Voter Fraud: debunking a manufactured crisis

As the presidential campaign of 2012 heads toward the finish line, Journalist Jane Mayer, of the New Yorker, took a closer look at the issue of voter fraud. Mayer, like other independent journalists, did not find evidence of widespread voter fraud. What Mayer did find was “intensely partisan election lawyers and political operatives, who have spent years stoking fear about election fraud. This cohort—which Roll Call has called the “voter fraud brain trust”—has filed lawsuits, released studies, testified before Congress, and written op-ed columns and books. Since 2011, the effort has spurred legislative initiatives in thirty-seven states to require photo identification to vote.” Read Mayer’s full article in The New Yorker.

Paul Weyrich, Heritage Foundation founder, declaring, "I don't want everybody to vote"

YouTube video

 

Mayer also found and interviewed Hans Anatol von Spakovsky, a son of immigrants himself  - born in Alabama. An attorney, von Spakovsky was a recess appointment to Federal Election Commission (FEC) by former president George. W. Bush, he is a supporter voter ID laws, advises conservative activists groups like “True the Vote” and even wrote a book on the subject, “Who's Counting?” with John Fund. Before being appointed to the FEC von Spakovsky served in the Bush Justice Department where he focused on voter fraud. Democrats in Congress accused von Spakovsky of politicizing his nominally non-partisan office to an unprecedented degree. Source. 

Voter ID advocate Hans Anatol von Spakovsky/Google Images

Republican efforts to suppress the vote, however, date back further than today's Republican Party.  In the 1980’s GOP/conservative operative Paul Weyrich (Deceased) flatly declared, before a meeting of evangelical leaders, "I don't want everybody to vote. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." Weyrich went on to create several conservative think tanks including the American Legislative Exchange Council, which drafted so called “model legislation” on voter ID and is also the founder of the Heritage Foundation, where von Spakovsky is listed as a Senior Legal Fellow.

Supporters of voter ID laws (almost all of whom are Republicans) claim that there is no racial component to the laws they support.  But voter ID opponents, civil and voting rights advocates see it differently, Former President Bill Clinton put it this way, “This is not rocket science…  the “effort to limit the franchise” was the most determined “since we got rid of the poll tax and all the other Jim Crow burdens on voting.”

Vote by Mail America noted, in our August 23, 2012 post, Re-Segregation, “In 1964 U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina joined the GOP. Since that time there has been an unmistakable trajectory of the Republican Party away from the values and principles of President Lincoln as the party morphed into and came to embody the views and politics of the hateful, racist, segregationist Thurmond... Considering the new demographics of America, that America is no longer a majority caucasian nation and with bi-racial populations ever increasing, it is at once peculiar and confounding that the Republican Party would revert backwards and embrace the failed hateful, divisive politics of Strom Thurmond.”

Vote fraud is virtually non-existent

In August of this year the award winning journalists team of News21 issued the findings of their investigation concerning claims of voter fraud. The Minnesota Post reported the findings this way, “In an exhaustive public records search, News21 reporters sent thousands of requests to elections officers in all 50 states, asking for every case of fraudulent activity, including registration fraud, absentee ballot fraud, vote buying, false election counts, campaign fraud, casting an ineligible vote, voting twice, voter impersonation fraud and intimidation. Analysis of the resulting comprehensive News21 election fraud database turned up 10 cases of voter impersonation. With 146 million registered voters in the United States during that time, those 10 cases represent one out of about every 15 million prospective voters... The analysis shows 491 cases of absentee ballot fraud and 400 cases of registration fraud. A required photo ID at the polls would not have prevented these cases." When the paper asked a nonpartisan elections expert, Public Policy Professor David Schultz of Hamline University's School of Business in St. Paul, about voter fraud Schultz said, "Voter fraud at the polls is an insignificant aspect of American elections." Schultz continued, “There is absolutely no evidence that [voter impersonation fraud] has affected the outcome of any election in the United States, at least any recent election in the United States.”
Where News21 took a purely analytical approach, Jane Mayer’s investigation (also finding little evidence of voter fraud)  put names and faces to the long time “alarmist” voter fraud partisans and operatives in the Republican Party.

Jane Mayer was awarded the 2008 John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism for her investigative report leading to her book The Dark Side.  Mayer is also the recipient of the Ridenhour Book Prize  and the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism.

by Brent Scott/ Exe. Dir/Vote by Mail America

Michelle Obama votes by mail. Obama leads in early voting. OR/WA begin voting by mail

With exactly three weeks to go before the November 6 election the candidates for President of the United States are pulling out all the stops. First Lady Michelle Obama Twitted: “I couldn't wait for Election Day!” as she voted absentee. Mrs. Obama even included a photo of herself holding the absentee envelope that contained her completed ballot. According to his campaign, the President will cast an in person early vote in Chicago on October 25th. Both the President and Mrs. Obama’s choice in method of voting are a signal to supporters to get out and vote. In both instances Team Obama garnered what political consultants refer to as “earned” (read free) media attention by voting absentee in the case of the First Lady and setting up a photo op for the President when he votes later this month.

 Twitter via Michelle Obama

Early voting favors President Obama and Democrats by 28 percent

A major national news organization, Reuters, is reporting that President “Obama leads Romney by 59 percent to 31 percent among early voters.” In 2008 then Senator Barack Obama banked so many early votes in Colorado, Florida, Iowa and North Carolina that he won each state even though his challenger, Arizona GOP Senator John McCain, won more votes at the polls on the Election Day. Nationwide, more than a million people have already cast their vote in the 2012 election.

Voting by Mail begins in OR and WA

Voters in Oregon and Washington will begin receiving ballots in the mail this week. In 1998 the state of Oregon, by means of a citizen’s initiative called Ballot Measure 60, became the first state to choose to conduct its elections entirely by mail in ballots. Last year Washington State Gov. Christine Gregoire signed a bill into law making the Evergreen State only the 2^nd in the US to conduct all elections by mail. Voting by mail saves states and municipalities millions of dollars and provides voters with enough time to carefully study ballot measures. A 2012 study by the Independent Budget Office/IBO of New York found that the city could “… net annual savings of about $5 million after factoring in additional postage costs. The savings would be attained largely from reduced personnel needs.”

Gov. Chris Gregoire at signing ceremony for SB 5124, making Washington entirely by mail. The Bellingham Herald

Democrats catch up to GOPs in the Sunshine state.

In battleground Florida, where Republican Governor Rick Scott has strenuously tried to smother turnout among minority voters, Democrats have cut into absentee voting which is traditionally favored by GOP voters. Bloomberg News reports that “Out of about 275,000 absentee ballots returned to election offices through Oct. 13, 44 percent are from registered Republicans while Democrats account for 40 percent.” In the same report a Romney/Ryan supporter observed, “Those are numbers the party needs to be concerned with and focus on ramping up,” said Kimberly Mitchell, a West Palm Beach commissioner and co-chairwoman for the Romney campaign in Palm Beach County. “When you see your opposition working to compete in an area you’ve always been strong in, you need to focus on it.” Perhaps Democrats are turning to absentee voting in a tactical response to GOP voter suppression efforts. For most of 2011 and 2012 Florida Republicans have made every effort to first limit voter registration and later to purge voter rolls months before the election.

Coming up: Presidential debate analysis. our report on ballot measures across the country and our review of hotly contested House and Senate races.

By Brent Scott/Exe. Dir. of Vote by Mail America

Under judicial review, voter ID laws crumble

“A citizen has a constitutionally protected right to participate in elections on an equal basis with other citizens in the jurisdiction.” In Ohio, that right to participate equally has been abridged…” So was the opinion of federal court Judge Peter Economus who suspended the Ohio Revised Code ‘ 3509.03 and the Ohio Secretary of State’s further interpretation of that statute with regard to in-person early voting.

In July, President Obama’s reelection campaign filed a lawsuit claiming that a recently enacted Ohio law eliminating early voting in the three days before an election, except for members of the military, violates the Constitution’s guarantee that all voters enjoy equal access to the franchise. The campaign’s lawsuit called for the right of all voters to cast an early ballot be restored.

In his ruling Judge Economus noted that “In 2005, Ohio expanded participation in absentee balloting and in-person early voting to include all registered Ohio voters. Now, “in-person early voting” has been redefined by the Ohio legislature to limit Plaintiffs’ access to the polls… Following Supreme Court precedent, this Court concludes that Plaintiffs have stated a constitutional claim that is likely to succeed on the merits. As a result—and as explained below—this Court grants Plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction. Source

 

 

In another instance of a voter ID law collapsing under legal challenge,  a Federal court struck down the Texas voter ID statute that was signed into law in 2011 by Republican Gov. Rick Perry. Calling it “discriminatory,” on August 30^th, a three-judge panel unanimously agreed with the argument made by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder - that Texas failed to show the law will not have "the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race." The judges said the new law would require tens of thousands of registered Texas voters who are poor and do not drive cars to travel to a state motor vehicle office to obtain the required state photo ID card. And one-third of Texas counties do not have a Department of Public Safety (DPS) office, they noted. “Even the most committed citizen, we think, would agree that a 200- to 250-mile round trip — especially for would-be voters having no driver’s license — constitutes a substantial burden on the right to vote,” said Judge David Tatel in unanimous opinion. The ruling is the first during the Obama administration by a federal court holding that a strict voter identification law violates the Voting Rights Act. Source

Thus far, state and federal courts have struck down voter ID and other laws and policies that were passed or imposed by GOP controlled state legislatures, governors and Secretaries of State in Florida, Wisconsin, Texas, Iowa and Ohio. Maine state voters overturned a GOP sponsored law that ended election day voter registration. The Justice Department blocked South Carolina’s voter ID law. The GOP dominated Michigan state legislature passed a restrictive voter ID bill but, the bill was vetoed by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder. Only in the state of Pennsylvania has a court upheld a voter ID law. The Pennsylvania law is currently being reviewed on appeal by that state’s Supreme Court. Since the lower court ruling upholding the law it has been revealed that many senior citizens who are inductees of the Pennsylvania Voter Hall of Fame do not have the proper ID in order to vote in the Nov. 6 Presidential election  CNBC’s “Mad Money” host, Jim Cramer, tweeted that his elderly father would not be able to vote under the new law. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation quickly sent the elder Cramer a free voter ID. But for the rest of the nearly one million Keystone State voters who have been made ineligible to vote, Washington Post reporter Ann Gerhart chronicled the laborious struggle of what one Philadelphia resident (a 54 year old African American woman who has been a registered voter in Pennsylvania since she was 19 years old) endured in order acquire the newly required photo ID. Watch Ann Gerhart on “Hardball” with Chris Matthews.

by Brent Scott, Executive Director of Vote by Mail America

ReSegregation

It has taken forty-eight years for the Republican Party of Lincoln to contort itself into the Segregationist Party of Strom Thurmond. In 1964 U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina joined the GOP. Since that time there has been an unmistakable trajectory of the Republican Party away from the values and principles of President Lincoln as the party morphed into and came to embody the views and politics of the hateful, racist, segregationist Thurmond.

“Metamorphosis”  a complete change of form, structure, or substance, as transformation by magic or witchcraft

 

Segregationist Strom Thurmond



Florida GOP Gov. Rick Scott

Lest we forget, Thurmond, ever the race war activist, drafted the Southern Manifesto in 1956 in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which desegregated public schools. In the “Manifesto” Thurmond called on all supporters of racial segregation to work to “bring about a reversal of this decision…” Thurmond was also a supporter of the Southern strategy which refers in part to Richard Nixon’s and the Republican Party’s 1968 plan for winning elections in southern states by exploiting racism against Black Americans. Were he alive today Strom Thurmond and the 99 co-signers of the “Manifesto” would be proud of the Republican Party 2012. The GOP has completed their nearly half a century long transfiguration from supporters of Civil and Voting Rights to that of ReSegregationist. From Wisconsin to Florida Republican state legislators and governors have set about on a course to deny the fundamental right of voting to African Americans by way of Voter ID (read Voter Suppression) laws. _{See: An Absence of Honor}    

As we noted in July, voter ID laws place a financial burden (a poll tax) on low income voters, minorities, senior citizens and college students - groups that typically vote Democratic. The Toledo Blade described it this way, “During the last century, when black voter suppression was enforced with poll taxes and literacy tests, black churches rallied their members to protest such blatant injustice... Although poll taxes have been eliminated, voter suppression has taken a more insidious form… If Americans have learned anything over the years, it is that efforts to discourage people from voting never stop. They become more creative and cynical.”

 

Ohio GOP Secretary of State Jon Husted

 

Former KKK Klansman David Duke

Republican Party’s war on Christians
The Republican Party’s efforts to disenfranchise African Americans of the right to vote is so saturated in the divisive, racial politics of Strom Thurmond that Ohio’s chief election official, Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted, is waging a war on Christian voters. For years churches in African American communities have brought entire congregations to register to vote and more recently, to vote early on the Sunday before election day. Last week Mr. Husted unilaterally decided to restrict early voting to weekdays only. The move has been universally called out for the blatantly hostile act that it is, an effort to suppress turnout among African American Christian voters.  

Segregationist Bull Connor

Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Mike Turzai



In 1994, when the GOP won both Houses of Congress for the first time in forty years, the new majority immediately began a campaign to “defund the left.” The defunding took the form of withholding federal funds from PBS and NPR and other ridicules antics. None of it worked.  PBS and NPR are as strong today as they ever were. But, Strom Thurmond’s GOP hasn't given up on defunding, or dividing America. On the campaign trail this year Republican presidential candidate Willard Romney said that he wanted to ‘get rid’ of planned parenthood. With voter suppression laws, euphemistically called “voter ID laws” Strom Thurmond’s Republican Party has graduated from trying to defund programs that they don’t like to disenfranchising, 'getting rid,' of African American voters.

The New America

When their party won big in the 2010 mid-term elections, the GOP began in earnest its descent from being the Party of Lincoln. Considering the new demographics of America, that America is no longer a majority caucasian nation and with bi-racial populations ever increasing, it is at once peculiar and confounding that the Republican Party would revert backwards and embrace the failed hateful, divisive politics of Strom Thurmond. Peculiar and confounding though it may be that is exactly what Republicans have done with their ever strident attempts to suppress the votes of African Americans. They (Republicans) have picked up the mantle and legacy of Strom Thurmond and the segregationist. They have completely destroyed their once proud brand. Neither American demographics nor right is on the side of the Republican Party and their updated for the 21^st century voter suppression tactics. It is important to remember that during the civil and voting rights battles of the 1950s and 60s the segregationist lost.

For more see:

Ed Show on NBCNews.com

The Rachel Maddow Show on NBCNews.com

The Rachel Maddow Show on NBCNews.com

by Brent Scott,
Executive Director of Vote by Mail America

Another voter suppression law heads to court

The campaign of President Barack Obama has filed a lawsuit to block a voter suppression law in the state of Ohio. The suit asks a federal court to overturn a new voter suppression law that was passed on a party line vote by the GOP controlled legislature and was signed by Ohio's Republican Governor, John Kasich. Specifically, the new law would shorten early voting in this battleground state, cutting the last three days before election day. Under the new law only active duty military service members would be allowed to vote early in the last three days before November 6^th presidential election. In 2008, 93,000 Ohioans voted early in the last three days leading up to the presidential election.

Obama campaign manager, Jim Axelrod, Calls Out FoxNews 

“The last three days of Early Vote are especially important to ensuring a free and fair election,” Obama’s Ohio campaign said in a statement to ABC News. “We are moving forward in the fight to reinstate the last 3 days of Early Voting and ensure that all Ohio voters can make their voices heard this November.” _Source

In a discussion of voter suppression laws across the nation, Michael Waldman, President of the Brennan Center for Justice, referred to Ohio as “Florida without the palm trees” on the Rachel Maddow Show on NBCNews.com.

The Obama/Biden campaign posted this statement on their campaign website: “In addition to reducing Ohioans’ access to the polls, the legislature created inequality between military voters who can cast early ballots in person through the day before the election and all other voters who only have until 6 p.m. on the Friday before the election to vote in-person absentee.” _Source

The Obama campaign was joined in the lawsuit by the Democratic National Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party.

by Brent Scott
Exe. Dir. of Vote by Mail America

The Smoking Gun Evidence of Voter Suppression

The legal battle over Pennsylvania’s new voter ID law began this week with attorneys for the state admitting in court filings that, “There have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania.”  In plain terms then Pennsylvania's new voter ID law is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

The Pennsylvania ACLU, the Advancement Project ET AL sued the state to block implementation of the new law. The voting rights groups argue that the law will disenfranchise as many as one million Pennsylvania voters in this year’s presidential election. Those most impacted by the law will be the low income, minorities, senior citizens and college students, opponents of the law claim. Pennsylvania ACLU and Advancement Project Attorneys are asserting that the new voter ID law violates the Pennsylvania Constitution which reads in part: “Elections shall be free and equal.” The voting rights organizations contends that if some voters cannot afford to purchase the kinds of identification that the law stipulates then their right to vote will be infringed upon.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett's Rick Perry moment. Youtube Video

In their pre-trial filings to the legal challenge attorneys defending the law also advised that they “are not aware of any instances of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania” and informed the court that they, “will not offer evidence of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania or elsewhere.” At a press conference on Wednesday, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett suffered a Rick Perry moment when, in response to a reporter’s question, he could not name all of the forms of acceptable identification the voter ID bill that he signed into law mandates.

Why the zeal for voter ID laws when proponents can’t provide evidence that fraud is talking place? Perhaps the real motivations behind the voter ID push can be found in a piece of video tape. In the video a PA legislator, Republican Mike Tauzai, tells an audience that the state’s new voter ID law “will help Mitt Romney win the White House,” click here for video.  Attorney Judith Browne-Dianis of the Advancement Project referred to the video as, “The smoking gun evidence of voter suppression.”
Voter ID bills that were introduced and signed into law since 2010 are transparent in their design to disenfranchise certain voters for the partisan advantage of one political party, the GOP.

Presenting valid identification at the polling place before voting seems, on the surface, plain enough. But consider this, nearly every incarnation of voter ID bills that have been introduced since 2010 mid-term elections have several communalities:
1. Since 2010 voter ID bills have been introduced by Republican state legislators - almost exclusively and when passed, signed into law by GOP governors - exclusively. 
2. Voter ID laws place a financial burden (a poll tax) on low income voters, minorities, senior citizens and college students - groups that typically vote Democratic and are expected to vote overwhelmingly for the reelection of President Obama and for Democratic candidates running for office this November. 3. Voter ID bills/laws introduced in 2010 do not grandfather in, IE exempt, senior citizens who have issues of mobility and therefore do not have a current driver license or passport. Many also may not have a birth certificate.  4. The new laws take effect immediately instead of two-four years later. This unnecessary immediacy denies election officials enough time to prepare and deprives voters of enough time to acquire the necessary identification as stipulated. 5. In every instance proponents claim that the laws are necessary to protect the integrity of the voting process and yet, the proponents of voter ID laws are unable to present a scintilla of evidence that voter fraud is taking place.  


by Brent Scott

Executive Director of Vote by Mail America

Rigging the Game in the Keystone State

As if any further proof was necessary, a Republican lawmaker from Pennsylvania has openly admitted that the GOP sponsored voter ID law was designed for partisan advantage. On June 25^th the Majority Leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Rep. Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny), told an audience that Pennsylvania’s  new voter ID law “is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.” The comment earned this response from Steve Benen of the Maddow Blog, “the state lawmaker's candor was a reminder that Pennsylvania's voter-ID law isn't about the integrity of the process; it's about ensuring Republican victories by rigging the game.

Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny), Youtube video

The Philadelphia Inquirer is reporting that “More than 758,000 registered voters in Pennsylvania do not have photo identification cards from the state Transportation Department, putting their voting rights at risk in the November election, according to data released Tuesday by state election officials.

The report continues, “The new numbers, based on a comparison of voter registration rolls with PennDot ID databases, shows the potential problem is much bigger, particularly in Philadelphia, where 186,830 registered voters - 18 percent of the city's total registration - do not have PennDot ID."

Let there be no confusion, the GOP is trying to “fix” the 2012 presidential election.  This is no time for those who fight on the side of the angles to sit one out.  Both the Obama Justice Department and voting and civil rights organizations have ample grounds on which to challenge the Pennsylvania voter ID law (read voter suppression) in court.

by Brent Scott