A reader recently stated that “in America voter fraud has proven almost non-existent.”
While Americans may be too distracted scrolling through their Twitter account, the evidence is there.
In a small sampling of the last two election cycles, there have been over a thousand criminal convictions related to voter fraud with more uncovered every day.
For instance, The Washington Times in an article dated May 21, 2020, reported on a Philadelphia Elections Judge and Democratic Party official that pleaded guilty to ballot stuffing in favor of Democratic candidates in elections in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
Perception matters. “My vote doesn’t count” has been a commonly heard phrase for 20 years, with excuses ranging from beef with the electoral college to lamenting the power lobbyists and wealthy donors have in shaping national candidates. Adding in a new brand of reckless voting policies while Americans are so fearful and contentious, does not seem wise.
All politics is local. The reader is right, representatives on both sides spend too much time fooling around with redistricting and rule changes instead of doing the job they were called to do. It is local county officials that are in charge of allocating voting machines, determining the amount of polling sites, managing them on Election Day and maintaining the integrity of the process. The rest of the time they are supposed to be maintaining accurate voter rolls. They should be held accountable for their failures.
In 2012, 24 million registrations were found to be no longer valid or “significantly inaccurate,” 2.75 million people were registered in two or more states, and 1.8 million registered voters were actually dead (Pew Research Center). By 2018, the number of lost, dead or unaccounted for ballots doubled to 10 million. Public Interest legal Foundation (PILF) did a spotlight article on the topic last summer and found that 244 Counties across 28 states have more registered voters than residents.
A closer look shows that the most highly contested areas that have been accused of nefarious dealings have occurred in states run by Democrats for decades, and in some cases close to a century: Georgia, California, Illinois, Delaware, Michigan and, yes, New York.
The reader also disputed the President’s claim that “Absentee Ballots favor Democrats.” To be fair, Absentee Ballots are granted to citizens who apply by a specific date indicating the specific reason they are unable to vote in person on any given Election Day. Absentee Ballots are commonly used by U.S. soldiers serving overseas and those parties who knowingly will be out-of-state, or otherwise incapacitated on November 3rd of a given year.
The more recent plea from the Democratic National Committee for a “Mail-In Ballot” would allow any person to vote by mail for any reason whatsoever. It is worth noting that while Absentee Ballots may weigh-in about even, recent experiments with Mail-In Ballots heavily favor the Democratic Party thus far.
Advocates are using COVID-19 to insist on Mail-In Ballots for all, but doing so creates a path to a permanent way of voting. Perhaps we shouldn’t be so haisty. The Las Vegas Review Journal dated May 19, 2020, reported that the Clark County decision to send ballots to inactive voters resulted in 200,000 ballots being mailed to the wrong address. And that’s just one county of the 3007 that exists in the US.
The American people already feel disenfranchised. The answer is not less confidence, it is more confidence. It benefits all Americans to preserve the sanctity of our voting process. In-person signature verification guarantees that every vote matters. Free and fair elections protects us from tyranny. Mark your calendar for November 3rd and proudly show up to cast your vote.
Jaye Levitsky
Warwick