• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

No, There's No Voter Fraud

Mike

Well-known member
Many liberals are adamant there is no threat of voter fraud that justifies efforts to improve the integrity of elections. “There is no real concrete evidence of voter fraud,” tweeted Donna Brazile, former acting chair of the Democratic National Committee, this week. “It’s a big ass lie.”

James O’Keefe, the guerilla filmmaker who brought down the ACORN voter-registration fraudsters in 2010 and forced the resignation of NPR executives, politely disagrees. Today, he is releasing some new undercover footage that raises disturbing questions about ballot integrity in Colorado, the site of fiercely contested races for the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, and the governorship. When he raised the issue of filling out some of the unused ballots that are mailed to every household in the state this month, he was told by Meredith Hicks, the director of Work for Progress, a liberal group funded by Democratic Super PACS.: “That is not even like lying or something, if someone throws out a ballot, like if you want to fill it out you should do it.” She then brazenly offered O’Keefe, disguised as a middle-aged college instructor, a job with her group.

The video of O’Keefe’s encounters with other operatives is equally disturbing. He has a conversation with Greenpeace employee Christina Topping, and suggests he might have access to unused ballots from people who have recently moved out of college fraternity houses. “I mean it is putting the votes to good use,” she responds. “So really, truly, like yeah, that is awesome.”

Colorado secretary of state Scott Gessler, along with several county election clerks, have raised warning flags that a new state law that automatically mails a ballot to everyone is an engraved invitation to commit fraud. “Sending ballots to people who did not even ask for them or have moved out of state is asking for trouble” he told me. For example, little can stop someone who collects discarded ballots from trash cans, fills out the ballots, and mails them in. Election workers are supposed to compare signatures on registration records with signed ballots. But if a person has a “witness” who signs the ballot on the witness line, then the signatures do not have to match and the vote is counted.

Secretary of State Gessler had futile arguments with Democratic state legislators last year who insisted on ramming a bill through that mandated Colorado become the only state in the nation with both all-mail balloting and same-day registration. Under same-day registration someone can register to vote online, have a mail ballot sent to them, and never physically show up to register or vote. Other places that use same-day registration treat the vote as a provisional ballot pending verification. Colorado immediately counts the vote and there is no way to separate it out if the person who votes is later found ineligible. “We know people in other states with better integrity safeguards have cheated using the cover of these methods,” Gessler told me. A decade ago, Melody Rose, then a liberal professor at Oregon State University, concluded that state’s vote-by-mail system “brings a perpetual risk of systemic fraud” in elections with razor-thin margins.

“Voter fraud is incredibly difficult to detect and prosecute, absent a direct confession,” Gessler says as he notes that in other areas of law-breaking, we do not judge how much of it there is merely by the number of related prosecutions. But he also notes there is evidence of just how easy voter fraud is to commit. Last December, New York City’s Department of Investigation detailed how its undercover agents claimed at 63 polling places to be individuals who were in fact dead, had moved out of town, or who were in jail. In 61 instances, or 97 percent of the time, they were allowed to vote. (To avoid skewing results, they voted only for nonexistent write-in candidates.) How did the city’s Board of Elections respond? Did it immediately probe and reform their sloppy procedures? Not at all. It instead demanded that the investigators be prosecuted. Most officials are loath to admit how vulnerable election systems are, but privately many express worry that close elections could be flipped by fraud.

Nor are such sad examples limited to New York. In 2008, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of voter-ID laws in a 6–3 opinion written by John Paul Stevens, then the most liberal member of the court. He noted that the record “demonstrates that not only is the risk of voter fraud real but that it could affect the outcome of a close election.” Stevens had witnessed the Daley machine up close manipulate local elections through fraud and chicanery during a distinguished legal career in Chicago that included serving both as a special counsel to a commission rooting out corruption and as a judge.

I understand that Donna Brazile devoutly wants to wish away the notion of voter fraud. But by overwhelming margins, the American people believe it is a real problem and support steps to combat it. Indeed, a Rasmussen survey in 2013 found that a greater percentage of African Americans viewed voter fraud as a serious problem than did whites. That is because, as former Democratic congressman Artur Davis of Alabama told me: “Minority voters are often the biggest victims of voter fraud as reform movements in cities and depressed rural areas are crushed by fraudulent machine voting. I have seen it with my own eyes in Alabama.”

As with his expose of ACORN, James O’Keefe deserves credit for once again uncovering the potential for corruption at the ballot box while too many journalists keep their noses buried in campaign-finance reports. Both kinds of reporting are valuable, but O’Keefe appears to be a rare bird interested in ballot integrity.

— John Fund is national affairs correspondent for NRO and co-author, with Hans Von Spakovsky, of Who’s Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk.
 

loomixguy

Well-known member
But the Fatman assured us that it was next to impossible to commit voter fraud, even when you have video evidence of ballot box stuffing. Surely those potheads in the People's Republik of Colorado couldn't outsmart a LEO with 137 years of experience..... could they?? :wink:
 

Mike

Well-known member
A single Bronx voter listed in official records as being 164 years old led Board of Elections officials to review their files — where they turned up another 849 New Yorkers who were supposedly alive when Abe Lincoln was president.

The stunning discovery came after The Post reported last week that the birth date of Luz Pabellon, a spry 73-year-old who has been living and voting in The Bronx since the 1970s, was recorded as Jan. 1, 1850.

This week, a search of the records in all five boroughs found 849 more voters with the same wacky birth date.

Board officials chalked up the implausible age snafu to previous practices that allowed residents not to provide their exact birthdays when registering to vote.

Some of the new voters — mostly women — simply wrote that they were “21+” — above the legal voting age.

There was a reason to be vague. Voter registration records are open to the public, so anyone with the inclination can discover the real age of anyone in the files.

“It’s a leftover vestige from a bygone era,” explained Board of Elections executive director Mike Ryan.

“They were all listed as age 164. This was no accident. It’s a little quirk in the system. It’s not widespread,” he added, noting there are more than 4 million registered voters.

The board switched to computerized databases in 1999 and 2006.



‘It’s a left-over vestige from a bygone era … This was no accident. It’s a little quirk in the system. It’s not widespread.’

- Mike Ryan

To comply with state rules, election officials were required to write in a specific date of birth for all voters — or remove them from the rolls.

Officials twice sent out notices imploring the 164-year-olds to provide their real birth dates.

Most ignored the requests.

Since they registered under the old system, the board grandfathered them in and listed 01/01/1850 as their DOBs in the electronic voting rolls.

And that’s where things still stand as of today.

Residents who registered after 2006 are required to provide their true birth dates. The board, under state law, must remove voters from the rolls who fail to do so. A voter without a date of birth who shows up on Election Day won’t be in the register, and will be declared ineligible to vote. They can fill out an affidavit ballot, but it won’t count.

But the old-timers are not affected.

During a meeting Tuesday, Board of Elections commissioners and Ryan discussed ways to fix the age-old problem. They discussed sending out another letter pleading for the real dates of birth or even having staffers try to contact the 850 by telephone.

To prevent fraud, officials would still need a written statement from voters certifying their age, even if they divulge it over the phone.

Ryan said the matter will be revisited after the Nov. 4 election.
 

Steve

Well-known member
locally every time there is an important referendum or local ballot issue.. the "voters' show up in droves..

a walk through the parking lot shows license plates from Florida,.. PA,.. North Carolina.. Texas.. ect..

lawsuits often show up illegal votes.. or folk who recently "switched" their "residence" to local businesses and other places..

the old if you or a relative own property.. you can vote.. laws let them away with the scam..

same day registration actually allows a person to "early vote" in one district... and then "move" to another and vote again in another election...

ID laws complicate the "move" as the person is confronted with mismatched ID and voter addresses sending up red flags.. often leading the person to have to use a provisional ballot..

if it is a legitimate move.. then there is no fraud and the provisional vote is counted.. but without "requiring ID" the deception/fraud is often never questioned..
 

loomixguy

Well-known member
This is just more proof of what the Fatman is full of.

Too bad he couldn't have done this for himself. He could've gotten four more years being latched firmly onto the Valley county taxpayer's tit....padding the cost of prisoner meals, using a county vehicle and gas for personal use, etc.
 

Latest posts

Top