[EL] South Carolina report

[Justin Levitt]

In January of 2012, I mentioned this inquiry 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=27864>.  I said that the AG was right to 
ask for an investigation, and that I hoped that he published not only 
the full results, but also the methodology -- in part, because I 
suspected that, as in the past, clerical error or bad matching patterns 
would explain the vast majority of the irregularities. (It would be nice 
to reduce the clerical errors ... but that requires a policy response 
quite different from combating potential fraud.)

Kudos to the Columbia Free Times for seeking access to the report via a 
public records request, to keep the public informed.  The executive 
summary (or, at least, eight introductory pages of a report described as 
over 500 pages in length) is here 
<http://issuu.com/free_times/docs/pages_from_sled_voter_report-1>.

-- 
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

On 7/6/2013 12:41 PM, Rick Hasen wrote:
>
>
>     "Report: no widespread fraud found in SC elections"
>     <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52632>
>
> Posted on July 6, 2013 12:27 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=52632> 
> by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>
> AP 
> <http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SC_VOTER_ID_SCOL-?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT>:
>
>     No one intentionally cast a ballot in South Carolina using the
>     names of dead people in recent elections, despite allegations to
>     the contrary, according to a State Law Enforcement Division report
>     obtained Friday by The Associated Press.
>
>     Attorney General Alan Wilson asked the agency to investigate last
>     year after the Department of Motor Vehicles determined in early
>     2012 that more than 900 people listed as deceased also had voted
>     in recent years.
>
>     Wilson referred the information to state police, saying that the
>     number of people cited in the analysis "is an alarming number and
>     clearly necessitates an investigation into criminal activity."
>
>     State Election Commission director Marci Andino had her staff take
>     a look at questionable votes from the November 2010 general
>     election, or about 200 of the more than 900 votes total --
>     information that was also ultimately analyzed by the law
>     enforcement division. Nearly half of the issues could be
>     attributed to clerical errors, while several dozen resulted from
>     DMV officials running Social Security numbers of voters against
>     dead people but not seeing if the names matched.
>
>     Several other issues arose from ballots cast by men with the same
>     names as their deceased fathers.
>
> If only reports like this got as much attention as the original 
> (usually unfounded) allegations of widespread fraud.
>
> Posted in election administration 
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, fraudulent fraud squad 
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>, The Voting Wars 
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60> | Comments Off
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20130706/35c360ec/attachment.html>