This is my response to Rick Hasen's email.
Spencer
HASEN QUOTING ALVAREZ & ANSOLABEHERE: "Fraud is hard to detect and to measure. It may involve only enough ballots to win an election, and there may be no paper trail that would allow election officials to determine what exactly occurred."
RESPONSE: I understand that there is no missing inventory to quantify fraud, as in the shoplifting context. But this isn't as nebulous as measuring "corruption" in the campaign finance context. We do have a list of names and addresses of voters who allegedly voted. Has anyone ever attempted to follow up with a random sampling of these individuals to determine what percentage actually failed to go to the polls?
HASEN: "Beyond anecdotal studies, there have been some recent newspaper studies of double voting by voters living in two states. (For citations to those newspaper studies, and more discussion about the fraud issues, seee the text accompanying footnotes 113-116 of my Beyond the Margin of Litigation draft posted at:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=698201)."
RESPONSE: Hasen's proposal would address the problem of double voting. A standard photo ID requirement would not.
HASEN: "But we also know that a large number of voters believe that there is a great deal of fraud in elections. (see pages 7-10 of my article for some rather stark statistics in this regard)."
RESPONSE: It is not clear that these voters believe that the fraud stems from fellow voters rather than election administrators.
HASEN: "It doesn't help to alleviate concerns about vote fraud by raising fears about vote suppression."
RESPONSE: I agree. Making a serious effort to study the extent of voter fraud would help us better understand the significance of voter fraud, and either substantiate or alleviate fears.
HASEN: "That's why a part of my proposed solution for falling voter confidence is government issued voter i.d. with biometric information (like fingerprints). If you show up with your finger, you don't need an i.d. card. And I'd couple it with universal voter registration accomplished by the government."
RESPONSE: The actual percentage of fraud is less important with Hasen's proposal because he addresses access concerns through universal registration and providing an option to vote for those who fail to bring their ID to the polls (although the ACLU may have privacy concerns). Standard photo ID requirements without an affidavit exception often do not mitigate access problems, and thus the actual percentage of voter fraud is critical in order to do a cost/benefit analysis of these proposals.
Professor Spencer Overton
The George Washington University Law School
2000 H Street, NW, Washington, DC 20052
(202)994-9794
soverton@law.gwu.edu
http://www.law.gwu.edu/facweb/soverton/
THE DONOR CLASS (arguing that campaign reforms should encourage candidates to raise the bulk of their funds from smaller contributors) available at . . .
http://ssrn.com/abstract=569021
---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Rick Hasen <Rick.Hasen@lls.edu>
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 14:50:11 -0700
Steve Ansolabehere and Mike Alvarez made the following observations in
a 2002 Demos report: "ãVoter fraud is a persistent concern of those who
run elections. Fraud is hard to detect and to measure. It may involve
only enough ballots to win an election, and there may be no paper trail
that would allow election officials to determine what exactly
occurred.ä R. Michael Alvarez & Stephen Ansolabehere, California Votes:
The Promise of Election Day Registration 14 (2002), available at:
<http://www.demosusa. org/pubs/california_votes.pdf> (last visited Feb.
16, 2005).
But the difficulty of proving actual fraud doesn't mean it doesn't
exist. Beyond anecdotal studies, there have been some recent newpaper
studies of double voting by voters living in two states. (For
citations to those newspaper studies, and more discussion about the
fraud issues, seee the text accompanying footnotes 113-116 of my Beyond
the Margin of Litigation draft posted at:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=698201).
The bottom line: we know some fraud happens but we don't know how much
of it there is. But we also know that a large number of voters believe
that there is a great deal of fraud in elections. (see pages 7-10 of my
article for some rather stark statistics in this regard).
Voter i.d. can help to alleviate concerns about fraudulent voting and
help restore some voter confidence in the process. The problem with
voter i.d. alone is that while it helps some voters with confidence, it
can suppress the votes of others, particularly the poor and mobile, who
will have greater difficulty providing i.d. It doesn't help to
alleviate concerns about vote fraud by raising fears about vote
suppression.
That's why a part of my proposed solution for falling voter confidence
is government issued voter i.d. with biometric information (like
fingerprints). If you show up with your finger, you don't need an i.d.
card. And I'd couple it with universal voter registration accomplished
by the government. These two items alone could reduce as much as 60%
of the litigation surrounding our elections and do much to restore
confidence in our elections.
One other argument that is made against voter i.d. is that it does
nothing to stop fraud by election officials. That's right. We need
protection from that as well, as well as the appearance of bias by
elected officials. For that reason, at the least all state chief
elections officers should abide by the IDEA Code of Conduct, and
refrain from participating in any political activities (like serving as
a chair of a presidential candidate's state committee). And ideally,
we should move to nonpartisan administration of elections, with checks
to make sure that no fraud happens at the level of election officials.
Rick
----- Original Message -----
From: Ari Weisbard <aweisbard@demos-usa.org>
Date: Thursday, April 21, 2005 1:38 pm
Subject: RE: Evidence Of Voter Fraud
Demos did a fairly exhaustive search to document such cases in
2003. You can find it at:
http://www.demos-usa.org/pub111.cfm
There has been very little systematic evidence of any widespread
individual voter fraud (as opposed to election official, campaign
or machine fraud). I also have found little other systematic study
of the issue.
--
Ari Weisbard
Policy Analyst
Demos:Ê A Network for Ideas & Action
220 5th Avenue, 5th Floor
New York, NYÊ 10001
Phone:Ê 212-419-8774
FAX:ÊÊÊÊ 212-633-2015
Email:ÊÊaweisbard@demos-usa.org
-----Original Message-----
From: Steven Mulroy [mailto:smulroy@memphis.edu]
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2005 4:09 PM
Cc: election-law
Subject: Evidence Of Voter Fraud
I have been reading about the GOP proposals for photo ID
requirements
for all voters, and also calls for a national registration ID
(with
photos and fingerprints, according to some accounts). I was
wondering
who has data quantifying the actual amount of voter fraud (as
opposed to
fraud by voting officials) which has occurred in recent years. I
recall
asking this in the past and not getting anything specific; is
there new
evidence? SJM
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