Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Re-emphasis: Voter Fraud Issue Benefits GOP Also Big Bogus Issue

A National Movement is Sorely Needed for 2016 and Beyond

How to Stop the Wild Elephants


This topic needs a refocus to wake up the voting community before we  have a repeat of either 2010 or 2014... now is the time to act. Therefore, I offer this review and two excellent sources.

1.  Here from excellent source that tracks this issue — The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU.

2.  Here from one of the best in the business — Bill Moyers.com.

A couple of highlights vis-รก-vis the concept of voter fraud and more strict rules are needed:
  • Fraud by individual voters is both irrational and extremely rare.
  • Many vivid anecdotes of purported voter fraud have been proven false or do not demonstrate fraud.
  • Voter fraud is often conflated with other forms of election misconduct.
  • Raising the unsubstantiated specter of mass voter fraud suits a particular policy agenda.

When there has been election fraud in American elections, it has usually been committed by politicians, party operatives and election officials who have something at stake in electoral outcome. 

Voters rarely commit fraud because for them, it is a motiveless crime, the individual benefits to the fraudulent voter are immaterial, while the costs are prohibitive.

The most important illustration of outright corruption of elections is the century-long success of white supremacists in the American South stripping African-Americans of their right to vote. Elites and party bosses in the urban North followed the Southern example, using some of the same tricks to manipulate electoral outcomes and to disfranchise immigrants and the poor.



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