A contentious issue in this year’s elections is the voter ID laws passed in 33 states. Seventeen of these states require that the ID presented at the polls show a photo of the voter, according to the National Council of State Legislators (NCSL).
News21 examined whether the ID voter laws that require a photo serve a legitimate need to combat voter impersonating another voter at a voting place—the one kind of voter fraud where a state-issued photo would be helpful in identification. After an exhaustive study of examining records in all 50 states and news reports, their investigation found only 10 cases of voter fraud by impersonation.
Republican legislatures and Republican governors, with the notable exception of Rhode Island, passed voter ID laws to prevent what they said was widespread voter fraud. The proponents say they are protecting the integrity of the electoral process.
The Republican National Lawyers Association says the ID laws are needed and compiled over 300 examples of alleged voter fraud in 46 states, but says its list is not meant to be comprehensive. These cases are listed by state at the RNLA website.
The opponents of the photo ID requirement say there is at most a minuscule amount of voter fraud that does not warrant disenfranchising thousands of voters.
Democrats say the motive behind these laws is voter suppression. The state laws vary on requirements, but generally speaking, the voters most likely not to have a correct photo ID, such as a driver’s license, tend to be the poor, minorities, and the elderly, who tend to vote Democratic.
A voter who lacks a driver’s license can often obtain an ID issued by the state without cost, but the individual will have to provide documentation, such as a birth certificate. The would-be voter may then incur costs that are a financial hardship, and/or encounter difficulties in accessing state offices.
At most, supporters and opponents have done state surveys and collected news reports to provide anecdotal evidence of the extent of fraud, but no one had undertaken a comprehensive investigation until News21.
News21 is a program of the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation begun in 2005 to “train a new generation of journalists capable of reshaping the news industry,” according to its website. Two dozen top student journalists from 11 universities investigated the impact on American voters of recent changes in election laws and voting procedures in the 50 states.
Compiling the Universe of Voter Fraud
To determine the extent of voter fraud, News21 conducted an exhaustive investigation. A team of reporters collected, compiled, and analyzed all reported cases of election fraud in the United States since 2000.
When the team contacted each state elections office, they were often told that its office doesn’t track voter fraud and to contact the state attorney general. The latter often directed the team to contact every county district attorney.
“News21 emailed, faxed, or phoned every county district attorney office in every state that indicated that was necessary, a total of more than 1,000 such contacts,” News21 says.
This is a remarkable achievement. This study is not merely a survey, but with a few exceptions, comprises the entire universe of voter fraud cases since 2000. It was a massive undertaking. The team of reporters spent seven months compiling 2,068 cases, as of the release of its report on Aug. 12. It sent out more than 2,000 public-records requests and reviewed nearly 5,000 court documents, official records, and media reports.
News21 acknowledges that its database is incomplete. Some states, such as Massachusetts, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and South Dakota, did not provide useful responses. Some local jurisdictions did not respond. Sometimes responses were missing important details of cases. But News 21 claims its database is “substantially complete and is the largest such collection of election fraud cases gathered by anyone in the United States.”
Findings
In-person voter-impersonation fraud is rare, says the report—only 10 since the year 2000. The database shows such cases in New Hampshire, Alabama, California, Colorado, Kansas, and Texas. “All were isolated and showed no coordinated efforts to change election results,” report says.
Fraud in absentee ballots and voter registration leads all other categories of voter fraud. The database found 491 cases of absentee ballot fraud and 400 cases of registration fraud. These cases would not have been prevented with requiring photo ID at the polls.
“Felons or noncitizens sometimes register to vote or cast votes because they are confused about their eligibility,” says the report. The analysis determined 74 cases of felons voting (who were not eligible) and 56 cases of noncitizens voting.
“Voters make a lot of mistakes, from accidentally voting twice to voting in the wrong precinct,” the report concludes. Election officials often make mistakes, for example, election workers confused about voter eligibility requirements.
News21 examined the Republican National Lawyers Association cases, which were added to its database, and found only 77 were alleged fraud by voters. Of those, the database shows no RNLA cases of voter-impersonation fraud, says News21. When I accessed the RNLA site for this article I found four cases of voter impersonation in Oregon, Pennsylvania(2), and Washington.
Pennsylvania
Judge Robert Simpson of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ruled on Aug. 15 that he would not grant an injunction to block Pennsylvania’s law requiring voters show a valid photo ID from taking effect this November. Republicans had pushed the law that Democrats strongly opposed.
The law gained notoriety when Republican state House Majority Leader, Mike Turzai, said at a meeting with fellow Republicans, “Voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania—done.”
Many interpreted Turzai’s statement as proving that the aim of the new law was not the integrity of elections, but making it harder for Democrats to vote.
Judge Simpson writes that Turzai’s statement was “disturbing,” “tendentious,” and “boastful.” However, he wrote that the justifications for the law should not be cast aside because of partisan interests that may have provided motivation for passing the law.
Based on the testimony of several state officials, Judge Simpson concluded that any qualified elector need not be disenfranchised. He wrote that the law that all voters present a photo ID that can be obtained free “did not expressly disenfranchise or burden any qualified elector.” He did not consider the photo ID requirement imposed a severe burden on the overwhelming number of registered voters.
Simpson rejected the argument that voter fraud is “illusory” because significant evidence of fraud is lacking. The state had not presented any evidence to the court. But Simpson believes that state legislatures possess the authority to regulate elections and can “take prophylactic action to respond to potential electoral problems.”
The ACLU of Pennsylvania filed an appeal with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Aug. 16, it announced on its website.
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