think you’re not looking very hard. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2006, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-republicans-supress-report-they-dont-want-to-hear/376232/20 "2006-10-14T00:11:12Z")
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