Wisconsin Has No Voter Impersonation Problem
Gov. Scott Walker says the lack of voter impersonation cases does not matter if there is a chance that even one vote is canceled out by fraud.
Appeals court: No impersonation fraud
But in July, a federal appeals court for the 4th Circuit decided that the North Carolina law intentionally discriminated against minority voters and ordered the state to make voter ID requirements less strict. In attempting to “combat voter fraud and promote public confidence,” the state ignored the issue of absentee ballot fraud, instead cracking down on voter impersonation, a problem “that did not exist,” according to the court decision.
Absentee ballots are “disproportionately used by whites,” the court said, while the voter ID restrictions enacted “target African Americans with almost surgical precision.”
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump holds a rally in Phoenix. Trump has claimed fraudulent voters will be able to cast multiple ballots unless states enact voter ID laws, predicting that the Nov. 8 election will be “rigged.” Photo by Roman Knertser of News21.
State Sen. Ron Rabin, who helped push the voter ID bill through the North Carolina Senate, said the law wasn’t intended to discriminate. “I don’t want to disenfranchise anybody,” he said. “I want to have them enfranchised so that one vote, one person. That’s the whole thought behind that whole bill.”
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has said that he was “afraid the election was going to be rigged” without ID laws. “There’s a lot of dirty pool played at the election,” he said in an interview with The Washington Post. “If you don’t have voter ID, you can just keep voting and voting and voting.”
To vote repeatedly in person on Election Day — the kind of fraud that Trump talked about — someone would have to steal another voter’s ballot. Minnite, the Rutgers professor, says that’s as difficult as “pickpocketing a cop.”
Kim Franzen registers to vote at a farmers market in downtown Phoenix. Franzen said she supports Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Photo by Courtney Columbus of News21.
A voter would need to know names, addresses and other identifying information about whoever they were impersonating, she said. Then he or she would have to show up to the polling place and pretend to be that other person in front of the same elections officials who had likely seen the person vote in his or her own name. Beyond that, fraudulent voters would have to hope that nobody in the polling place knew the people they were impersonating.
Given that America’s turnout rates are so comparatively low, the idea of widespread voter fraud just doesn’t make sense, said David Schultz, professor of public policy at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota. “There’s this image that somehow, people are clamoring to go to the polls on Election Day to commit fraud,” he said. “Look at our voting statistics. It just doesn’t bear out.”
But there is some fraud
In Arizona, 13 cases were prosecuted for double voting. One of those was Mesa resident Regina Beaupre, who was convicted in 2015 after voting in Michigan and Arizona. She was 71 years old.
Jose Barboza, a Promise Arizona volunteer, registers voters in Phoenix. Thirteen cases of double voting were prosecuted in the state since 2012. But a News21 review of alleged voter fraud in key states since 2012 found no cases of voter impersonation, the type of fraud that voter ID is designed to combat. Photo by Courtney Columbus of News21.
Carol Hannah was similarly caught for voting in Arizona and Colorado. She argued in court that both cases involved local races and did not constitute double voting, because no candidates appeared on both ballots. An appeals court agreed and threw out the 2015 conviction. Neither of these cases would have been prevented with voter ID.
In 2014, Verna Roehm, a 77-year-old from Waxhaw, North Carolina, pleaded guilty to voting twice. Roehm voted once at the polls and a second time with an absentee ballot in the name of her dead husband. She told prosecutors she had fulfilled her husband’s dying wish to cast his ballot for Mitt Romney in November 2012.
Since only one of Roehm’s ballots was cast in person, her crime also would not have been prevented with voter ID.
Hillary Davis and Andrew Clark contributed to this report. This report is part of a project on voting rights in America produced by the Carnegie-Knight News21 program. The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism distributed and contributed to this report.
The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, other news media and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.
Article Continues - Pages: 1 2
Voting Wars
-
Millennials Could Decide The Elections
Oct 26th, 2016 by Elizabeth Campbell, Natalie Griffin and Amber Reece
-
Why Felons Can’t Vote
Oct 19th, 2016 by Kate Peifer and Rose Velazquez
-
White Working-Class Voters Turning to Trump?
Sep 25th, 2016 by Emily Mills, Jimmy Miller and Lian Bunny
All it takes is one person whose vote is canceled by someone not voting legally and that’s a problem,” he said. “I always tell folks who oppose (the ID law), tell me whose vote they want canceled out.”
What the Governor means here by the one person whose vote is cancelled out by a fraudulent vote is one affluent white person voting Republican. He clearly has no problem with the elimination of poor minority voters who have no car, cannot go through the difficult process of getting a voting ID–it took me almost 3 hours, although I had time to spare and two college degrees, which many of the working poor do not–and who usually vote Democratic (No, Republicans, it’s not the “Democrat Party,” the word “democrat” is a noun, which cannot properly modify another noun; the correct name is The Democratic Party).
Governor just be honest. You want to keep those who are negatively impacted by your tax cuts from voting.
Voter ID is so important to Democracy because if indeed voter fraud is carried out successfully it would be entirely undetectable. Every single voter’s vote should count. Voter fraud is the REAL disenfranchisement.
Not true WashCoRepub as there is no voter fraud problem. The real threat is a political party working diligently to prevent groups of people who generally don’t support it from voting. Please read this. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/inside-the-republican-creation-of-the-north-carolina-voting-bill-dubbed-the-monster-law/2016/09/01/79162398-6adf-11e6-8225-fbb8a6fc65bc_story.html
I’d like to point out this part: “A review of these documents shows that North Carolina GOP leaders launched a meticulous and coordinated effort to deter black voters, who overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. The law, created and passed entirely by white legislators, evoked the state’s ugly history of blocking African Americans from voting — practices that had taken a civil rights movement and extensive federal intervention to stop.”
That is the real threat.
Voter impersonation is detectable two different ways:
1. When the targeted voter (the person whose identity was illegally used) later shows up to vote and is told “You already voted”.
2. When the poll worker personally knows the targeted voter.
When, back in 2012, an undercover right-wing film crew tried to prove that voter impersonation was easy in New Hampshire, they were actually caught because a poll worker knew the targeted voter.
If Voter ID’s goal were truly preventing impersonation, it would accept other government photo IDs (like student IDs and out-of-state licenses or IDs for students).
If the goal were preventing non-Wisconsinites from voting (the only possible excuse for not accepting out-of-state IDs for state college students), then why accept US passports (which never show state of residence)?
If the goal were limiting the vote to US Citizens, why accept Wisconsin drivers licenses? Wisconsin issues drivers licenses and non-driver IDs to certain non-citizens.
Here is GOP admission that there is no voter fraud problem:
* Republican insiders discussed ginning up concerns over voter fraud in the days after then-Supreme Court Justice David Prosser narrowly defeated challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg in April 2011.
“Do we need to start messaging ‘widespread reports of election fraud’ so we are positively set up for the recount regardless of the final number? I obviously think we should,” wrote Steve Baas, a senior vice president with the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, to a group of conservative operatives on April 6, 2011, a day after the Prosser-Kloppenburg contest.
“Yes. Anything fishy should be highlighted,” wrote former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, a Republican. “Stories should be solicited by talk show hosts.” http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/investigations/daniel-bice/2016/09/15/gop-operatives-discussed-ginning-up-voter-fraud-reports/90379224/
speak of the devil: http://urbanmilwaukee.com/pressrelease/documents-from-political-corruption-investigation-reveal-gov-walkers-allies-intentionally-made-baseless-claims-of-voter-fraud-to-question-election-results/
We already talked about how the Republicans use the voter fraud issue to their advantage… but lets not muddle issues, they weren’t saying to create phantom voter fraud issues they were discussing using anything that appeared “fishy” to their advantage.
I don’t like it either way, and find the politics of today as extremely dirty and divisive, but you can’t start saying incorrect statements about the republicans saying voter fraud doesnt’ exist.
AG, Vincent’s statement is correct. There is a difference between saying voter fraud is not a problem and saying that voter fraud doesn’t exist.
It’s well known that voter fraud isn’t a problem. It’s not as well known whether republican operatives trying to say that it’s a problem are aware that it isn’t. That is, it’s not as well known whether they are just ignorant misinformed, or whether they are deliberately lying.
What Vincent cited (and i then added) shows pretty clearly that the latter is the case – that the deception was informed and deliberate.
This is an accurate statement.
…indeed, it wasn’t just informed and deliberate, it was down right methodical.
“Do we need to start messaging ‘widespread reports of election fraud’ so we are positively set up for the recount regardless of the final number? I obviously think we should.”
You can’t just focus on Jensen’s reply. That’s disingenuous. The above was said knowing full well it wasn’t true. There’s only one way to interpret that. Arguing otherwise is ridiculous and obtuse.
Great example of potential voter registration fraud uncovered in Indiana:
http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2016/09/15/state-police-investigating-voter-registration-fraud/90407438/
My favorite part is the Democratic PR flack just repeating her single talking point over and over again.
Ah yes classic WashCoRepub myopia. Any comments about this state?
WashCoRepub, we’re talking about in-person fraud in Wisconsin. And nobody is disputing that it can happen.
And we’re talking about whether it’s a real problem in wisconsin or whether the prebulican talking points are overblown.
And then if this is deliberate or not.
Not really up for debate anymore, though. the evidence is pretty damning.
I’d be shocked if he even replies. He never does. Just posts some partisan hackery and moves on.
The issue is Indiana is one of the types of fraud that voter ID is intended to prevent. If an ID is required, the people who’s info was used to fraudulently fill out voter registrations wouldn’t have to worry about someone showing up pretending to be them on voting day.
Remember ACORN? They registered many false registrations in Milwaukee in 2008. Voter ID will stop those false registrations from being able to be used because no one will have an ID that matches the made up registration.
Again, just because voter fraud is used for political advantage, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. The left is also using this to take political advantage of the situation on the flip side. Both are despicable to me. Either denounce both sides or own up to your hypocrisy.
“The issue is Indiana is one of the types of fraud that voter ID is intended to prevent. If an ID is required, the people who’s info was used to fraudulently fill out voter registrations wouldn’t have to worry about someone showing up pretending to be them on voting day.”
Why are you telling us this? Do you think we don’t know how registration and voting works?
“Again, just because voter fraud is used for political advantage, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
NOBODY IS ARGUING THAT IT DOESN’T EXIST.
“The left is also using this to take political advantage of the situation on the flip side.”
No. “The left” is trying to make it so that everyone who has a right to vote gets to vote, and that no rules are in place that systematically bias the outcome in favor of a party or candidate by suppressing votes.
There is nothing at all despicable about that. What’s despicable is that “the right” isn’t done the same.
Is it really a matter of sides though? ACORN doesn’t exist anymore and it happened eight years ago. A lot has changed since then. What is happening today is entirely different. One political party is working diligently to make it exceedingly more difficult to vote for groups of people who typically vote for the other party at a time when the former party is facing an increasingly challenging (diverse) electorate. What happened in North Carolina is concrete proof of that.
HappyJack, when you say “NOBODY IS ARGUING THAT IT DOESN’T EXIST” did you happen to read the title of the article? Really though, there are a lot of people arguing that voter fraud doesn’t exist.
Vincent, I think we have covered this topic between you and I quite extensively and I’ve mentioned that I largely favor voter ID laws but oppose specific portions of WI’s law. That being said, the only reason I feel compelled to respond here is because there’s an awful lot of one sided views going on and a lot of ignoring half the equation.
The sides just are not equal here. I’d give your viewpoint more weight if there was an actual voter fraud problem, but since there isn’t, efforts to suppress the vote are far more disconcerting (not to mention far more insidious and prevalent).
I think you misunderstand. Voting fraud is practically non-existent. That is completely different than not existing at all.
You need to avoid the temptation to think of things in black-and-white.
I submit to you both that the voter ID law is only an issue for a very limited number of people. This issue does exist, but it is not a significant problem in Wisconsin.
I understand you feel that way, but the data says otherwise.
Please cite such data to which you are referring.
I kind of presumed you were aware of it is, since you were making the claim.
You made the claim by saying “The data says otherwise.” If this data exists, I’d love to hear it. I am open to being convinced that this is a bigger problem than I currently believe it to be. I have only seen a few anecdotal issues with getting ID’s and in each of those cases the solution was not insurmountable.
So please, if you have some data on large groups of people who can’t vote or have an unreasonable burden to get an ID, please show me.
comment awaiting approval, basically i have a hard time believing this is the first time you’ve heard of it. try googling for a few seconds.
The only claims I’ve seen is the 300k number which kept getting tossed around by the media and creating a false impression of the situation. That number was never meant to be the number of people who couldn’t vote.. that was merely the difference between registered voters and voters who didn’t have a WI DL or ID. The number later turned out to be around 100k less… but more importantly, it didn’t include people with passports, military ID’s, veteran ID’s, tribal ID’s, valid student ID’s, etc.
Not only that, but as of this year ALL Wisconsin public schools will issue valid student ID’s and all the biggest private schools will as well. In addition, in the first 11 months of the “free voter ID” program enacted by the state, Wisconsin gave out over 80k free ID’s. That was just back when the law was first enacted… imagine how many were given out now? Finally, of those who don’t have an ID… what’s the percent that really come up against major obstacles? I have no data for that.
So you can see, I don’t really have any solid data on the actual numbers of people who have issues. Judging by the few, and not very difficult cases, that the democrats brought forth, I’m assuming they are few and far between. But I eagerly await your comment that is awaiting approval. Hopefully it can shed more light on the issue.
Brennan Center for Justice, Research on Voter ID:
http://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/research-and-publications-voter-id
complementsThe Google
And by the way you made the claim by stating
“I submit to you both that the voter ID law is only an issue for a very limited number of people. This issue does exist, but it is not a significant problem in Wisconsin.”
The burden of proof is on you.
Was the voter ID law in Wisconsin written by ALEC? Did they create model legislation for states to use when it comes to voter ID?
i just google “alec voter id wisconsin”, and got this for my first result: http://www.politicususa.com/2016/07/21/federal-courts-strike-texas-wisconsin-vote-suppression-laws.html
from the article: “First, a federal judge in Milwaukee blocked an ALEC-created law that requires voters to present a photo identification card before they can participate in the democratic process this November. ”
lots more mentions throughout.
Thanks Jack. That’s what I suspected. In reference to the new John Doe info, someone said “Biggest reveal of John Doe is extreme level of right-wing coordination: WI GOP, talk radio, ALEC, WMC, donors, etc.”