[EL] in-person voter fraud Washington 2004 follow up
Justin Levitt
levittj at lls.edu
Sun Jul 31 10:58:14 PDT 2011
I'd also be interested in the answer to Rick's question.
I spent the 2007 winter holiday (sigh) looking at every single
allegation of fraud
<http://www.brennancenter.org/page/-/Democracy/Analysis%20of%20Crawford%20Allegations.pdf>
cited in the /Crawford/ briefs to the Supreme Court. In all of the
spilled ink -- covering a time period spanning 400 million votes in
general elections alone -- I found a total of ten cases where attempts
at impersonation fraud were even /alleged/. One attempt was
definitively thwarted. One involved fraud by a pollworker (tough to
stop no matter what kind of ID is legally required) and another involved
a fraudulent photo ID (again, requiring ID doesn't stop the fake ID).
The other seven -- including the single Washington vote Rick mentions --
were unresolved allegations that might have been real cases, or might
have been clerical error. And I've never heard of any further
investigation of those seven, one way or another. But I'd welcome any
follow-up.
I discussed the Stevens footnote -- and a few other commitments to
truthiness rather than truth -- here
<http://www.brennancenter.org/blog/archives/just_the_facts/>. And
reports on the case that perpetuated the truthiness, here
<http://www.brennancenter.org/blog/archives/crawford_just_the_facts_ii/>.
Justin
On 7/31/2011 10:37 AM, Rick Hasen wrote:
> In /Crawford v. Marion County/, Justice Stevens plurality opinion
> contains this in a portion of a footnote:
>
> While the brief indicates that the record evidence of in-person
> fraud was overstated because much of the fraud was actually
> absentee ballot fraud or voter registration fraud, there remain
> scattered instances of in-person voter fraud. For example, after a
> hotly contested gubernatorial election in 2004, Washington
> conducted an investigation of voter fraud and uncovered 19 "ghost
> voters." Borders v. King Cty., No. 05--2--00027--3 (Super. Ct.
> Chelan Cty., Wash., June 6, 2005) (verbatim report of unpublished
> oral decision), 4 Election L. J. 418, 423 (2005). After a partial
> investigation of the ghost voting, one voter was confirmed to have
> committed in-person voting fraud. Le & Nicolosi, Dead Voted in
> Governor's Race, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Jan. 7, 2005, p. A1.
>
> Putting aside that the brief cites only a single instance of possible
> in-person voter fraud (hardly massive), the evidence for this appears
> to be a single sentence in the Le & Nicolosi article
> <http://www.seattlepi.com/default/article/Dead-voted-in-governor-s-race-1163612.php#page-1>:
>
> The P-I review found eight people who died weeks before absentee
> ballots were mailed out, between Oct. 13 and 15, but were credited
> with voting in King County. Among them was an 81-year-old Seattle
> woman who died in August but is recorded as having voted at the polls.
>
>
> Did anyone ever follow up to see what happened with this 81-year old
> woman? Many of these cases turn out to be someone signing on the
> wrong line. Did anyone ever track down the poll book to see if
> someone signed the woman's name?
>
> Thanks for any leads.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Rick Hasen
> Professor of Law and Political Science
> UC Irvine School of Law
> 401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
> Irvine, CA 92697-8000
> 949.824.3072 - office
> 949.824.0495 - fax
> rhasen at law.uci.edu
> http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
> http://electionlawblog.org
>
>
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--
Justin Levitt
Associate Professor of Law
Loyola Law School | Los Angeles
919 Albany St.
Los Angeles, CA 90015
213-736-7417
justin.levitt at lls.edu
ssrn.com/author=698321
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