In person voter fraud simply doesn’t happen. People do not show up at the polls pretending to be someone who they are not. It’s not hard to see why. For most people interested in voting, they are registered and can cast their own vote. Who wants to risk scrutiny by returning to the same polling place to cast a second vote under a different identity?
Well, maybe you might want to go to a different polling station and cast a second vote there. But now you risk running into someone who knows the person you are impersonating. After all, you don’t live in that precinct. You might even run into the voter you’re impersonating.
In order to pull off in person voter fraud, you have to know that the person you plan to impersonate hasn’t already voted, isn’t known personally by the election officials, and you probably want to make sure they aren’t planning to vote either, because that could arouse an investigation if the records show that someone has already voted under their name. The most likely situation where voter fraud would be plausible is when someone decides to vote for a family member who has recently died. But even that is complicated by the aforementioned considerations about voting twice in the same district or running into someone who knows that your relative is deceased.
There are criminal penalties for voter fraud, and that makes it nonsensical to commit the crime when so few elections are decided by one vote. Voter fraud would only make sense if it were carried out in a very widespread way so that dozens or hundreds of votes were cast. Anyone considering such a widespread conspiracy would either attempt old-school ballot stuffing or try to penetrate the electronic vote-counting machines. In person voter fraud would be a very flawed, inefficient, complicated, and high-risk way to change the outcome of an election, and the people who attempted it would have to expect some very serious benefits in return.
These are the reasons why no one tries to commit in person voter fraud.
I thought we all knew this already. Facts and truth don’t matter in the GOP war on voters, it’s a matter of how powerful your propaganda is. We’ve long been aware of the realities of voter- vs election fraud, but we’re getting stomped in the messaging department.
Heading out shortly to try to register voters here in NM. It’s a straight-forward easy process. Everyone should get involved in doing it. Registering people to vote feels very patriotic. And if I were in one of those crazy states that’s trying to make it harder to vote, I’d be spending my time seeing that people had what was necessary. Better activity that reading blogs (or making comments). 🙂
For what it’s worth, the case that conservatives cite to bolster their case for voter ID is the 1996 race in San Diego where Republican Bob Dornan, the incumbent, lost to Loretta Sanchez, who switched parties to just before filing to run as a Democrat. The race was close and allegedly up to a few thousand Hispanic immigrants who had not yet become citizens voted illegally in the election, turning it to Sanchez’s favor, according to some pieces that ran in the LA times during the years following the election. Sanchez was provisionally seated but later the House determined that the number of irregularities couldn’t have made a difference and declared her the winner.
But this is the example of individual voter fraud that voter ID supporters cite when pressed to come up with something.
shouldn’t those people, if they existed, never have been registered to vote in the first place?
Bingo! There is much more sloppy record keeping if not actual fraud in the registrar’s offices.
Still, not every voter can be checked without mammoth cost.
In Illinois, voters need:
“Two forms of identification with at least one showing your current residence address is needed when you register in-person. If you register by mail sufficient proof of identity is required by submission of your driver’s license number or State identification card number. If you don’t have either of those, verification by the last 4 digits of the your social security number, a copy of a current and valid photo identification, or a copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, paycheck, government check, or other government document that shows your name and address will be required. A person may also demonstrate sufficient proof of identity by submission of a photo identification issued by a college or university accompanied by either a copy of the applicant’s contract or lease for a residence or any postmarked mail delivered to the applicant at his or her current residence address.” A birth certificate is NOT required. Requirements are here: http://www.elections.il.gov/downloads/electioninformation/pdf/registervote.pdf
If you are naturalized, the date, court name, and county/state are required, but you need not have the papers with you. I hope someone is spot checking these applications by statistical samples. If the rate of error is low enough, it doesn’t make any difference. NO process is error free. Zero Defects is a misnomer. Zero Defects just means they haven’t occured yet or haven’t happened yet.
So, most likely registration fraud if any fraud occurred, not in person voter fraud.
I wish IL had same day registration, I think we’d have a lot more participation and might even be able to clean up some of the mess this state is in right now.
um… yah. everybody knows.
guess it’s funner to pretend that there’s something that needs discussion about it, than to just say racism.
(shrug)
“In person voter fraud would be a very flawed, inefficient, complicated, and high-risk way to change the outcome of an election”
Exactly. Why try to cobble together a conspiracy requiring hundreds or thousands when you can just do it in bulk the Waukesha County way?
Dave, will we have to argue over whether Waukesha learned from Cook County IL or they discovered the methods independently?
http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/69489/doonesburys-race-card/ “Most rational people believe that showing a legal ID before you can vote, in this day and age, just makes sense. You have to show ID for just about everything, except perhaps to be elected POTUS.”
opit * an hour ago
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I received my Canadian S.I.N. number – federal I.D. – in 1963. Vets had always been against federal registration at all, remembering how lists of people and identifying files had run the ‘work camps’ in Germany under Hitler. They were issued under the proviso that they were not general purpose I.D. available to corporations to use as a tracking mechanism.
How times have changed.
The Liberal – Conservative meme is nonsense under the chameleon neocons who routinely challenge sanity. BradBlog has tracked voter fraud and manipulation for years. You cannot have other than corporate demockracy when computers registering votes are subject to undetectable alteration and laws are written to pervert the one person one vote rule. How many votes does a corporate person get ?
The problem isn’t just the lie-berals. Systematic false witness, lobbyists from Hell,ALEC legislation, domestic spying and routine psyops have led to the situation being very reminiscent of the situation that led to slayings at Kent State.
And the militarization of police continues apace. How’s that domestic COIN working out for you ?
Are you off your meds?
OT: In Interview, Romney Brings Arab Spring into Presidential Race:
Can’t wait for Andrew Sullivan to get a hold of that one…
Actually there are a few examples of voter fraud consisting of people voting at polls where they do not actually live. Romney voted in Massachusetts while living in New Hampshire and that Coulter woman voted in Florida, apparently, just because she was there on an election day.
When regular people vote in the wrong precinct, it is a provincial vote counted only after careful scrutiny. There are down ballot races, levies and referendums that non-residents could affect. But folks like Coulter & Romney think they know enough to vote anywhere, I suppose.
Amazing. You’ve descovered perfect law enforcement.