Sunday, October 19, 2014

A follow-up on claims of "voter fraud" state by state / by flantabulous

submitted  by flantabulousPolitics 101 Contributorx3

It is easy to grab headlines with a lurid claim --"TENS OF THOUSANDS MAY BE VOTING ILLEGALLY!"-- but the follow-up, when any exists - is not usually deemed newsworthy.

- From "The Truth About Voter Fraud" by the Brennan Center for Justice

*This is my attempt to compile all 'those non-newsworthy follow-ups'.


MICHIGAN
was the headline in Michigan's two largest papers. 1 2
  • But, Michigan's GOP Secretary of State, was forced to clarify:
    "clerical error is the culprit behind the voting concerns, not voter fraud"... “in every instance where it appears a deceased person or incarcerated person voted... a clerical error was established as the reason.”
The Claim: 1500.
The actual number of dead people and prisoners voting: 0.
0 out of 8 million total votes.



MINNESOTA
  • An independent audit of tens of thousands of votes found 10. Since these were instances of ex-felons, using their own identity to vote before their rights had been restored, voter ID would have had no effect.
    NONE were prosecuted as intentional fraud.
    (Fox has yet to correct or retract their story).
The Claim: Hundreds.
Actual number of ex-felons improperly voting: 10.
10 out of 2.8 MILLION votes -- or 0.00003% of the vote.



WISCONSIN
  • From 2008-2012, an Election Fraud Task Force operated with the District Attorneys of the 11 counties republicans most suspected of fraudulent voting. In the end,they found 20 cases, 6 were registrations, not voting. 14 were ex-felons voting before their rights had been restored.
  • In Wisconsin's voter ID trial, a federal judge asked the state to provide evidence of 'voter impersonation' - the only type of fraud that voter ID can stop. The state could not produce a single known case in Wisconsin history.
The Claim: Up to 43,000.
Number of actual cases found: 14 (all ex-felons, voting before their rights were restored)
14 out of 10.5 MILLION votes, or 0.0001% of the vote.



NORTH CAROLINA
Earlier this year these headlines echoed through the conservative media.
The Claim: 36,000
The actual number of multi-state voters: 0
0 out of 4.5 million votes in NC.



FLORIDA
The Claim: 200,000
The actual number from 2000 to 2011: 11
11 out of approximately 45 MILLION votes - or 0.00002% of the vote.



SOUTH CAROLINA
The Claim: 900
The actual number of dead people voting: 0
0 out of 1.3 MILLION votes.



PENNSYLVANIA
0 out of 5.9 MILLION votes.



MAINE
The Maine GOP gave the Attorney General a list of the names 206 college students they believed voted illegally in the state. The AG expanded the investigation to include all types of "voter fraud".All the students were cleared, 1 case of a non-resident was discovered.
The Claim: 206
The actual number of students "illegally" voting out of state: 1
1 out of 717,000 total votes, or 0.0001% of the vote.



IOWA
The Claim: 3,582 non-citizens may have voted.
Actual number of illegal votes: 6
6 out of 2.5 MILLION total votes or 0.0002% of the vote.



TEXAS
26 out of approximately 35 MILLION votes over a decade, or 0.00005%.



OHIO
  • According to Fox: "Husted also found that 274 non-citizens remain on the voting rolls. President Obama beat Mitt Romney in Ohio by just 2 percentage points in November 2012".
    Implying one had anything to do with the other.
    (BTW 2% of the Ohio vote = 109,780 not 274)
  • 274 was whittled down to 135, that were recommended to local prosecutors.
  • In a great story that really goes right to the heart of what typically happens in all these cases of large numbers of voter fraud claims - a newspaper consortium followed up every one of those cases in a piece entitled: Potential voter fraud cases from 2012 election often dropped as simple mistakes, elderly confusion.
  • Eventually 17 cases did bring charges, from an old man who thought it was "alright" to vote on 'just the local issues' at one house and the president in another state, to two people who voted absentee for the spouses or friends who died just before the election. One was a nun who voted for another nun who died. There was also one woman who apparently really did commit purposeful voter fraud by voting 5 times. She was given 5 years in prison.
The Claim 274 non eligible voters.
Actual number of voter fraud cases: 17.
17 out of almost 5.5 million votes or 0.0003% of the vote.



COLORADO
"...how many non-citizens were on the rolls...there's a minimum of 489...but we have this pot of 20,000 that could include non-citizens Said Scott Gessler, another voter ID advocating/voter fraud-sniffing GOP Secretary of State.
The Claim: 489, up to 20,000 non citizens voting.
The actual number of non citizens voting: 0
0 out of approximately 3 million votes.