Thursday, May 1, 2014

Short: Voting fraud results: 491 vs. 10

One of the tropes of loony right-wingers is that there's "massive voter fraud." Supposedly Obama won in 2012 by such fraud. Anyone who has done the slightest bit of independent research finds that the biggest area of voter fraud is with absentee ballots, not voter impersonation. This article puts a number on that: 491 cases of absentee ballot fraud versus 10 cases of voter impersonation.

I don't know where the idea came from that demanding certain ID gave Republicans an edge in close elections. There is certainly an elections/campaign industry that researches this sort of information-- for the benefit of paying clients, mind you. There are also partisan think tanks that come up with rationales that cover up the partisan reason for changing voting rules. So, the GOP finds that they win elections by requiring specific IDs, and they enact these requirements on the false pretense of MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD.

It's nice to have a good post to refute this claim.

Image: electionlawblog.org


Extra. A much better conservative rundown of the evidence. Outright lies are debunked, stronger evidence presented, and innuendo fills out the roster.

3 comments:

Dangerous said...

Living near Philadelphia, I think I can rebut the supposedly "better conservative rundown", wherein the author states that Obama received 100% of the vote in certain Philadelphia precincts.

Precincts in large cities are relatively small areas, perhaps just a few square blocks. I, too, check some of those results with what I know about those areas. Since nearly 100% of the populations in those particular precincts are African-American, it's not surprising that Obama would receive every vote cast there. While Romney may have received 5% of African American votes nationally you'd have to expect most of those votes for Romney came from precincts where the self-identified African-American voters are wealthier than in those district in Philadelphia. And even if some non-African-American voters live in those highlighted precincts in Philadelphia and Cleveland, most of them will trend toward any Democrat and they likely don't have racial animus to vote against Obama.

So I also went back and checked those precincts back in 2004. Bush got single-digit votes or a couple percent at most. So zero votes for Romney is not too hard to imagine. I suppose there are some precincts in Utah or Oklahoma where Obama earned very few votes.

Voter fraud is both an excuse and a pretext. It's an excuse vis-à-vis losing and a pretext to justify measure that they know will help them win. It's shameful and needs a firm rebuke in the courts and by the voters. Too bad that it's hard to have faith in either the majority of voters to fix this everywhere, or some courts to prefer results-oriented jurisprudence.

We'll have to wait to see if lower-court judges rulings in PA withstand further GOP challenges. They are relentless and shameless.

ModeratePoli said...

@dangerous, however, it does look skeevy that GOP monitors were run out of precincts, if that's true. It shouldn't happen because ballot box stuffing is possibility and it's awful and to be avoided.

So, do you know if GOP monitors were forced out?

Dangerous said...

"GOP monitors run out of precincts"?

I'd say that's a characterization without direct evidence. If someone was excluded by a judge of elections for violating the law or just reasonable decorum? Perhaps. I'd say that in these precincts, GOP monitors were probably there to either intimidate voters or make the process more difficult.

There's lots of yapping, but no proof of any "ballot stuffing". Doesn't happen.