[EL] More on the Voter Impersonation Fraud Case in Fort Worth

[Lori Minnite]

There was a case like this in New Hampshire during the 2004 Republican 
primary in New Hampshire.  I write it about in my book, _The Myth of 
Voter Fraud_ (p. 67).  It is the only other case of voter impersonation 
that I know of:

"The scene is Londonderry High School, January 27, 2004; the legendary 
New Hampshire presidential primary is underway. [Mark] Lacasse, a 
seventeen-year-old honors student accompanied his teacher and classmates 
to the polling site located in his school to observe the voting process. 
The civic-minded teacher encouraged students to vote if they were 
eighteen years old. Lacasse took at least some of that advice to heart. 
He later lied to poll workers about his identity, claiming to be his 
father (who has the same name), so that he could vote his father's 
ballot. The father was away on business, and the son knew the father 
wanted to vote for George W. Bush (who was running unopposed). A teacher 
overheard the underage Lacasse admit to friends that he voted, saying he 
had "subbed" for his father. Lacasse's illegal voting was discovered 
after the teacher turned him in to an elections moderator. To avoid a 
felony charge, Lacasse agreed to serve eight hours of community service 
and make a speech to his class about voting."

It's not clear that a photo ID would have prevented the illegal vote in 
either the Lacasse or the James case in Forth Worth.  It depends on 
whether the Sr./Jr. suffix is included on the voter rolls and on the ID, 
and whether poll workers are paying that much attention.

Working at universities and with underage young people who want to drink 
alcohol and go to bars, I remain puzzled why people have so much faith 
that identity cards are authentic, and especially, that poll workers are 
expert - the way we might hope Homeland Security personnel are - in 
verifying identity based on the presentation of an ID card, or in 
spotting fakes.   However, I don't agree with Rick about moving to thumb 
prints or other biometric forms of identification.  I'm also surprised 
by the support all this ID'ing of the population seems to have among Tea 
Party libertarians.

Lori Minnite
>
>
>
>     <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=33751>
>
> Posted on May 2, 2012 12:44 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=33751> 
> by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>
> Yesterday I had a blog post, Allegation of Actual Impersonation Voter 
> Fraud Attempt in Texas...and An Illustration of Why Such Fraud is Rare 
> and Stupid <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=33661>, which linked to a 
> Fort Worth Star Telegram 
> <http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/04/30/3924376/democratic-precinct-chairwoman.html> 
> story.
>
> I wanted to get more information about the case, given how extremely 
> rare voter impersonation fraud is.  The Tarrant County prosecutor's 
> office was kind enough to share a copy of the indictment 
> <http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/Hazel-Woodard-Indictment.pdf>, 
> It is pretty general, so I spoke by phone with the prosecutor in 
> charge of the case, David Lobingier.
>
> Mr Lobingier told me that the allegation is that the mother took her 
> minor son, a teenager, to the polling place to vote on election day. 
> She took the father's voting card.  The son showed the father's card 
> and signed in using his father's name. (The son has the same name, but 
> is a Jr., and he did not sign the junior.) He was then sent over to 
> vote on the electronic voting machine. Later in the day, the father 
> showed up to vote and poll workers said he had already voted, leading 
> to the investigation and prosecution. The father did not know that the 
> son had been sent to vote.
>
> I asked about the motivation for the mother's alleged actions.  Mr. 
> Lobingier said that the actions seemed "kind of stupid" and he could 
> not recall any other case like it.  He said that his "surmise" was 
> that the mother thought the father would be unable to vote that day, 
> and so brought the son, but it was not clear why she was interested in 
> having him vote in this election. (The mother is running as a 
> Democratic precinct chair, but was not running in this election.)
>
> Mr. Lobingier said that he believes the defense is going to claim that 
> the allegations are not true, and that the mother is claiming some 
> kind of long-running dispute with someone at the precinct.
>
> If the facts are proven as alleged, this looks like it could be one of 
> those extremely rare cases in which a photo identification actually 
> would have made a difference in preventing the casting of a fraudulent 
> ballot, and for this reason I expect it to gain canonical status among 
> those clamoring for voter id. It will also feature prominently in 
> Texas's defense of its voter id law before the three judge court in 
> the Voting Rights Act challenge. (See AG Abbott's tweets 
> <https://twitter.com/#%21/GregAbbott_TX/status/197343271733821442> 
> from yesterday 
> <https://twitter.com/#%21/GregAbbott_TX/status/197342722007367680>.)
>
> For reasons explained in my last post 
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=33661>, however, the very stupidity of 
> this action (if proven) and the fact that this kind of ham-handed 
> fraud was so easily caught shows why this kind of fraud is so rare and 
> why state voter id laws are generally unnecessary. Can you imagine 
> actually trying to throw an election like this (instead of like this 
> <http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20120501/NEWS02/305010088/Austin-mayor-sanitation-chief-arrested-on-voter-fraud-charges?odyssey=tab%7Cmostpopular%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE>?)  
> (For the record, and as explained in The Voting Wars, 
> <http://amzn.to/y22ZTv> I do support a national voter id, along with 
> an optional thumb print---you can't lose a thumb---combined with 
> automatic voter registration of all eligible voters conducted by the 
> national government.)
>
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