The myth of voter ‘fraud’ is an article of religious faith most conservatives and republicans will blindly adhere to, remaining willfully ignorant of the facts.
November 4, 2008: Voter Fraud in Milwaukee (ACORN)
Investigators found after an eighteen-month probe that in 2004 there had been an “illegal organized attempt to influence the outcome of an election in the state of Wisconsin.” Among the problems it cited were ineligible voters casting ballots, felons not only voting but working at the polls, transient college students casting improper votes, and homeless voters possibly voting more than once.
Examples of incompetence included the fact that between 4,600 and 5,300 more ballots were cast than voters who were recorded as having shown up at the polls in Milwaukee. More than 1,300 registration cards filled out at the polls were declared “un-enterable” or invalid by election officials.
The report directly implicated the John Kerry campaign and allied get-out-the-vote organizations in widespread illegal voting committed by their campaign workers, many of whom came from out-of-state. The most common method they used was to abuse the state’s same-day voter registration law, which allowed anyone to show up at the polls, register and then cast a ballot. Local election officials who asked for proof of residence from these Kerry campaign staff members were often stymied when “other staff members who were registered voters vouched for them by corroborating their residency. More alarmingly, other staff members who were deputy registrars for this election simply registered these individuals as Milwaukee residents, bypassing Election officials altogether. The actions of the listed campaign and 527 staff members appear to be violations of State of Wisconsin law….”
The [Milwaukee Police Department’s Special Investigation Unit’s] report went on at length to detail how these paid, professional workers violated the law. Case #4 was an attorney who had lived in Washington, D.C., since 1999 but came to Wisconsin to help with the campaign and voted using an address in Milwaukee. Case #6 involved another attorney who was living in England before the 2004 election. After coming to work on the Kerry campaign in Milwaukee, the person registered and voted in the 2004 election using a Milwaukee address. The owner of that address was interviewed by investigators and “stated that #6′s sole purpose in coming to the state of Wisconsin was to work on the presidential campaign” and that the person returned to England after the election.
Investigators found that “two persons who had entered guilty pleas to misdemeanor charges of Election Fraud within one year of the November General Election also were employed as Election Inspectors” when voting took place on November 2, 2004. A total of eighteen convicted felons were sworn in as deputy registrars in 2004. Of the fifteen felons who listed a sponsoring organization, eight named ACORN as their sponsor.
The investigators believed that at least sixteen workers from all levels of the Kerry campaign and the two get out-the vote groups “committed felony crimes.” But no prosecutors chose to pursue them, the report noted.
The police report found that Milwaukee had no system to prevent felons, who are blocked from casting a ballot under Wisconsin law, from voting, due to the same-day registration system: It determined that at least 220 ineligible felons voted in 2004. Because it listed someone as ineligible only if it found an exact match between a voter and an ineligible felon, the report noted “there is a strong probability that the number of felons illegally voting in November 2004 is higher.”
Milwaukee police also remarked that the city has a sad history of abusing homeless voters, with the most famous incident being the “Smokes for Votes” scandal in which a Park Avenue heiress flew in from New York in 2000 to offer cigarettes to the homeless if they voted for Al Gore. (
Source)
March 2009: Voter Fraud in Milwaukee
In February 2008, the Milwaukee [Wisconsin] Police Department's Special Investigation Unit released a stunning report that should silence skeptics who say vote fraud is not an issue in Wisconsin. The investigators found after an 18-month probe that in 2004 there had been an "illegal organized attempt to influence the outcome of an election in the state of Wisconsin."
Among the problems cited were ineligible voters casting ballots, felons not only voting but working at the polls, transient college students casting improper votes, and homeless voters possibly voting more than once. The report said the problem was compounded by incompetence resulting from abysmal record-keeping and inadequately trained poll workers.
One investigator, after examining Milwaukee's election system, was quoted as saying: "I know I voted in the election, but I can't be certain it counted."
Examples of incompetence included the fact that between 4,600 and 5,300 more ballots were cast than actual voters recorded as having shown up at the polls. Election officials declared more than 1,300 registration cards filled out at the polls were "un-enterable" or invalid....
The Milwaukee Police Department's report minced no words about what should be done to prevent future scandals: The state should end its policy of allowing people to show up at the polls on Election Day, register to vote and then immediately cast a ballot. (
Source)
May 7, 2009: Voter-Registration Fraud in Nevada (ACORN)
Three members of ACORN in Nevada have been indicted for voter fraud. Along with those three members of ACORN, one of which was a regional director-type person, ACORN itself was indicted. The amount of fraudulent voter registrations for these three people is astronomical.
The New York Times, hardly a conservative newspaper, reported out of 91,002 voter registration forms for Clark County, Nevada, only 23,186 turned out to be valid. That means barely over one out of four forms in a single county in Nevada was legitimate. (
Source)
April 24, 2010: Voter Fraud in Wisconsin
Wisconsin's story shows how high the stakes are. Late in March, a 72-page bill was suddenly introduced and rushed forward with only abbreviated hearings. The bill would have given "nationally recognized" community organizing groups access to the state driver's license database to encourage voter turnout. After the infamous registration scandals involving ACORN in 2008, this was clearly a strange priority. Requests for an absentee ballot in a single election would also become permanent (without requiring a legitimate reason, such as infirmity), and the ballots would be automatically mailed out in future elections.
Coercion and chicanery are made much easier by the excessive use of absentee ballots. Most of the elections thrown out by courts—Miami, Florida's mayoral election in 1998, the East Chicago, Indiana's mayor's race in 2005—involved fraudulent absentee votes.
Three decades ago absentee and early ballots were only 5% of all votes cast nationwide. In 2008, they exceeded 25%. Wisconsin's bill would also have allowed voters to register on the Internet without supplying a signature—thus removing a valuable protection against identity theft and election fraud.
In 2004, John Kerry won Wisconsin over George W. Bush by 11,380 votes out of 2.5 million cast. After allegations of fraud surfaced, the Milwaukee police department's Special Investigative Unit conducted a probe. Its February 2008 report found that from 4,600 to 5,300 more votes were counted in Milwaukee than the number of voters recorded as having cast ballots. Absentee ballots were cast by people living elsewhere; ineligible felons not only voted but worked at the polls; transient college students cast improper votes; and homeless voters possibly voted more than once. Much of the problem resulted from Wisconsin's same-day voter law, which allows anyone to show up at the polls, register and then cast a ballot. ID requirements are minimal. The report found that in 2004 a total of 1,305 "same day" voters were invalid. The report was largely ignored, and just before the 2008 election the police department's Special Investigative Unit was ordered by superiors not to send anyone to polling places on Election Day.
The Milwaukee Police Department's report on the 2004 election concluded "the one thing that could eliminate a large percentage of the fraud" would be to end same-day registration. Today, eight other states have some form of Election Day voter registration: Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Wyoming. Montana began Election Day voter registration in 2006, North Carolina in 2007, and Iowa in 2008.
But Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold, a Democrat, has introduced federal legislation to mandate same-day registration in every state, claiming the system has worked well in his state. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York is readying a bill to override the election laws of all 50 states and require universal voter registration—which would automatically register anyone on key government lists. This is a move guaranteed to create duplicate registrations, register some illegal aliens, and sow confusion. (
Source)
September 25, 2010: Voter-Registration Fraud in Texas
Two weeks ago the Harris County [Texas] voter registrar took [True The Vote's] work and the findings of his own investigation and handed them over to both the Texas Secretary of State’s office and the Harris County district attorney. Most of the findings focused on a group called Houston Votes, a voter registration group headed by Sean Caddle, who also worked for the Service Employees International Union before coming to Houston. Among the findings were that only 1,793 of the 25,000 registrations the group submitted appeared to be valid.
The other registrations included one of a woman who registered six times in the same day; registrations of non-citizens; so many applications from one Houston Voters collector in one day that it was deemed to be beyond human capability; and 1,597 registrations that named the same person multiple times, often with different signatures. (
Source)
October 22, 2010: Voter-Registration Fraud in Arizona
Yesterday, the
Yuma Sun reported that two organizations, Mi Familia Vota and One Vote Arizona, submitted more than 3,000 voter registrations in Yuma County [Arizona] right before the deadline for registering voters. The groups submitted over 20,000 registrations statewide. Even more, they have signed up 43,000 people statewide for the permanent early voter list.
What the
Yuma Sun did not tell you is that over 65% of these last minute registrations were invalid due to the registrant not being a citizen, a wrong/invalid address, or a false signature. What they didn’t tell you is that voter fraud on a massive scale could be taking place, ostensibly to help
Raul Grijalva keep the Congressional seat he holds by stealing the election.
These 3000 voter registration forms were all dropped off at once by the one group on the deadline to turn in voter registration forms. Almost all of the registrations were for the Democratic Party, a statistical improbability at best.
The Yuma Recorder’s office is checking the voter registration forms and have found that already more than 65% of them are invalid due to the registrant not being a citizen, wrong/invalid address, false signature, etc. (
Source)
November 12, 2010: Suspected Voter Fraud in Pennsylvania
Late last week, the Bucks County [Pennsylvania] Republican Committee made the sensible decision to withdraw its challenges to over 1,600 absentee ballot applications. The GOP's action was the right thing to do, since the ballots can't change the results of Tuesday's election. That should hardly end the matter, however. Any allegation of voter fraud must be taken seriously. Although the votes cast via absentee ballot no longer matter in this case, the integrity of the process has come under fire. (
Source)
