A little East Coast voter fraud for balance
In Florida's 13th Congressional race in 2006 Democrat Christine Jennings lost by fewer than 400 votes to Republican Vern Buchanan. read about it at wired
In Florida's 13th Congressional race in 2006 Democrat Christine Jennings lost by fewer than 400 votes to Republican Vern Buchanan. read about it at wired
2 comments:
Interesting article. Hardly qualifies as "fraud" though.
--In 5-Year Effort, Scant Evidence of Voter Fraud
Although Republican activists have repeatedly said fraud is so widespread that it has corrupted the political process and, possibly, cost the party election victories, about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year.
Most of those charged have been Democrats, voting records show. Many of those charged by the Justice Department appear to have mistakenly filled out registration forms or misunderstood eligibility rules, a review of court records and interviews with prosecutors and defense lawyers show.
In Miami, an assistant United States attorney said many cases there involved what were apparently mistakes by immigrants, not fraud.
In Wisconsin, where prosecutors have lost almost twice as many cases as they won, charges were brought against voters who filled out more than one registration form and felons seemingly unaware that they were barred from voting.
One ex-convict was so unfamiliar with the rules that he provided his prison-issued identification card, stamped “Offender,” when he registered just before voting.
A handful of convictions involved people who voted twice. More than 30 were linked to small vote-buying schemes in which candidates generally in sheriff’s or judge’s races paid voters for their support.
Richard L. Hasen, an expert in election law at the Loyola Law School, agreed, saying: Richard L. Hasen, an expert in election law at the Loyola Law School, agreed, saying: If they found a single case of a conspiracy to affect the outcome of a Congressional election or a statewide election, that would be significant. But what we see is isolated, small-scale activities that often have not shown any kind of criminal intent.”--
NY Times link
In other words - voter fraud is basically NON-EXISTENT.
On the other hand - off the top of my head - 2 people have been convicted in Ohio for election fraud (repressing the vote, interfering with the recount), Republicans in New Hampshire were convicted of jamming phone lines in the Democratics get-out-the-vote work - and there are more I can't think of right now. These have a much greater effect on the results.
And let's not forget the stories of people being told their polling places had changed when they hadn't (Repubicans), people being threatened with arrest if they showed up to vote (Virginia Republicans) and countless other methods of repression of the vote (can you spell O-H-I-O?), among them: not enough working machines in ONLY Democratic precincts. And of course their are the Diebold voting machines with no verifiable paper trail. Republicans steal elections so much better than Democrats ever did. ;-)
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