Vote Fraud

Vote fraud disenfranchises Americans and poses a serious threat to both the integrity of and confidence in our electoral system. Opponents of measures to prevent vote fraud contend that its occurrence is either nonexistent or so rare as to be insignificant.

Vote fraud is insidious, committed quietly. And once it’s committed, it cannot be undone. Vote fraud contaminates the pool of votes, and if sufficiently extensive, will affect the outcome of an election. As elections determine who exercises political power, there is a motivation among some bad actors to cheat.

Vote fraud is rarely prosecuted for two main reasons. First, it is virtually impossible to identify the fraud before the damage is done as it is primarily committed through absentee and mail-in balloting; second, prosecuting the crime is expensive and is usually a low priority of prosecutors and local law enforcement more concerned with public safety. However, vote fraud is a crime that strikes at the center of our republic.

The principal weakness in our electoral system that fosters vote fraud is inaccurate voter registration rolls. The federal requirement that counties maintain clean, accurate voter rolls has been ignored over the years and actively resisted under the Obama Department of Justice.

Voter rolls should contain only the names of eligible residents of a jurisdiction, but in far too many counties, voter rolls bulge with the names of the dead, those who have moved away, non-citizens, fictional names and voters registered in more than one place.

A Pew Center on the States study in 2012 revealed that:

Approximately 24 million—one of every eight—voter registrations in the United States were no longer valid or were significantly inaccurate.
More than 1.8 million deceased individuals were listed as voters.
Approximately 2.75 million people had registrations in more than one state.

In nearly 200 counties around the nation, more people are registered to vote than the counties’ population of eligible citizens. Examples abound of non-citizens and convicted felons registered to vote. In Philadelphia, an ACRU lawsuit in 2016 revealed thousands of ineligible people on the voter rolls. A sampling of counties in Virginia also found hundreds of illegal registrations, according to a 2016 study by the Public Interest Legal Foundation.

In-person vote fraud, while far more rare than absentee voting, does happen, as shown by the video sting operations of Project Veritas, in which an impersonator at a polling place in the District of Columbia claimed to be then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. and easily obtained a ballot. In other Project Veritas videos political operatives openly discussed how to commit vote fraud in Wisconsin and other states.

The institutional Left has focused on preventing common-sense laws to require voters to prove they are who they claim they are, making the ridiculous and unprovable claim that photo ID laws discriminate against racial minorities and the poor. But, vote fraud is accommodated by other means such as extended voting periods and relaxed standards for acquiring absentee or mail-in ballots and not requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

Several reasonable actions should be adopted to guard against vote fraud:

enforce federal voter roll maintenance laws;
require photo ID to vote in person;
require voter ID and signature verification for absentee ballots;
limit early voting to no more than a week prior to an election;
require proof of U.S. citizenship;
encourage more states to participate in cooperative efforts to identify voters registered in more than one state.

Voting is a privilege of citizenship and only legal votes should be counted. The only way to stop vote fraud is to prevent it!

ACRU Commentary

How an Alabama Woman Used Voter Fraud to Get Her Boyfriend Elected

In Dothan, Ala., the verdict is in: it was election fraud. Last week, a jury convicted 66-year-old Olivia Reynolds on 24 felony counts of absentee ballot fraud in the contested 2013 election for the Dothan City Commission. Reynolds worked on the re-election campaign for District 2 incumbent Amos Newsome. During the tainted 2013 election, she forged and altered enough absentee ballots to guarantee victory for her boss and boyfriend. The verdict will only come as a shock to those who still insist that voter fraud simply doesn't exist in the U.S. In 2013, Newsome narrowly won reelection to his office, besting challenger Lamesa Danzey by a scant 14 votes. However, after Danzey identified at least 37 absentee ballots that she claimed were illegally cast, the Houston County Sheriff began investigating irregularities in the District 2 race. Danzey, it turned out, had won the in-person vote by a hundred votes, 343-243. But Newsome had carried a whopping 96% of the absentee vote, winning 119 of the 124 ballots cast by mail. That was enough to tip the scales in the incumbent's favor - and to raise the eyebrows of investigators given how much the margin of absentee ballots cast for Newsome differed from the margin of votes cast for him on Election Day. Interestingly, this was not the first time Newsome had lost the in-person vote but carried the absentee vote by wide margins. In 2011, he lost at the polls by 45 votes, yet won 131 absentee ballots - all but 9 cast that year. The Sheriff's investigation culminated in the arrest of Reynolds and three others. Three of the four have now been convicted in what appears to have been an organized conspiracy to deny the citizens of Dothan their right to free and fair elections. Investigators found that the defendants had fraudulently applied for and submitted absentee ballots for registered voters. During Reynolds' trial, it was revealed that she went even further. Witnesses testified that she ordered them to vote for Newsome. Four witnesses confirmed they had done so even though they intended to vote against him. In some cases, Reynolds illegally filled out part or all of voters' ballots for them. In the course of the trial, some voters discovered their ballots had evidently been cast for Newsome, even though they had never voted for him. Alabama law requires that absentee votes must be observed by two witnesses, to safeguard against fraud. But the case reveals how easy it is to circumvent that requirement - and just how insecure absentee ballots are. In fact, absentee ballot fraud is one of the most common forms of election fraud. Reynolds' attorney, Chris Capps, responded to the charges against his client with allegations of racism on the part of prosecutors and law enforcement. The city of Dothan, Capps said, was just out to get Newsome and undermine the ability of a minority district to vote absentee. Of course, Capps wanted jurors to overlook the fact that the primary victims of Reynolds' fraud were the minority residents of District 2 whom she effectively disenfranchised. Such false claims are sadly common in the debate over election fraud. Opponents characterize efforts to ensure the integrity of the electoral process, such as requiring photo ID for both in-person and absentee voting, as little more than an attempt to suppress minority votes. In reality, nothing of the kind is true. Often these claims, such as in this case, are merely an attempt to distract the public from the criminal activity of the defendants and to deter and scare prosecutors from proceeding. Analysis has revealed that minority turnout has actually increased in states with photo ID requirements. At trial, Assistant District Attorney Banks Smith reminded jurors and the public that voter fraud cases are not about political agendas or racially-motivated attacks. "This case is about the sanctity of the ballot." And jurors, it seems, paid attention. The evidence was so overwhelming it took less than an hour for the jury to return a guilty verdict. Reynolds is the third person convicted of absentee ballot fraud in connection with the Newsome campaign. Though Commissioner Newsome himself has not been directly fingered for criminal conduct, the legitimacy of his election has clearly been called into question.

A Court Smacks Down Obama’s Justice Department

By J. Christian Adams & Hans A. von Spakovsky -- August 31, 2015 The recently concluded federal trial over North Carolina's election rules proved one thing beyond a reasonable doubt: The Obama administration and its partisan, big-money, racial-interest-group allies will stop at nothing to win elections. And using the courts to change election rules is a key part of their strategy. That was clearly evident in the federal courtroom in Winston-Salem. The plaintiffs, including the Justice Department, challenged a number of election reforms implemented in 2013 that were designed to reduce the cost and complexity of running elections and make it harder to commit voter fraud. The administration pushed a novel legal argument. In its telling, if a change in election rules might statistically affect blacks more than whites, it constitutes illegal discrimination. For example, if 98 percent of whites have a voter ID but only 97.5 percent of blacks have one, then requiring voters to present ID violates federal law. Never mind the fact that getting an ID is free, easy, and open to everyone without regard to race. And never mind if a policy change is in line with the rules of many other states, or if it's explicitly sanctioned by federal law. The mere act of changing the law in the wrong direction is discriminatory. In other words, the Obama administration would turn the Voting Rights Act into a one-way ratchet to help Democrats. The court refused to go along. None of the reforms had an obvious racial angle. For example, North Carolina required voters to vote in the precinct where they actually live. This commonsense reform -- returning to the law the state had prior to 2003 -- prevents chaos on Election Day, from overcrowded polling places to precincts' running out of ballots because election officials can't predict how many voters will show up. Thirty-one states do not allow voting outside of your precinct. The Justice Department claims that North Carolina broke the law when it returned to this policy.

Another ACLU Attack on Election Reforms

By Robert Knight Although people in the nation's smallest state can obtain photo voter IDs with ease, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says that requiring an ID in order to vote is a hardship. The group's Rhode Island chapter has demanded an end to the photo voter ID law that a solidly Democratic legislature enacted in 2011. It's the latest attack by the ACLU and other leftist groups against state election reforms that are specifically designed to prevent vote fraud. Over the past few years, courts have struck down laws in Arkansas, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Texas, while upholding them in Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio and Wisconsin. In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana's photo voter ID law, which has been a model for other states. North Carolina's voter ID law, which also curbs early voting and ends out of precinct voting and same-day registration, went to trial in late July in a federal court.

List of Voter Fraud Cases Keeps Growing

The Heritage Foundation's list of nearly 300 documented cases of voter fraud in the United States continues to grow. Recent additions reveal that voter fraud is not just an individual or isolated crime; in some counties and communities, election fraud is almost a way of life. These additions again reinforce the need for measures such as voter ID laws and procedures designed to verify the accuracy of voter registration information are needed to prevent these crimes in the first place. Take East Chicago, Ind., for example, a town made infamous by the extensive voter fraud that occurred there in the 2003 Democratic mayoral primary election. The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation. We'll respect your inbox and keep you informed. The fraud was so pervasive that the Indiana Supreme Court overturned the results of the primary and ordered a new special election that resulted in a different winner. A local judge found "direct, competent, and convincing evidence" that supporters of the election's apparent victor, incumbent Mayor Robert Pastrick, orchestrated an elaborate scheme of absentee ballot fraud.

No Vote Fraud? Here Are Five Cases in 2015

By Hans von Spakovsky (ACRU Policy Board member) and Brandon Johnson Despite being only six months into 2015, there have already been a slew of sometimes bizarre stories about voter fraud across the country. They show just how far some people will go to cheat the system. Here are a few of the most outlandish stories: 1. Madison County, Ga. Mohammad Shafiq of Madison County, Georgia, was none too happy with Madison County sheriff candidate Clayton Lowe. So Shafiq started campaigning for the other candidate by submitting fraudulent voter registration cards supposedly for new voters, apparently intending to eventually vote under those registrations. When the fraud was detected, he coerced a couple to sign affidavits falsely saying they had registered themselves. He was charged with two counts of voter identification fraud, two counts of perjury, and three counts of tampering with evidence. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years probation and a fine of $6,750.

‘Politiqueras’ and Vote Fraud in the Rio Grande Valley

In the vote-rich Rio Grande Valley of Texas, home to hundreds of thousands of legal and illegal immigrants, the is fighting a legal battle to clean up dirty voter rolls. At the same time, a left-wing campaign called Battleground Texas, funded partially by billionaire George Soros, is attempting to "turn Texas blue" by inflating voter rolls before the 2016 election. The ACRU recently won a consent order in federal court to clean up voter rolls in one border county (Terrell) and is pursuing the same in another (Zavala). In both counties, the number of registered voters exceeds the number of legal, age-eligible residents. This week, a National Public Radio report showed why the ACRU has put so much time, money, and effort into ensuring ballot integrity in South Texas. NPR shined a light on an FBI investigation into vote fraud in the region, including the widespread use of "politiqueras," who gather mail-in ballots and pay people to vote. Here's an excerpt: According to the Justice Department, in 2013, more public officials were convicted for corruption in South Texas than in any other region of the country. One of the practices the task force is looking at is vote-stealing. They're called politiqueras -- a word unique to the border that means campaign worker. It's a time-honored tradition down in the land of grapefruit orchards and Border Patrol checkpoints. If a local candidate needs dependable votes, he or she goes to a politiquera. In recent years, losing candidates in local elections began to challenge vote harvesting by politiqueras in the Rio Grande Valley, and they shared their investigations with authorities. After the 2012 election cycle, the Justice Department and the Texas attorney general's office filed charges. The NPR report prompted Republican Party of Texas chairman Tom Mechler to state that Texas Democratic Party chairman Gilberto Hinojosa "needs to come clean with the people of Texas" about whether he "personally participated in the corrupt practice of using politiqueras to commit voter fraud," according to the Houston Chronicle. Mechler asked whether Mr. Hinojosa "knowingly oversaw institutional voter fraud or if he simply turned a blind eye to fraudulent practices that were routinely committed by Democrat candidates in South Texas."