The Right to Vote – Under Attack?

In August, 2012 I wrote a blog titled "Voting Fraud. Threat?" That commentary was based on wide-spread and clearly coordinated Republican legislative actions in thirty-three states where Republicans controlled the state legislatures, and were justified on high priority to include several new rules required in order for people to vote. These mainly involved Photo-IDs, which sound prudent, but affect primarily older people who are black and Hispanic, who never had drivers' licenses, were disabled, or who live far from towns and polling places. The basis primarily included  claims of "massive" voter fraud, including the racist trope that "dogs and dead  people" were voting for Democrats. That movement gained national momentum, and between 2002 and 2005 the "Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Act Initiative" under President George W. Bush required all U.S. Attorney offices to coordinate with local officials to combat "voter fraud."

The results were less than impressive in light of such an allegedly rampant disorder. In Wisconsin seven cases were documented: all seven were felons who voted, 0.0002% of the total. In New Jersey, eight illegal cases, where all involved people voting twice, 0.0004%. In Missouri, six cases of fraud were confirmed, with four of the six voting twice, or 0.0003% of the total vote. In each of these cases, the primary "solution" to the fraud, namely the Voter Photo ID Card, would not have stopped a single case. Is this solution then just a harmless "feel good" add-on? No, it's not only useless against a problem that realistically does not exist, it's an additional requirement that discourages voting by a significant percentage of older people and those who live in barrios, Indian Reservations, or remote locations. In addition, the laws tended to shorten the  absentee voting period in many states and eliminated registration on voting day, when traditionally many new minority voters were assisted to register and vote. In Ohio, voting on the weekend prior to election day was eliminated because many African Americans without cars or other rides were bused to vote after church services.

The League of Women Voters has estimated this Photo-ID requirement will affect one in every six Latino voters, U.S. citizens who have never had a photo-ID. One in every four Black voters do not possess a photo-ID, mainly because they are elderly. Overall, one in ten American citizens did not possess a photo-ID at the time these laws were passed. All this to prevent an average of 0.0003% voting fraud, in which the photo-IDs would have helped a total of NO times at all.

Here's the link:

Voting Fraud. Threat?

So why bring this up again, in 2020? An April 8, 2020 commentary in the New York Times reports that President Trump has started pushing the same false argument that has circulated among conservatives for years - that voting by mail is a recipe for fraud. "Mail ballots, they cheat." Mr. Trump said at the White House in early April. "Mail ballots are very dangerous for this country because of the cheaters. ..... They should have voter ID..." Aha! Now we are back to voting in person, and voting with the photo-ID argument. Of course the president himself voted by mail from his home in Florida in March of 2020 and in the 2018 Mid-Term elections from New York.

Long voting lines in New York

Let's look at the facts. Studies continually show that voting fraud is extremely rare in the United States. A new national study in 2016 found little credible evidence of fraudulent voting. Mr. Trump himself charged a panel with investigating election corruption, and then disbanded it when the group found no real evidence of fraud.

Five states now conduct all elections almost entirely by mail, including staunchly Republican Utah. These are among the six states with the highest percentage of mail-in votes in the last election of 2018. Colorado has had vote-by-mail since 2014. Oddly, since the COVID-19 outbreak, some Republican officials including Mr. Trump have advanced the argument that voting my mail will disadvantage Republican candidates. "For whatever reasons, (voting my mail) does not work out well for Republicans," the president tweeted.

Long lines at the polls

The only major case of documented voting fraud occurred in North Carolina in the Ninth Congressional District in 2018 when the Republican candidate, Mark Harris, was charged with "ballot harvesting," a practice of rounding up and filling in blank absentee ballots. These stories are dramatic, and are rare. Any attempt at swaying an election, where the number of affected ballots is significant, usually is easily detected, unlike the 0.0003% numbers mentioned above, and where, once again, the presumed "solution" of photo-IDs would have prevented none of these.

Yet in this swirl of twisted reasoning, the Republican State House Speaker of Georgia, David Ralston, said that mailing all voters absentee ballots for the May primary ".. will be extremely devastating to Republicans and conservatives in Georgia." In general, Democrats have favored ways to expand access to voting my mail, while some Republicans have long argued against voting my mail and in favor of tightening vote identification and registration requirements, insisting once again that easing regulations "invites voter fraud." The beat goes on ... and the beat goes on, to quote the sage, Sonny Bono.

The essence of this is that Republican strategists have real data that suppressing voting by minorities helps their candidates. Older blacks, especially women, are solidly Democratic voters, just as older white men are solidly Republican supporters. These are facts. Older white men generally are more affluent and able to get to the polls, while their counterparts are not. Of course one can not simply declare the strategy to be one of suppressing votes; there must be a alternate reason, usually some sort of un-American and nefarious crime ... like fake voting. The "solution" of less voting by mail and/or  Photo-ID requirements is easy to sell, and can limit turnout in certain segments.

Comments are welcome and will be published, pro and con without the writer's identity. Make your comments below, or send to me via email at n3bb@mindspring.com

Enjoy life; it's the only one we will get.

J.K. (Jim) George

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