Monday, August 8, 2016

Voting fraud

This seems like an important example:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438754/james-okeefe-voter-fraud-videos-prove-voter-ID-laws-needed

Dickerson, the anti-voter ID columnist for the Detroit Free Press, ignored the O'Keefe videos that showed the filmmaker being offered ballots. O'Keefe's investigation, Dickerson said, was nothing more than a "social-media circus." He concluded that "although [O'Keefe] and others have been advocating for tougher voter-I.D. laws for years on the grounds that fraud is rampant, none has identified a single instance in which a U.S. election turned on counterfeit votes." But there certainly are examples of elections being overturned for reasons of fraud, including mayoral elections in Miami and East Chicago, Ind.

We've also seen clear evidence of fraud in more important races. In 2008, illegal felon voters appear to have swung the outcome of the critical 2008 Minnesota Senate election. The day after the election, GOP senator Norm Coleman had a 725-vote lead, but a series of recounts over the next six months reversed that result and gave Democrat Al Franken a 312-vote victory. The outcome had a significant impact because it gave Democrats the critical 60th Senate vote they needed to block GOP filibusters. Franken's vote proved crucial in the passage of Obamacare in the Senate.

After Franken was sworn in, a conservative group called Minnesota Majority looked into claims of voter fraud. Comparing criminal records with voting rolls, the group identified 1,099 felons — all ineligible to vote — who had voted in the Franken–Coleman race. Prosecutors were ultimately able to convict only those who were dumb enough to admit they had knowingly broken the law, but that added up to 177 fraudulent voters. Nine out of ten suspect felon voters contacted by a Minneapolis TV station said they had voted for Franken. Minnesota Majority also found all sorts of other irregularities that cast further doubt on the Al Franken victory results. It's noteworthy that evidence of fraud and irregularities in Minnesota had to be gathered by a private group. The fact is that prosecutions for voter fraud are rare in part because the crime is so hard to catch, the level of proof required is high, the priority in filing such cases is low, and district attorneys are reluctant to pursue cases that will anger half of the ruling political class.

-Max

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If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

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