VOTER FRAUD?

 

At some point, the American public needs to say “Enough!”    The Democratic Party has cheated on the voter registration rolls for years.   Now it has become blatant and possibly hurts the nation.

Ghost Voters in Swing States in the last election –

• Colorado: 159,373
• Florida: 100,782
• Iowa: 31,077
• Michigan: 225,235
• New Hampshire: 8,211
• North Carolina: 189,721
• Virginia: 89,979

Bottom of Form

2016 Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton won Colorado by 136,386 votes and New Hampshire by 2,736 — both fewer than the number of ghost voters who could have backed her and tipped the balance.   Did they do it?  Check the internet

BASIC FREEDOMS and TRUTHS

The right to vote in a free and fair election is the most basic civil right, one on which many other rights of the American people depend.[i]

Congress and the states should guarantee that every eligible individual is able to vote and that no one’s vote is stolen or diluted.

Voter fraud is real and hundreds of convictions have been made and documented over many years.

The American republic is dependent upon free and fair elections. When  selecting a city councilor or the president of the United States, every American must be able to trust the process and the result, or the democratic system itself breaks down.

Election integrity is essential and the security of the ballot box cannot be left to a simple honor system.  It must be trust but validate.   It is incumbent upon state governments to safeguard the electoral process, and ensure that every voter’s right to cast a ballot is PROTECTED.  HISTORICALLY, THEY HAVE DONE A POOR JOB OF THIS AS NOTED BELOW.

THE HISTORY OF VOTING IN THE UNITED STATES 

The problem of voter fraud is as old as the country itself. The U.S. Supreme Court noted when it upheld Indiana’s voter identification law, “flagrant examples” of voter fraud “have been documented throughout this Nation’s history by respected historians and journalists.”

Attempts to commandeer election results have been documented dating back to the 19th century, when New York City’s infamous Tammany Hall was synonymous with political corruption and election fraud. In one New York election 1844, 55,000 votes were recorded even though there were only 41,000 eligible voters. Decades later, these efforts have continued and determined fraudsters have become only more creative in their efforts to fix the outcome of elections.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF ELECTION FRAUD

There are many ways for criminals to steal votes and change the outcome of an election. Heritage Foundation lists the following:

• Impersonation fraud at the polls: Voting in the name of other legitimate voters and voters who have died, moved away, or lost their right to vote because they are felons, but remain registered.
• False registrations: either Voting under fraudulent voter registrations that use a phony name and a real or fake address or claim residence in a particular jurisdiction where the registered voter does not actually live and is not entitled to vote.
• Duplicate voting: Registering in multiple locations and voting in the same election in more than one jurisdiction or state.
• Fraudulent use of absentee ballots: Requesting absentee ballots and voting without the knowledge of the actual voter; or obtaining the absentee ballot from a voter and either filling it in directly and forging the voter’s signature or illegally telling the voter who to vote for.
• Buying votes: Paying voters to cast either an in-person or absentee ballot for a particular candidate.
• Illegal “assistance” at the polls: Forcing or intimidating voters—particularly the elderly, disabled, illiterate, and those for whom English is a second language—to vote for particular candidates while supposedly providing them with “assistance.”
• Ineligible voting: Illegal registration and voting by individuals who are not U.S. citizens, are convicted felons, or are otherwise not eligible to vote.
• Altering the vote count: Changing the actual vote count either in a precinct or at the central location where votes are counted.
• Ballot petition fraud: Forging the signatures of registered voters on the ballot petitions that must be filed with election officials in some states for a candidate or issue to be listed on the official ballot.

History shows that all of the above techniques have been used.  Nothing has changed just the players and the time.

Can illegal votes actually affect election outcomes?

The underlying assumption on all voter fraud it to get a candidate into office even if they did not legally deserve to be elected.  The Heritage foundation says –

“Liberal groups often claim that known instances of voter fraud are inconsequential when compared to the total number of ballots cast in American elections. However, as the National Commission on Federal Election Reform has stated, the problem “is not the magnitude of voter fraud. In close or disputed elections, and there are many, a small amount of fraud could make the margin of difference.” The U.S. Supreme Court has concurred with this assessment, noting that known instances of fraud “demonstrate that not only is the risk of voter fraud real but that it could affect the outcome of a close election.”[ii]

Indeed, recent elections bear this out. In 2015, a city council election in the New Jersey town of Perth Amboy was decided by a mere 10 votes. A judge overturned the election and ordered a new one after it was revealed that at least 13 illegal absentee ballots had been cast. The 2003 mayoral primary in East Chicago, Indiana, was overturned by the state Supreme Court after evidence of widespread fraud was revealed. The new election resulted in a different winner. Numerous convictions for election fraud resulted from this election, and are documented in The Heritage Foundation’s Voter Fraud Database.”[iii]

Who is responsible for ensuring the integrity of elections?

Each state is responsible for the administration of its own electoral systems, including elections for federal office. State governments must take this responsibility seriously and adopt policies sufficient to secure their elections against fraud, including efforts by noncitizens to vote, and by citizens registered in multiple states.

 

The advocates of clean elections recommend making a government issued identification and proof of citizenship to vote. Other recommendations are the States enter into interstate voter registration crosscheck programs in multiple states.   The Department of Homeland Security should make its database available to states to help in identifying voters who cross state lines illegally.

In recent years, Kansas’ Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program has identified hundreds of thousands of potential duplicate registrations in the 30 states participating in the initiative, as well as evidence of double voting.

There are now 34 states that have laws requiring voters to show some form of identification at the polls, although not all require photo identification or proof of citizenship.Only a small number of states have extended that ID requirement to absentee ballots.

Examples of election fraud cases across the country

Heritage’s Voter Fraud Database contains a sampling of voter fraud cases from across the country, all of which have resulted in either a criminal conviction or an overturned election. The Heritage Database is not representative of the full scope of the problem. Unfortunately, too often voter fraud goes undetected, and when it is discovered.  Overburdened prosecutors seldom prioritize these cases.

Here are some examples:

Voter Fraud Examples

1982

The democrats have been the worst offenders.  An estimated 100,000 fraudulent ballots were cast in a 1982 Chicago election. After a Justice Department investigation, 63 individuals were convicted of voter fraud, including vote buying, impersonation fraud, fictitious voter registrations, phony absentee ballots, and voting by non-citizens.

 

1994

In the 1994 Greene County Alabama election, 9 defendants pleaded guilty to voter fraud and a jury found two others guilty.

 

The defendants included

• Greene County commissioners;
• Officials, and employees;
• A racing commissioner;
• A member of the board of education;
• A Eutaw city councilman; and
• Other community leaders.

The conspirators used an assembly line to mass-produce forged absentee ballots meant to swing elections in favor of preferred candidates.

 

2004

East St. Louis, Illinois, precinct committeemen Charles Powell, Sheila Thomas, Jesse Lewis, and Kelvin Ellis, as well as precinct worker Yvette Johnson, were convicted of conspiracy to commit election fraud after participating in vote buying activities in the 2004 election, including submitting budgets that would allow city funds to be used to pay voters to vote for Democrat candidates.

 

2008

ACORN is a notorious offender.  ACORN workers in Seattle, Washington, committed what the secretary of state called, “the worst case of voter registration fraud in the history of the state of Washington.” The group submitted 1,762 fraudulent voter registration forms. The group’s leader, Clifton Mitchell, was convicted of false registrations and served nearly three months in jail. Four other ACORN workers on his team also received jail time, and ACORN was fined $25,000 to cover the cost of the investigation.  These punishments are miniscule compared to the harm done.

 

2012

Robert Monroe was identified by prosecutors as the worst multiple voter in Wisconsin history, pleaded no contest to charges that he voted –

• More than once in 2011 and 2012.
• He voted twice in the April 2011 Wisconsin Supreme Court election
• Twice in the 2011 recall election of state Sen. Alberta Darling, and
• Five times in Gov. Scott Walker’s, recall election.

He also cast an illegal ballot in the August 2012 primary, and voted twice in the 2012 general election.

 

2014

Rosa Maria Ortega, a non-citizen, was found guilty on two counts of voter fraud for voting in the November 2012 general election and the 2014 Republican primary runoff. Ortega claimed she thought she was a citizen, and blamed her lack of education for the mix-up, but prosecutors pointed out that Ortega had previously indicated on a driver’s license application that she was a non-citizen. A judge sentenced her to eight years’ imprisonment, after which she faces the possibility of deportation.  Notice the punishment of this non-citizen versus the light sentences of the “good old boy” politicians in the previous cases.

 

CONSCLUSIONS

The above documents that the voter fraud is rampant and for the most part not punished when found.  The laws are not enforced and the states have no money and little interest in enforcing laws that might put candidates in office that they do not approve.   The Recent Donald Trump election was in spite of the fraud. His populist following was so large that it overpowered the voting fraud advocates.

It is about time for a Federal Voter registration law that requires mandatory ID of citizenship and eligibility.   In addition, it needs to be enforced.

[i] “Voter Fraud”,  Heritage Foundation, https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/heritage-explains/voter-fraud

[ii] Ibid