Election Fraud - An Overview of Voting and Voter Fraud In Elections

Voter Fraud

Voter fraud is the issue that concerns most conservatives.

On 11 October 2006, USA Today broke a news story suggesting that the EAC had sat, for more than four months, on a draft report that disputed claims that extensive voter fraud takes place. The EAC report consisted primarily of an overview of voter fraud as reported by the US news media. There are no peer-reviewed reports cited. Instead, the researchers analyzed data from Lexis-Nexis and also conducted interviews with unnamed "experts from the public and private sector."

They conclude that "there is tremendous disagreement about the extent to which polling place fraud, e.g. double voting, intentional felon voting, noncitizen voting, is a serious problem. On balance, more researchers find it to be less of a problem than is commonly described in the political debate; but some reports say it is a major problem, although hard to identify."

Their analysis of news reports suggests that fraud involving absentee votes is an area of abuse. The authors close that section by saying: "Interestingly, there were no articles regarding Oregon, where the entire system is vote by mail."

There are at least three peer-reviewed articles analyzing Oregon's vote-by-mail system. This research rebuts the claim that absentee voting is at high-risk from fraud. None are cited in the EAC draft report.

Status of ID Requirements:
Six states require all voters to show photo ID: FL, HI, IN, LA, MO SD
Two states require photo or non-photo ID of all first-time voters: KS, PA
Another 18 states require ID -- photo or non-photo -- for all voters: AL, AK, AZ, AR, CO, CT, DE, GA, KY, MT, NM, ND, OH, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA

Vote Fraud

Vote fraud is the issue that concerns most liberals.

HAVA resulted in a sea of money flowing from Washington to the states to do something about the technology of voting -- to prevent another Florida (Presidential election, 2000). Most of that money has gone into electronic voting systems, despite the fact that paper ballots (with scanners to count the vote) are generally less expensive, easier to use, and easily recounted by hand in the case of a close election.

Computer scientists and voting advocates have called repeatedly for all electronic voting systems to have a "paper trail" -- a paper document that confirms the vote that was cast (at least on paper) is the vote intended by the citizen.

In late 2005, the GAO released a damning report on the state of evoting:

(1) some electronic voting systems did not encrypt cast ballots or system audit logs, and it was possible to alter both without being detected; (2) it was possible to alter the files that define how a ballot looks and works so that the votes for one candidate could be recorded for a different candidate; and (3) vendors installed uncertified versions of voting system software at the local level.

PC world concurred: "Questions about the security and accuracy of electronic voting systems are likely to continue into the 2006 national elections, because the federal government has not yet completed work on electronic voting guidelines, according to a new government report."

Rolling Stone poured more fuel on this fire with its story by Robert Kennedy:

And in September, voters were stunned by reports of Diebold evoting machines being opened with a hotel mini-bar key.