The right and the left agree on a few things about current trends in voting laws: democracy is being threatened by a desire to win elections and wield power.
But at panels a mile apart this weekend, the two sides presented very different views of the state of election practices. The right sees widespread electoral fraud that needs to be stopped with tougher laws to prevent stolen elections, and the left sees this as a massive effort at voter suppression to steal elections.
“These laws are the new Jim Crow laws of our times,” said Maryland U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin on a panel about “The War on Voting” at Netroots Nation, a large conference of progressive activists. “This is really an effort to control the outcome of elections” and not protect “the integrity of our electoral system.”
Vote fraud: real or myth
A mile away at a conference on journalism sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund tried to counter “this myth that voter fraud does not exist.”
If an election “is perceived as close, someone will try to steal it,” Fund said.
“Vote fraud is real and vote fraud swings elections,” said Quinn Hillyer of the Center for Individual Freedom. “This isn’t a racial thing. This is an anyway-we-can-win thing.”
Between the two competing panel discussions stood the Rhode Island statehouse, where the legislature passed a voter ID law last year, the only state controlled by Democrats to pass such a law. Hispanic and African American legislators voted for the bill.
38 states introduce election controls
War on Voting moderator Ari Berman of the Nation said 38 states have recently introduced legislation “to impede voting.” (This list would include Maryland where Republican lawmakers have repeatedly sponsored bills to require voters to present positive identification, but none of the bills have made it out of committee.)
The restrictive laws cited by progressives include not just voter ID but laws that make it harder to register by requiring birth certificates, proof of citizenship, or banning election-day registration — a practice not permitted in Maryland.
Fund has made electoral fraud a preoccupation since his 2004 book “Stealing Elections.” He cited numerous examples of alleged fraud, including the 2008 Minnesota Senate election won by Al Franken by 317 votes after repeated recounts. Fund says over 1200 convicted felons may have voted in that election, and 197 have since been convicted of voter fraud.
But Eric Marshall of 1-866-OURVOTE said, “The lack of proof [of voter fraud] is just incredible.”
Racial element
Rep. Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat, said, the push for voter ID and other restrictions are pushback over the election of Barack Obama.
“This is about power – we got some, and they want to take it back,” Ellison said. “This is not about fraud.”
The progressive panel saw the move to voter ID in racial terms. Berman said 10% of voters don’t have identification, including 25% of African American voters.
CORRECTION: Keesha Gaskins of the Brennan Center for Justice said voter suppression laws passed in seven of the 10 states with the highest African-American turnout.
But Fund, who describes voter fraud as largely an urban problem, said “racist” is “their swear word.”
With this year’s presidential election seen as close, both sides of the issues say they will be on guard, the right looking for more voter fraud, the left for attempted voter suppression using voter fraud they say is rare to justify new restrictions.
Cardin said the new efforts at voter suppression “call into question our free and fair elections. It’s a stain on our democracy.”
By Len Lazarick
[email protected]
Jack Offett says
Go figure, Mr. Cardin has no problem calling out concern for the new Jim Crow laws (ie – voter ID), but has never lifted a finger to overturn the U.S. marijuana laws, which is truly the last vestige of our racist Jim Crow past.
Michael Hildebrand says
This is a typical issue that us being used to distract the American voters from the real issues that face this nation. What is the reason for not requiring it in the first place? Is this an issue that is better for the country or is it an issue that is better for the party not in favor for the legislation? Lets look at it from a reality stand point. We all need proper identification to do everything in this country, whether it is driving, banking, getting permission to get into certain hospital areas, traveling, getting a job, etc. So with this in mind, does needing the proper identification to do these things hinder people from doing just about everything in their day to day lives? I think not. The responsibility of voting and keeping the integrity of the voting process is one of the most important things about this country! So I think this issue is more about the benefits to the democratic party than it is about being a “new Jim Crow law of our time”. Anyone that is will to put their party before this country is a disgrace, not only to the country, but to themselves. I sure do hope we as a country can find some REAL leadership that is willing to tackle the REAL problems this country faces because at this rate, we are doomed!
M.J. Harris says
Is the “He Said/She Said” story the kind of journalism we deserve? This story faithfully repeats the conflicting, sometimes incendiary, unsubstantiated claims of both sides of the issue, but it doesn’t investigate whether one side or the other is right. Or is there a partial truth within each side of the argument? I’m left wondering if I’m supposed to choose a side, form an opinion, or cast a vote based on the most pithy partisan sound bite.
This shouldn’t be a difficult issue to investigate – at least on a local level, so don’t we deserve to know if one side of this argument has truth on its side, or if the one side is just pulling the wool over everybody’s eyes?
A good place to start might be to look up exactly how many times voter fraud has actually happened – in this county, or state-wide, or even nationally.
One side in the combat says “it happens all the time”, and the other side says “it almost never happens”. This is not a matter of opinion. It’s an empirical question, and it has answers that we can all understand if someone just looks up the facts.
And it can’t be that hard to dig a little deeper and come up with the number of challenges, the estimated alleged fraudulent votes, the number of prosecutions, and the number of convictions. For instance, how about going to the county Board of Elections and finding out how many alleged fraudulent voters were challenged at the polling place in the last 5 elections? At each polling place poll watchers of both parties are present, plus a team of trained elections officials (all of whom live in the precinct, and presumably know each voter by name or sight). The voter’s name is called out, and can be challenged by any one of a number of people, including other voters present at the time. Neighbors tend to know who has died, who is too young to vote, who has moved away, and who is incompetent in the nursing home. Each voter also has to sign into a log book and, in many states, produce some form of identification that links him to the name on the voting list which has already been verified to be the name of a legally eligible voter. So, after all this, how many totally unchallenged voters are later found to be imposters? Or, are there lots of challenges that are not taken seriously with the result that numbers of potentially fraudulent voters get to cast a ballot? Do the personnel at the Board of Elections work diligently to cull out the names of the deceased, those who have moved away, and those who have voted by Absentee Ballot?
If one side of the argument is right, lots and lots of voters are imposters, or were never eligible in the first place, and it stands to reason quite few of them would have been challenged at the polling place. The jails should be full of them. If the other side is right, there would be almost no accusations, and fewer arrests or convictions.
We would be much better served by a report of what actually has happened on previous election days, than we are by listening to competing partisan claims that don’t come with any evidence.
I expect news reporting to tell me if there are other kinds of voter fraud besides posing as a registered voter. Could there possibly be a Conspiracy to bring illegal voters to the polls to affect the outcome of elections? If so who is the Conspirator, where does he recruit illegal voters, how does he pay them, and how does he control what they actually do when they pull the curtain in the voting booth? If responsible reporting cannot find a smoking gun that leads toward a Conspiracy, then readers deserve to know that the Conspiracy Theory might be a crackpot manipulation. If it does exist, we should demand law enforcement to find the perpetrators and put them in jail.
Are votes perhaps stolen or changed after the polls close? We know there are procedures to guard against this, but how many of us know what the procedures are, and who carries them out? If there are allegations of vote tampering, are news reporters investigating them, or are we simply to listen to the paid “think tanks” with their competing claims that there is widespread fraud – or relatively no fraud at all?
If fraud is found to be a serious problem at any level of the election process: registration, election day voting safeguards, or vote counting, then it obviously should be stopped. But the method chosen to stop it surely must fit the type of fraud that is exposed. It doesn’t do much good to demand photo ID from someone who became properly registered through an error at the Board of Elections. Likewise, it is objectionable to make people produce passports to prove eligibility to vote, if it turns out that the voting machine has been hacked.
When states try to crack down on rampant voting fraud, and when competing think tanks start spewing propaganda, isn’t it the responsibility of the press to look at the election process from voter registration to election day safe-guards, to find out if rampant voting fraud really does exist? Isn’t it the duty of the press to put isolated crime in perspective? Shouldn’t they spend much more time and ink investigating allegations of corruption than they spend repeating partisan opinions? And if they find that there really is no problem, is the press not bound to expose partisan manipulation for what it is?
rds1955 says
Michael Hildebrand puts it very simply and and clear. You need an ID in this Country to do just about anything else. What is the issue with providing proof of both your residency and identity. You need it to get a Drivers License, go to College, Get in the Military, Buy or rent a home, get Medicine, etc etc…So, if this is the Case, Why is there so much intense and strong opposition to something as simple as showing an identification for a process and function which will occur once every couple of years. That question in and of it’s own self should provide the answer. No need to wade through a lot of intellectual hypothesis, or become confused with the smoke and mirrors..Tthat’s why it’s called a “CON” gress instead of a “PRO”gress…
editor says
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gerry maynes says
Gee, Boo HOO ! How mean can you get! Voters having to present a picture ID or aq Votersw Registration Card in order to vote. WEhats tyhe big deal? Illegals have come up from Mexico in the past to vote in California!s congretional elections and did Half the dead voted in Chicargo for Johyn Kennedy , thus Nixdon lost and Kennedy went on to meeet his destiny. So, with all do apoilogies to the folks screaming Jim Crow it is not and they should know better.
Steve Payne says
Here’s one of the most comprehensive studies done so far:
https://brennan.3cdn.net/e20e4210db075b482b_wcm6ib0hl.pdf
Here’s some more fun voter fraud facts:
https://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/06/news/la-pn-maryland-verdict-20111206
https://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/02/06/146473653/indianas-top-election-official-convicted-of-voter-fraud
https://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-02-24/news/bs-ed-voter-id-20120224_1_voter-id-laws-id-requirement-widespread-electoral-fraud
Gwen Mississauga says
In Canada you must be a Canadian citizen to vote. We require photo ID with your current address to vote. If you don’t have photo ID, then you have to provide two documents, i.e. bills to you at your current address, leases, etc, to prove who you are. This becomes a problem for people whose spouses pay all the bills. In that case, a voter living in your polling station can vouch for you. It’s a bit confusing to some voters, but it works.