[EL] Vote fraud -- evidence vs. belief

Sat Jul 21 05:16:03 PDT 2012

I tend to land close to this position. I grew up in Chicago where there is
a willful sense about the appropriateness of corruption in the city of all
sorts. And it is a place with regular convictions for voter fraud,
especially in primaries. The most interesting and most spectacular case in
recent years was the East Chicago democratic mayoral primary in 2003 which
was thrown out by the court and there were 32 convictions

http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/article_53431e5c-3877-597b-b9af-cfc07cc42a24.html

The interesting thing about this case is that with 32 convictions and a
court record that got all the way to a state court overturning, we actually
learned a lot about how low-level party operatives feel about corruption. I
suspect that Bopp, living pretty near to there in Terre Haute has reviewed
this and could pull a list of best hits.

Arthur Davis' statements about election fraud also have a basis in reality.
How many convictions do we get every year in Alabama? 10? 15? And so many
of them seem to be election officials who do it as a matter of course. And
it is reasonable to assume that convictions don't capture all of the crime
out there.  There is a pretty similar record in Memphis where at least one
of former Rep. Harold Ford's aunts or uncles did time for election fraud.

I also know that in 2008, when my wife was an election monitor organized
through the McCain campaign, every polling place she visited had basic
violations of election law like election workers wearing stickers, signs
inside the polling places, etc. basic contempt for voting laws are endemic.
That matches my experience poll watching. In Philly in 2004, the polling
place I was watching was in the basement of the home of the local
democratic precinct caption. His wife was the republican election judge. A
Kerry sign was in the door to the entrance into the polling room.  When I
raised it as an issue, I was told that if I didn't shut up about it, my
arms would be broken by a poll watcher with the ironworkers union. When I
called the local police, they pointed out that about 10 poll workers from
various unions would deny it, so there wouldn't be much point pursuing it.
 I was also told that I would only be "allowed" to speak to people who they
identified as "not theirs," mostly pro-life Catholics in this lower-middle
class Irish neighborhood. Note that all of these conversations took place
next to a lawyer from some group meant to protect voting rights. When I
asked him what he saw, he laughed at me and said he saw nothing.

Stepping back, it is pretty clear to an honest and informed observer that
there is a problem. The position that voter ID isn't a solution to that
problem is a reasonable position. But the position that there is no
problem, a position that I am reading all over this discussion,  seems just
as divorced from reality.

Sent from my iPad

On Jul 20, 2012, at 3:48 PM, "Scarberry, Mark" <
Mark.Scarberry at pepperdine.edu> wrote:

In response to Jim: Conservatives generally have no problem believing that
people may act foolishly for various reasons. Conservatives tend to have a
more realistic view of human nature than do some liberals. Conservatives
 may believe it is foolish for people to support liberal policies, but
conservatives generally are quite willing to believe that people do so in
large numbers. No conservative that I know has any difficulty believing
that a majority of voters in New York, for example, vote for candidates who
support liberal policies, or that President Obama received more votes than
Sen. McCain. Conservatives also think that there are a lot of people who
benefit from a large government who are likely to vote in favor of govt
expansion. Conservatives are not at all surprised, for example, that a lot
of government workers would do so. Whether or not that is a foolish
decision depends on the factors that it may be reasonable for people to
take into account in voting.

With regard to real reasons why at least some people who support voter ID
laws do so: There is a concern that fraud may occur in the future. Perhaps
it is analogous to the fear that electronic voting systems may be hacked so
as to change voting results. Even if there is no evidence that it has
occurred, there is a system vulnerability that can reasonably be considered
in deciding what action may be appropriate, in part to prevent the
vulnerability from being exploited and in part to help assure voters that
the system has integrity.

Discussions on this list have persuaded me that there is little current
voting fraud that would be prevented by voter ID laws, and that there
should be more concern about absentee voting, voting by mail, and new
Internet voting systems. I also have an innate distrust of non-transparent
systems like electronic voting and would prefer that we use paper ballots
that can be recounted manually. That does not mean that it is unreasonable
to take into account other  vulnerabilities of the system that could be
exploited in the future. Explanations about why voter ID laws are not
needed or helpful to address a potential vulnerability will be more
persuasive than data showing a lack of current fraud that would be
prevented by voter ID laws.

Mark S. Scarberry

Professor of Law

Pepperdine Univ. School of Law

*From:* law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:
law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] *On Behalf Of *Jim Gardner
*Sent:* Friday, July 20, 2012 12:08 PM
*To:* Election law list
*Subject:* [EL] Vote fraud -- evidence vs. belief

The lack of evidence to support charges of vote fraud raises a more
interesting and profound question: Why do people continue to believe in
it?  The answer, it seems to me, has nothing to do with evidence – so
arguing about the evidence is probably a waste of time – and a lot to do
with culture, specifically the culture of contemporary politics.

I think the problem here is that many on the right have managed to convince
themselves that it is impossible – literally impossible – for people in any
kind of numbers to support liberal policies.  Since people can’t possibly
support such policies, they can’t possibly vote for liberal candidates.
Consequently, if liberal candidates win, it can only be the result of fraud
because nobody could actually vote for such people.

This problem is cultural.  It reveals a very sad fact about our current
politics, namely that the views, beliefs, and experiences of other human
beings are so completely dismissed and devalued in some quarters that many
find it impossible to take seriously the possibility that their fellow
citizens could actually hold certain views (much less actually take those
views seriously or engage with them on the merits).

I hasten to add that the political valence does not always run in the same
direction.  For example, the “What’s the Matter with Kansas” analysis holds
that working class voters couldn’t possibly support candidates who support
policies that disadvantage them economically, although proponents of this
view explain it by brainwashing rather than vote fraud.  But this
explanation doesn’t take seriously the possibility that social and
symbolically resonant issues could actually be more important than economic
ones to some segments of the population.

Until we start taking each other seriously as political agents, we’re not
going to extract ourselves from the current impasse.

Jim

________________________________
James A. Gardner
Joseph W. Belluck and Laura L. Aswad
  SUNY Distinguished Professor of Civil Justice
SUNY Buffalo Law School
The State University of New York
Room 316, O'Brian Hall
Buffalo, NY 14260-1100
voice: 716-645-3607
fax: 716-645-5968
e-mail: jgard at buffalo.edu
www.law.buffalo.edu
Papers at http://ssrn.com/author=40126

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