Isn't any amount of fraud in faked names used in voter registration, forgery in absentee ballots (dependent on faked
names or use of deceased names, or those who have moved from the precinct to another state) TOO MUCH FRAUD?
Read the Status Report on the Voter Fraud-Voter Intimidation Research Project (May
17, 2006) with care. Question whether a two-person team of consultants can possibly review a large
enough segment of published "articles," and interview a wide array of individuals involved in the election process to determine
"conclusively" whether voter registration fraud is "little," or "big."
The absence of the Fayette County, Pennsylvania situation wherein a Grand Jury estimated at least 10 percent of the registered voters were either dead or resided elsewhere, shows the EAC Status Report is not as comprehensive as portrayed, and the report doesn't go back far enough.
As well, the report doesn't appear to address the effects of the Motor Voter Act on "inflated" voter registration rolls.
Read it carefully, particularly the missing portion of the oft-quoted "there is widespread but not unanimous agreement
that there is little polling place fraud, or at least as much as is claimed, including voter impersonation, "dead" voters,
noncitizen voting, and felon voters."
The section CONTINUES...
Those few who believe it occurs often enough to be a concern say that it is impossible to show the extent to
which it happens, but do point to instances in the press of such incidents. ..
Agree, everybody puts their spin... what gets me is this statement: there is little verifiable evidence to support
anecdotal accounts of polling place fraud involving voters voting more than once, non-citizens or otherwise ineligible voters
voting, or voters voting in the name of deceased voters.
Of course there is little verifiable evidence since it is fraud and conspiracy and designed to be difficult
to verify. There is no way yet to absolutely determine whether for instance, a voter registered in Pennsylvania, and
also registered to vote in say New York or Florida, double votes.
Preliminary Report on Voter Fraud and Voter Intimidation Released
A report to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) on voter fraud and voter intimidation was released yesterday by USA Today over four months after is had been presented to the commission. The report confirmed that there is little verifiable evidence
to support anecdotal accounts of polling place fraud involving voters voting more than once, non-citizens or otherwise ineligible
voters voting, or voters voting in the name of deceased voters. Though, the final report of the study has yet to be released,
the findings of the preliminary report could have informed the heated debate over restrictive voter ID requirements that has
raged in the past months.
At a hearing on September 27, 2005, EAC executive director Tom Wilkey announced that the
commission had awarded a $110,000 grant to Tova Wang, an elections expert at the Century Foundation, and Job Serebrov, an
Arkansas attorney to provide a comprehensive report on voter fraud and voter intimidation. Section 241 of HAVA requires the
EAC to conduct research on election administration issues. Among the tasks listed in the statute is the development of nationwide
statistics and methods of identifying, deterring, and investigating voting fraud in elections for Federal office. The EAC's
Board of Advisors recommended that the agency make research on these matters a high priority.
The researchers presented
a “Status Report on the Voter Fraud-Voter Intimidation Research Project” to the EAC in May 17 and announced at
the meeting of the Standards Board and Board of Advisors the following week. A politically diverse working group of
election officials, public interest advocates, and election law specialists first convened on May 18 and a final report of
their research was presented to the EAC in July. The EAC has not released the final report and contractual agreements with
the consultants restrict them from releasing it. There are two other completed reports, one on the effect of Voter ID
regulations and another on provisional ballots, that the EAC has declined to release to the public.
Commenting on the earlier report, released by USA Today, EAC Chairman Paul DeGregorio noted that the report was only
preliminary and cautioned that more investigation is needed to understand the amount of voter fraud in this country. Mr. DeGregorio
did not mention the existence of the final report. In an Associated Press article Mr. DeGregorio observed "Many times people put their own partisan spin on voter fraud and voter intimidation."
The
preliminary report presented an overview of the research that the consultants had undertaken, which included a review of literature
on the subjects, interviews with public and private sector experts, including election officials, public interest advocates,
election law specialists, and academics, and a survey of news articles since the 2000 elections. The report found that the
most of the voter fraud that does occur involves absentee ballots...
Dan Tokaji2006-10-11T13:28:00-04:002006-10-12T16:51:08Z2006-10-11T18:09:02Ztag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9409349.post-116059014262923260
Today's news brings a significant development in the ongoing access-versus-integrity
election debate. USA Today has this story on a previously unreleased status report prepared for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) in May, which finds relatively
little evidence of fraud at polling places. USA Today has made the report itself available online here, and has a sidebar on voter registration restrictions that may prevent people from participating in this year's elections.
The
status report concerns research by consultants Tova Wang of the Century Foundation and Job Serebrov, an Arkansas attorney,
under contract with the EAC. It finds that: "There is widespread but not unanimous agreement that there is little polling-place
fraud, or at least much less than is claimed, including voter impersonation, 'dead' voters, non-citizen voting and felon voters."
In fact, the only apparent dissenter from this view is a representative of the recently formed "American Center for Voting
Rights" (ACVR), a group led by the former national election counsel to the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign...
EAC
learns that there's no "voter fraud"--and buries the report
Report skeptical of fraud at polls
Little evidence found despite pending bills
By Richard Wolf
USA TODAY
WASHINGTON - At a time when many states are instituting new requirements for voter registration and identification,
a preliminary report to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission has found little evidence of the type of polling-place fraud
those measures seek to stop.
USA TODAY obtained the report from the commission four months after it was delivered by two consultants hired to
write it. The commission has not distributed it publicly.
At least 11 states have approved new rules for independent voter-registration drives or requirements that voters
produce specific forms of photo ID at polling places. Several of those laws have been blocked in court, most recently in Arizona
last week. The House of Representatives last month approved a photo-ID law, now pending in the Senate.
The bipartisan report by two consultants to the election commission casts doubt on the problem those laws are intended
to address. "There is widespread but not unanimous agreement that there is little polling-place fraud, or at least much less
than is claimed, including voter impersonation, 'dead' voters, non-citizen voting and felon voters," the report says.
The report, prepared by Tova Wang, an elections expert at the Century Foundation think tank, and Job Serebrov, an
Arkansas attorney, says most fraud occurs in the absentee ballot process, such as through coercion or forgery. Wang declined
to comment on the report, and Serebrov could not be reached for comment.
How can anyone know with certainty what is included in the report if the report remains outside the realm of the public's
scrutiny?
In addition, are the public officials and representatives of academic, advocacy and legal groups identified and
quoted by the consultants in the report to substantiate the generalization: there was "widespread but not unanimous
agreement that there is little polling-place fraud, or at least much less than claimed."
The report, based on interviews with public officials and representatives of academic, advocacy and legal groups, said
there was "widespread but not unanimous agreement that there is little polling-place fraud, or at least much less than claimed."
Fraud includes voter impersonation, non-citizen voting and voting in the name of dead people.
According to the report, the biggest area of concern over fraud is absentee voting.
WASHINGTON — At a time when many states are instituting new requirements for voter registration and identification,
a preliminary report to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission has found little evidence of the type of polling-place fraud
those measures seek to stop.
USA TODAY obtained the report from the commission four months after it was delivered by two consultants hired to write
it. The commission has not distributed it publicly.
At least 11 states have approved new rules for independent voter-registration drives or requirements that voters produce
specific forms of photo ID at polling places. Several of those laws have been blocked in court, most recently in Arizona last
week. The House of Representatives last month approved a photo-ID law, now pending in the Senate.
The bipartisan report by two consultants to the election commission casts doubt on the problem those laws are intended
to address. “There is widespread but not unanimous agreement that there is little polling-place fraud, or at least much
less than is claimed, including voter impersonation, ‘dead' voters, non-citizen voting and felon voters,” the
report says.
