[EL] Incidents of fraud ID is designed to stop

[Zachary Roth]

also the ACORN thing conflates voter registration fraud with voter fraud.
"mickey mouse" doesn't usually show up to vote.


On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 3:24 PM, Estelle Rogers <erogers at projectvote.org>
wrote:

> 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
>
> The information contained in this email is confidential and may contain
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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
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/08/06/a-comprehensive-investigation-of-voter-impersonation-finds-31-credible-incidents-out-of-one-billion-ballots-cast/>
> 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
> <http://department-lists.uci.edu/pipermail/law-election/2014-July/009759.html>,
> 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
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/06/27/the-manchurian-candidate-of-oklahoma/>.
> 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  90015213-736-7417justin.levitt at lls.edussrn.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”
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=64062>
> Posted on August 6, 2014 8:15 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=64062> by Rick
> Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>
> Justin Levitt
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/08/06/a-comprehensive-investigation-of-voter-impersonation-finds-31-credible-incidents-out-of-one-billion-ballots-cast/>
> for WonkBlog:
>
> I’ve been tracking allegations of fraud
> <https://web.archive.org/web/20070622014244/http:/truthaboutfraud.org/index.html> for
> years now
> <http://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/analysis/The%20Truth%20About%20Voter%20Fraud.pdf>,
> 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
> <http://www.brennancenter.org/page/-/Democracy/Analysis%20of%20Crawford%20Allegations.pdf>
> 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
> <http://www.fec.gov/general/library.shtml> 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 <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, fraudulent
> fraud squad <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>, The Voting Wars
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>, voter id
> <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=9>
>
>
>
>
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