The Truth About Fraud http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/ en-us Copyright 2008 Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:01 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Photo ID Much of the hue and cry about voter fraud is accompanied by calls for restrictive ID requirements, like laws requiring voters to show particular photo ID documents at the polls. Some of this may be a sincere, if mistaken, belief in the need for restrictive ID measures. But this clip from a May 17, 2007, Houston Chronicle article suggests another rationale:
Among Republicans it is an 'article of religious faith that voter fraud is causing us to lose elections,' [Royal] Masset[, former political director of the Republican Party of Texas,] said. He doesn't agree with that, but does believe that requiring photo IDs could cause enough of a dropoff in legitimate Democratic voting to add 3 percent to the Republican vote.

We have analyzed more than 250 claims of fraud submitted by those supporting the respondents in the Supreme Court's photo ID case, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board. We find absolutely no proven cases of fraudulent votes that could be prevented by the restrictive ID law being challenged.


Other case studies collected here by issue and by state also analyze the limited degree to which restrictive ID requirements could possibly remedy the fraud alleged in each instance.

We also collect commentary discussing the purported link between voter fraud and calls for restrictive ID requirements.

]]> http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/case_studies_by_issue/photo_id.html http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/case_studies_by_issue/photo_id.html Case Studies by Issue Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:01 -0500 Bradley Schlozman Resources on Bradley J. Schlozman, Associate Counsel to the Director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, relating to voter fraud and alleged attempts to combat voter fraud.

News Articles:

Editorials and Op-Eds:

Writings and Testimony of Bradley Schlozman:

DOJ Materials Involving Bradley Schlozman:

]]> http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/bradley_schlozman.html http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/bradley_schlozman.html Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:00:00 -0500 Hans von Spakovsky Resources on FEC nominee Hans von Spakovsky relating to voter fraud and alleged attempts to combat voter fraud.

Letters in Opposition to Confirmation of FEC Nominee Hans von Spakovsky:

News Articles:

Editorials and Op-Eds:

Writings and Testimony of Hans von Spakovsky:

DOJ Materials Involving Hans von Spakovsky:

]]> http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/hans_von_spakovsky.html http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/hans_von_spakovsky.html Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:00:00 -0500 BC Timeline







Brennan Center on Voter Fraud



 

The Brennan Center on
Voter Fraud and Restrictive Voter Identification

 

 

2002                Counseling and commentary on voter ID requirements in the Help America Vote Act

2004                Suits in Michigan and Ohio concerning provisional ballots and identification requirements

2004-05           Advocacy preventing onerous ID requirements: New York, Michigan, New Mexico and others

 

Notable Events
 

 

 


                           Brennan Center Action

Line Callout 2 (Accent Bar): Report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform (“Carter-Baker Commission”)

 


Sept. 19, 2005       Issued extensive rebuttal to the myth of voter fraud and the alleged need for strict ID requirements, in response to Carter-Baker Commission report (w/ Commissioner Spencer Overton)

Line Callout 2 (Accent Bar): Senate Concurrent Resolution opposing photo ID introduced by Sen. Obama et al.  


Nov. 2005            Placed series of voter fraud and ID op-eds in local newspapers around the country

Line Callout 2 (Accent Bar): Federal court strikes down restrictive Georgia ID law 


Dec. 8, 2005         Offered remarks to the National Conference of State Legislatures on the rate of fraud and harm of restrictive ID laws

 

Dec. 14, 2005       Published in-depth analysis of voter fraud claims submitted to the NJ Attorney General (w/Prof. Michael McDonald)

 

Jan. 14, 2006         Submitted amicus brief in Common Cause/Georgia v. Cox  (11th Cir.), showing the low rate of fraud and harm of restrictive ID laws

Line Callout 2 (Accent Bar): Georgia passes new ID law                           

Feb. 3, 2006         Offered remarks to the National Association of Secretaries of State about the rate of fraud and harm of restrictive ID laws

 

Feb. 2006             Helped secure veto of Pennsylvania bill requiring onerous photo identification requirements

 

Mar. 8, 2006         Provided quantitative analysis of likely impact of restrictive Missouri identification bill

                                   

May 2006             Helped defeat Ohio bill with onerous identification requirement

Line Callout 2 (Accent Bar): Missouri passes new ID law

 


Line Callout 2 (Accent Bar): Federal and state courts both enjoin second Georgia ID lawJune 23, 2006        Submitted amicus brief in Crawford v. Marion County Election Bd.  (7th Cir.), showing the low rate of fraud and harm of restrictive ID laws

 

Aug. 29, 2006       Filed federal complaint in Boustani v. Blackwell, challenging Ohio’s discriminatory proof of citizenship requirements

 

Sept. 2006            Issued policy briefs: “The Truth About Voter Fraud,” “Voter ID,”
“Proof of Citizenship,” and “Alternatives to Voter ID”

 

Sept. 13, 2006       Hosted presentation on vote suppression for national press:
Cast Out: New Voter Suppression Strategies, 2006 and Beyond

 

Line Callout 2 (Accent Bar): House of Representatives passes ID/proof-of-citizenship bill, which later dies in SenateSept. 14, 2006       Submitted amicus brief in ACLU of New Mexico v. Santillanes  (D.N.M.), showing the low rate of fraud and harm of ID laws

 

Line Callout 2 (Accent Bar): Fed. court finds Ohio proof-of-citizenship law unconstitutional Sept. 15, 2006       Published op-ed on fraud solicited by CQ Researcher: Voting Controversies

 

Line Callout 2 (Accent Bar): State court strikes down Missouri ID lawOct. 11, 2006        Filed Freedom of Information Act request to see federal studies by U.S. Election Assistance Commission on fraud and voter ID

                          

Line Callout 2 (Accent Bar): Supreme Court credits argument that voters “feel” disenfranchised by voter fraud Oct. 30, 2006        Placed op-ed in N.Y. Times: “Remember to Vote, Hope it Counts”

                                                Published with graphic image of barriers to the vote

 

Oct. 31, 2006        Issued Investigator’s Guide to Voter Fraud for reporters and others analyzing claims of fraud

Line Callout 2 (Accent Bar): 2006 midterm election: only Indiana has photo ID requirement in effect                                                

Nov. 8, 2006        Filed Freedom of Information Act appeal to see federal studies by U.S. Election Assistance Commission on fraud and voter ID

 

Nov. 20, 2006      Conducted national survey on citizens without photo identification or proof of citizenship

Line Callout 2 (Accent Bar): U.S. Attorneys fired, in part due to failure to find voter fraud

 


Nov. 29, 2006      Submitted amicus brief in Gonzalez v. Arizona (9th Cir.), showing the low rate of voter fraud and harm of restrictive ID laws

Line Callout 2 (Accent Bar): Federal court upholds Indiana ID law                           

Line Callout 2 (Accent Bar): Federal court strikes down Albuquerque ID lawMar. 26, 2007       Offered Congressional testimony concerning REAL ID, including a quantitative analysis of its impact on voting

 

Mar. 29, 2007       Placed op-ed in Washington Post: “The Myth of Voter Fraud”

Line Callout 2 (Accent Bar): Election Assistance Comm’n finally releases study on ID

 


Mar. 29, 2007       Launched www.truthaboutfraud.org to distinguish fact from myth in analysis of voter fraud

 

Line Callout 2 (Accent Bar): Front-page New York Times stories on EAC reports and DOJ search for voter fraudApr. 4, 2007         Helped defeat restrictive Kansas law with onerous voter ID and proof of citizenship requirements  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

]]> http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/bc_timeline.html http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/bc_timeline.html Mon, 14 May 2007 16:24:10 -0500 Election Assistance Commission The following resources concern the research conducted by the Election Assistance Commission on allegations of voter fraud:

]]> http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/case_studies_by_issue/election_assistance_commission.html http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/case_studies_by_issue/election_assistance_commission.html Case Studies by Issue Wed, 11 Apr 2007 09:41:16 -0500 U.S. Attorneys The following resources concern the connection between the U.S. Attorney purge and allegations of voter fraud:



And many more resources below... ]]> http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/case_studies_by_issue/us_attorneys.html http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/case_studies_by_issue/us_attorneys.html Case Studies by Issue Thu, 29 Mar 2007 12:31:03 -0500 Alleged double-voting There are a handful of known cases in which pollbook entries and absentee or provisional ballots stubs indicate that one individual has actually voted twice. These cases are extremely rare, in part because the penalty (criminal prosecution) is so severe, and the payoff (one incremental vote) is so minimal.

It is far more common, however, to see allegations of epidemic double-voting that are unfounded. Such claims are usually premised on matching lists of voters from one place to another, but upon closer inspection, the match process shows error. Sometimes the interpretation is flawed: two list entries under the same name -- even the same name and birthdate -- indicate different individuals. Sometimes the lists themselves are flawed: because of the occasional clerical error by overworked and undertrained election workers, an individual is marked as voting when she did not in fact cast a ballot. Sometimes it's both.

]]> http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/case_studies_by_issue/alleged_doublevoting.html http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/case_studies_by_issue/alleged_doublevoting.html Case Studies by Issue Wed, 28 Mar 2007 14:00:00 -0500 2007 This is a partial list of recent news stories regarding allegations of voter fraud.

]]> http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/news/2007.html http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/news/2007.html News Tue, 27 Mar 2007 13:25:42 -0500 Alleged voting by the dead There are a handful of known cases in which votes have been cast in the names of individuals who have died before the vote was submitted.

It is far more common, however, to see allegations of epidemic voting from beyond the grave, with a chuckle and a reference to Gov. Huey Long’s quip ("When I die, I want to be buried in Louisiana, so I can stay active in politics.") or Rep. Charlie Rangel’s update (same idea, but takes place in Chicago).

Here, too, flawed matches of lists from one place (death records) to another (voter rolls) are often responsible for misinformation. Sometimes the interpretation is flawed: two list entries under the same name -- even the same name and birthdate -- indicate different individuals. Sometimes the lists themselves are flawed: because of the occasional clerical error by overworked and undertrained election workers, an individual is marked as voting when she did not in fact cast a ballot. Sometimes it's both.

Or, sometimes the match is accurate but reveals nothing illegal about the vote: the voter has died, yes, but after casting her ballot.

]]> http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/case_studies_by_issue/alleged_voting_by_the_dead.html http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/case_studies_by_issue/alleged_voting_by_the_dead.html Case Studies by Issue Tue, 27 Mar 2007 13:00:00 -0500 Raising the Dead Voter Hoax TomPaine.com | Tuesday, October 31, 2006
By Justin Levitt

Once again, it’s late October, the time of year when wholesome communities across America enjoy some good-natured fictional fearmongering. Ghostly apparitions are everywhere, and everyone’s chuckling. Of course, this is also election season—and for the press, the connection is often irresistible. The dearly departed … are alive and voting. Boo!

Dead-voter pieces appear as reliably as slasher-movie sequels, and are about as straightforward to write. Registration rolls are mined for entries of the recently and not-so-recently deceased. A list of ostensible voters and a list of ostensible corpses are run through a computer program that spits out potential matches. Many thousands of entries are flagged. And voila: The horde of allegedly undead voters makes the front page.

These undead voters, however, don’t do well in daylight. Problems with matching from list to list often account for much of the alleged fraud. For example, statistics tell us that two individuals share the same name, even the same birthdate, with surprising frequency, so that two people—one dead, one very much alive—may be confused for each other.

There are additional problems with the underlying lists themselves. The Social Security Administration’s “Death Master File”—the most common source for seeking fraud—is notoriously inaccurate when used in this manner, listing as deceased hundreds of thousands of citizens who are in the best of health. And pollworkers make mistakes, checking a box one entry down or one entry up from the correct line, so that the wrong individual appears to have voted.

These problems can usually be overcome, but only with substantial effort. Sophisticated computer algorithms may be able to match list to list more reliably, but are usually proprietary and often expensive. Phone calls to speak with the families of flagged voters are both awkward and time-consuming. And even if the actual poll records have not been discarded, going to the original source to check for recordkeeping errors is a bureaucratic pain in the neck.

As a result, reliable reporting on dead-voter stories is frighteningly rare.

A story this past Sunday from upstate New York provides an intriguing example of the best—and worst—of the coverage. The usual lists were matched. The usual caveats were proffered. But then the intrepid reporter went beyond the superficial. He acknowledged—twice!—that most instances of dead voters “can be attributed to database mismatches and clerical errors.” He presented an actual citizen who was listed as dead but was in fact breathing soundly. He found an absentee ballot that had incorrectly been attributed to a deceased family member of the actual voter.

And yet, the unwarranted headline: “Dead voters continue to cast ballots in New York.”

Boo!

When the deceased show up in unfounded reports of election fraud, it’s not just good holiday entertainment. Indeed, a recent status report on an investigation of voter fraud under the auspices of the bipartisan federal Election Assistance Commission noted the large number of unsupported fraud claims in recent stories, and cited allegations that the unfounded charges were “an effort to scare people away from the voting process.”

For the moment, the Commission has—ahem—buried the full results of the investigation itself, which should catalog both the allegations and the inaccuracies, if not the motivation behind the stories. But whether or not the false charges are actually intended to frighten, the repeated cries of “wolf” lead Americans to lose trust in a part of the election process that actually works fairly well, and distracts them from fixing the parts of the process that need substantial overhaul.

This, in turn, leads to policies that truly deserve scary headlines.

For example, consider the recent voter-ID legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and justified in substantial part by dead-voter stories. Never mind that federal law already puts the burden on states to clean deceased registrants from new statewide voter registration lists, carefully and with safeguards for legitimate voters. This new bill would instead confront the illusory dead-voter problem by placing a new burden on the electorate: all citizens would be required to show government-issued documentary identification with a photo and proof of citizenship before voting.

It is appropriate that the bill was first sponsored by Representative Hyde—a name with substantial Halloween resonance—because it would have some truly ghoulish effects. At the moment, only a passport or a driver’s license from one of three states would satisfy Hyde’s standards. Any voter without the magic documents—even those citizens legitimately voting for years or decades—would suddenly find the doors of the polling place mysteriously shut.

The usual claim is that laws like these are justified, despite their profoundly disenfranchising effect, to ward off the forces of fraud. Dead voters, in particular, provide powerful anecdotal evidence that these sorts of rules are necessary. Which is why it is so dangerous to repeat dead-voter anecdotes that later prove untrue. Even if—especially if—it’s only in a headline.

We would all be better served by a little more restraint. Yes, as states continue to clean new registration rolls, there will still be a dwindling number of deceased registrants who remain on the list. But on Election Day, they generally rest in peace.

This Halloween, there are more than enough scary stories of verified wrongs to fill the newspaper pages. Let’s leave the undead voter hordes to the fiction section, where they belong.

]]> http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/documents/raising_the_dead_voter_hoax.html http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/documents/raising_the_dead_voter_hoax.html Documents Mon, 26 Mar 2007 14:45:34 -0500 Has the Fraud Bogeyman Claimed Another Victim? Thursday, March 15, 2007
By Justin Levitt

Seven United States Attorneys have been ousted, and the push is on to figure out exactly how far the paper trail leads, and whether political payback was at its core. It appears that the Senate has become particularly eager to unearth the reasons behind the dismissal of Carol Lam, who successfully prosecuted former San Diego Congressman “Duke” Cunningham. The plotline in California is certainly compelling. But it should not overshadow the brouhaha farther up the coast.

The Washington gubernatorial election of 2004 ended with a photo-finish: just 129 votes out of almost 3 million cast. Cue the advocates, who quickly cried foul, and the lawyers, who subjected the election to the closest scrutiny the Northwest had ever seen. But when all was said and done, the court reviewing the case carefully distinguished the actual evidence from the frenzied rhetoric. Said the judge: “No testimony has been placed before the Court to suggest fraud or intentional misconduct.”

John McKay was the former United States Attorney for western Washington State, and one of the seven federal prosecutors recently relieved of his position. In 2004, he too reviewed the widespread allegations of criminal misconduct, and found nothing worth prosecuting.

And now there is speculation that failing to fall in line in the witch hunt for individual voter fraud may have cost him his job.

There has been a relentless political press of late to sell an epidemic of a particular form of fraud: individuals heading to the polls to intentionally cast an illegal vote. The campaign is useful for proponents of policies like proof of citizenship or other restrictive ID requirements, which disproportionately affect senior citizens, minorities, and poor Americans without the necessary documents. In the context of new Medicaid rules requiring similar documentation, the early returns are already in: “[t]he largest adverse effect of this policy has been on people who are American citizens.”

It’s difficult to import these restrictions to the election context if you can’t convince the public that fraudulent voters are running amok.

Prosecutors, however, cannot rely on scare tactics to make a case. They must investigate and find evidence of wrongdoing. And prosecutors are now discovering that when you dig a little deeper, allegations of intentional individual fraud at the polls often evaporate.

Dead voters: check. A ballyhooed New York list of the ostensibly deceased electorate, for example, actually showed bad information and clerical errors, not fraud. Where further research was conducted, not one alleged case of voting from beyond the grave panned out.

Noncitizen voting: check. In Seattle, unsupported allegations of noncitizen voting prompted one local resident to challenge the voting credentials of thousands of residents on the basis of “foreign-sounding names.” Question how many citizens you know who would have made that cut.

Double voting: check, check. A columnist in Washington State recently summarized the usual state of affairs: “2,107,370 voters later, only 1 under suspicion.” Turns out –- and statistics confirms –- that two ballots with the same name and birthday aren’t always cast by the same person.

It makes sense that most of these allegations don’t pan out. For any individual voter, casting that one incremental extra vote isn’t worth it. And so individual voter fraud is proven to happen less often than getting struck by lightning.

That’s not to say that lightning never strikes. And prosecution certainly has its place in the mix: when criminally fraudulent acts happen, they should be prosecuted. But overzealous and politically pressured proceedings are not an acceptable alternative. In 2004, an eligible 22-year-old Milwaukee voter named Cynthia Alicea was questioned, booked, and put through a trial based on hasty allegations of double-voting. Though she was acquitted, she told the press that based on the ordeal, she was “inclined not to vote ever again.” It doesn’t sound like running our citizens through the ringer in the name of a hypothetical epidemic is a great strategy for cultivating democracy.

Congress should ask more questions about whether McKay was fired because he declined to chase imaginary bogeymen. Political pressure to prosecute widespread voter fraud where it doesn’t exist would be a loss not only for the law enforcement community, but also for the voters they serve.

]]> http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/documents/has_the_fraud_bogeyman_claimed.html http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/documents/has_the_fraud_bogeyman_claimed.html Documents Mon, 26 Mar 2007 13:59:27 -0500 Allegations of Voter Fraud This is a partial list of commentaries and editorials regarding allegations of voter fraud.

]]> http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/commentary/allegations_of_voter_fraud.html http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/commentary/allegations_of_voter_fraud.html Commentary Mon, 26 Mar 2007 13:56:06 -0500 This is a partial list of litigation documents regarding allegations of voter fraud.

]]> http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/litigation/post.html http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/litigation/post.html Litigation Mon, 26 Mar 2007 13:54:12 -0500 Alleged voting from improper addresses There are a handful of known cases in which votes have been cast from improper addresses.

It is far more common, however, to see claimed epidemics of voting from allegedly flawed addresses that later turn out to be legitimate. These claims are often based on postcards that are returned undelivered or undeliverable – but the postcards are an unreliable indicator. Typos during the registration process may cause mail to be misdirected. Or individuals may receive mail at an address different from the legal residence they list as their registration address.

Other unsupported claims are based on attempts to screen registration addresses against lists of vacant lots, or against zoning regulations to find locations dedicated to non-residential use. Here, too, typos may cause legitimate addresses to be flagged as suspicious. Sometimes the underlying lists are flawed: supposedly vacant lots actuall