[EL] Incidents of fraud ID is designed to stop

Wed Aug 6 12:24:06 PDT 2014

Not to beat a dead horse (literally), but ACORN's registration numbers cited below are inaccurate.  The 450,000 were NEW registrations--i.e., people who had never been registered before.  The remainder were either updates of existing registrations, or duplicates (which often happens when people aren't sure whether they're registered, or registered at their current residence).  I think it's about time we put this myth to rest.  You're entitled to your own opinions, of course, but not your own made-up facts.

Estelle H. Rogers, Esq.
Legislative Director 
Project Vote
202-546-4173, ext. 310

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On Aug 6, 2014, at 2:24 PM, BZall at aol.com wrote:

Justin knows that I respect him as a researcher and writer, but that I disagree with many of his characterizations and conclusions.

Here, for example, is a brief that I filed in the current Kobach v EAC appeal, documenting, through numerous, specific video and news reports, "specific and credible" voter registration fraud: http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/litigation/documents/Kobach105.pdf.  (I have repeatedly put up my Crawford brief dealing with voter impersonation fraud, and Justin has acknowledged the incidents I documented, so I won't do that again.)

The brief illustrates the singular difference between my analyses and Justin's: if there is an ambiguity, no matter how small, Justin would "bet" that this is the result of error, not fraud. He may be right. But defining "fraud" as only an intentional attempt to deceive the system by a person participating in an effort to change the outcome of an election -- which seems to be what Justin tends to do -- downplays the systemic effects of such things as Las Vegas unions threatening illegal immigrants with deportation unless they vote, and so on. Was it fraud for an organization to send pre-populated voter registration documents to dead dogs, as was repeatedly done? Was it fraud for an alien to register to vote -- before they received citizenship -- even if they received it afterwards? Was it fraud for an organization to intentionally register aliens to vote -- the Orange County District Attorney reported that 61% of their voter registrations were "illegal" -- even if the number who ultimately voted was not enough to sway that particular election? Was it fraud to send out millions of pre-populated voter registration forms, counting on over-worked election officials to weed out the duplicates and the false ones? "It's up to [the people who receive] them to obey all ... laws," Voter Participation Center's Page Gardner told the Washington Post. Even assuming the purest of motives doesn't make up for the fact that the actions put, in the kindest of descriptions, substantial stress on a system whose components rely on affirmations and signatures (see, e.g. InterTribal Council, upholding the EAC's decision to force states to rely solely on a signature). And to say that requiring voter ID would not weed out dogs and most illegal immigrants is, to put it mildly, odd.

None of these "specific and credible" incidents are in dispute, but Justin's characterizations make them seem as though they are negligible in effect. This is defining away the problem, rather than analyzing what the problem is and what the consequences are. There may have been billions of votes cast, and the vast, vast majority may have been legitimate, but under Purcell, the Supreme Court notes that the public perception of fraud in the system has adverse consequences which are probably much more significant than the raw numbers of those reported frauds.

Of the 1.3 million voter registration applications ACORN turned in, only 450,000 were legitimate. Reports like that, about which there is no dispute over the facts, just the motivation, fuel public distrust. So saying only 31 reports of voter impersonation (which may be true, as defined, or even in the abstract) among billions, rings hollow. Saying voter ID will not help either of those problems is another "thud."

If researchers are wondering about the persistence of the American public's concern about fraud, it may stem from repeated attempts to tell them: "Nothing happening here. Move along", when something is clearly happening. If the explanation looks like minimizing the effect on public confidence, the research design is flawed. And so is the Brennan advocacy-oriented website, which contains only briefs that confirm their view.

Barnaby Zall
Of Counsel
Weinberg, Jacobs & Tolani, LLP
10411 Motor City Drive, Suite 500
Bethesda, MD 20817
301-231-6943 (direct dial)
bzall at aol.com

In a message dated 8/6/2014 1:09:03 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, levittj at lls.edu writes:
By the way, in the piece about fraud to which Rick linked, I listed the incidents I know of since 2000 that reflect credible allegations of the type of fraud ID was designed to stop (to Brad's repeated point, I agree that it's possible that there may be sporadic incidental effects on some other mistake or misconduct).  And I mentioned that I'd welcome additional information. 

Specifically, I said that "I am a researcher, and so I am interested in a thorough list: if you have credible information about a specific individual whose vote was stolen by an impersonator at the polls, please tell me. Specific and credible means just that. Not — please — examples like this. And if you have information about an incident below that indicates that it was error rather than fraud, please tell me that as well."

That's a sincere request.
-- 
Justin Levitt
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 8/6/2014 8:22 AM, Rick Hasen wrote:
> “A comprehensive investigation of voter impersonation finds 31 credible incidents out of one billion ballots cast”
> 
> Posted on August 6, 2014 8:15 am by Rick Hasen
> Justin Levitt for WonkBlog:
> 
> I’ve been tracking allegations of fraud for years now, including the fraud ID laws are designed to stop. In 2008, when the Supreme Court weighed in on voter ID, I looked at every single allegation put before the Court. And since then, I’ve been following reports wherever they crop up.
> 
> To be clear, I’m not just talking about prosecutions. I track any specific, credible allegation that someone may have pretended to be someone else at the polls, in any way that an ID law could fix.
> 
> So far, I’ve found about 31 different incidents (some of which involve multiple ballots) since 2000, anywhere in the country. If you want to check my work, you can read a comprehensive list of the incidents below.
> 
> To put this in perspective, the 31 incidents below come in the context of general, primary, special, and municipal elections from 2000 through 2014. In general and primary elections alone, more than 1 billion ballots were cast in that period.
> 
> Some of these 31 incidents have been thoroughly investigated (including some prosecutions). But many have not. Based on how other claims have turned out, I’d bet that some of the 31 will end up debunked: a problem with matching people from one big computer list to another, or a data entry error, or confusion between two different people with the same name, or someone signing in on the wrong line of a pollbook.
> 
> Posted in election administration, fraudulent fraud squad, The Voting Wars, voter id
> 

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