Voter fraud: a rarity only in the fantasies of the far left

[regexcellent]

That's not really true, no. Requiring you to prove who you are is a pretty basic security measure.

[DaShi]

That's what voter registration is for.

[regexcellent]

When you show up at the poll booth, the fact that the name you're voting under is registered proves nothing about your identity.

[kentonio]

James O'Keefe uncovers devastating new evidence that US citizens are voting!

FACT CHECK: ‘Non-Citizen’ Voter In James O’Keefe’s Voter Fraud Video Is Actually A Citizen

Conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe released a new video today supposedly exposing voter fraud in North Carolina by highlighting non-citizens like Zbigniew Gorzkowski who have voted in recent elections.

The problem: Gorzkowski is an American citizen.

In fact, if O’Keefe had done a simple Nexis search for “Zbigniew Gorzkowski”, he would have found a single article from the News & Observer in 2008 noting that Gorzkowski and his wife are naturalized citizens:

Customers flock through the red door of Zbigniew “Ziggy” and wife Halina Gorzkowski’s European grocery and flower shop to buy one of the 12 varieties they sell. The pierogis and 400 eastern European food items and flowers are also punching the naturalized citizen couple’s ticket for their version of the American Dream.

ThinkProgress spoke with Gorzkowski this morning. He verified that this information was indeed correct and he had been an American citizen since the late 1980s. Therefore, his votes in the 2008 and 2010 elections were not only perfectly legal, but encouraged as a civic duty.

In other words, the one instance in the video where O’Keefe purports to show that a non-citizen had actually voted, in fact shows that a citizen voted.

The episode does speak to a larger underlying problem with most accusations of voter fraud. It’s what I call the “Scooby Doo routine”. People like O’Keefe make wild voter fraud accusations like non-citizens voting, only to discover a much simpler explanation for the situation.

In this case, O’Keefe is using “evidence” of foreigners voting in American elections to supposedly demonstrate the need for draconian security measures like voter ID, which could disenfranchise 20 million citizens across the country. However, his evidence actually shows nothing more than an American citizen exercising his civic duty. Earlier this year, South Carolina went through the same Scooby Doo routine after Attorney General Alan Wilson claimed to have unearthed evidence of 953 dead voters, only for his state investigation to ultimately find no dead voters — and zero voter fraud — but rather a handful of clerical errors.

O’Keefe has a responsibility as a journalist to ensure the veracity of his facts before he makes wild charges like these. A simple phone call or Nexis search would have sufficed, yet doing so would have undercut his spurious argument that voter fraud is a widespread problem in the United States.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...orth-carolina/

[Dinner]

Well, at least the fraudster & charlatan O'Keefe didn't end up in jail this time. How anyone, even the most brain damaged right wing extremist, can trust any thing he says is beyond me. The guy got caught lying and editing videos so that they appeared to say the exact opposite of what people actually said. Up is down, left is right, and anyone who trusts O'Keefe's deceptive editing is a fool.

[kentonio]

Oh it turns out that in Pennsylvania the GOP have decided to admit that it's not actually about fraud..

Pennsylvania Voter ID Law Trial Set To Begin As State Concedes It Has No Proof Of In-Person Voter Fraud

Defendants in a case against one of the nation's strictest voter ID laws in Pennsylvania made a major concession to plaintiffs this week, just days ahead of the start of the trial over the measure.

In a stipulation agreement signed earlier this month, state officials conceded that they had no evidence of prior in-person voter fraud, or even any reason to believe that such crimes would occur with more frequency if a voter ID law wasn't in effect.

"There have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania; and the parties do not have direct personal knowledge of any such investigations or prosecutions in other states,” the statement reads.

According to the agreement, the state “will not offer any evidence in this action that in-person voter fraud has in fact occurred in Pennsylvania and elsewhere,” nor will it "offer argument or evidence that in-person voter fraud is likely to occur in November 2012 in the absense of the Photo ID law.”

The possibility of voter fraud has frequently served as the ideological underpinning for voter ID measures, whose supporters claim that the integrity of elections can't be preserved without requiring would-be voters to verify their identity at polling places. Reports on actual incidents appear to counter this contention, however, as figures suggest voter fraud is a highly infrequent occurrence.

Opponents of voter ID laws argue that such legislation is an effort to establish obstacles for potential voters, particularly college students, minorities and the elderly, who tend to vote Democratic. A recent report from the Brennan Center for Justice found that a variety of factors could seriously hamper the ability of a half-million Americans in 10 states that have passed voter ID laws to obtain the required documents they would need to cast votes in November.

Pennsylvania GOP House Majority Leader Mike Turzai fueled the concerns of anti-voter ID activists earlier this year when he claimed that the recently enacted measure would "allow Gov. [Mitt] Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania."

Just weeks after those comments, Pennsylvania officials released a study finding that more than 758,000 registered voters in the state -- many of them in its urban center of Philadelphia -- lacked driver's licenses. While the law allows for a variety of other forms of identification to be used at polling places, the figure suggested that a large number of Pennsylvanians still didn't meet the criteria needed to cast ballots in the fall.

A lawsuit filed against the state's voter ID law by the ACLU and NAACP on behalf of lead plantiff Viviette Applewhite, a 93-year-old woman who claims she will be disenfranchised by the legislation because she won't be able to get valid documentation before the election, is set to go to trial on Wednesday. On Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice also announced that it was investigating whether the law discriminates against minorities.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...p_ref=politics

[Al B. Sure!]

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice also announced that it was investigating whether the law discriminates against minorities.

**** like that I just don't understand.

Minorities are being turned away from DMV's when they ask for ID's?

[rah]

Driving is a privilege and not a right.

[Jon Miller]

Maybe the registering to vote should be done at the same time as acquiring a firearm?

JM

[H Tower]

I still haven't seen proof of mass voter fraud. Only allegations. Where's the proof?

[DinoDoc]

I still haven't seen proof of mass voter fraud. Only allegations. Where's the proof?

I'm still hung up on what the hoopla is about requiring the voter to have an ID when the Supreme Court already held that requirement to be permissible.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

It obviously suppresses minority voter turnout as evidenced in Georgia...

I still haven't seen proof of mass voter suppression. Only allegations. Where's the proof?

[Dr Strangelove]

To say nothing of the thousands of votes that vanish from voting machines...

jesus ****ing christ...

...or the police road blocks that appear near polling places on election day.

[kentonio]

It obviously suppresses minority voter turnout as evidenced in Georgia...

I still haven't seen proof of mass voter suppression. Only allegations. Where's the proof?

So we can assume that theres no fraud, no voter suppression, no lowering of turnout and in fact no effects full stop? So the GOP want to spend millions of dollars of taxpayer money to achieve... nothing?

[Zevico]

So we can assume that theres no fraud, no voter suppression, no lowering of turnout and in fact no effects full stop? So the GOP want to spend millions of dollars of taxpayer money to achieve... nothing?

You're right. You know, murder's pretty rare, robbery's rare, all these crimes are rare. So there's no point in enforcing the law, right? Because it's broken so rarely? We all know it's just a waste of money, because nothing will happen if the law isn't enforced. Like Tammany Hall, which never happened. Or Jim Crow, which never happened.