The fraud isn’t by the voters

State by state and even nationally, Republicans are moving toward requiring a photo ID to vote. It will help reduce voter fraud, they say.

They talk about dead people voting in Washington County, NC; they talk about noncitizens casting hundreds of votes.

Well, from the NC Justice Center, here are some numbers:

4—number of votes allegedly cast by dead people in Washington County (Zombie voters in Washington County, Under the Dome, News & Observer, March 1, 2011)

0—actual number of votes cast by dead people in Washington County after investigation by elections officials (Bob Hall, Democracy North Carolina)

0—number of votes cast by other people using the names of deceased voters in Washington County.

637—number of legally present non-citizens who may have voted in North Carolina in last election, and who received letters from the State Board of Elections inquiring about their status  (Non-U.S. Citizens may have voted in N.C. elections, Under the Dome, News & Observer, March 2, 2011)

106—number of letters from “noncitizens” returned in initial batch of responses to Board of Elections inquiries. (Ibid)

105—number of “noncitizens” in initial response to Board of Elections who had become citizens and simply had not updated their drivers license information when the rolls were checked (Ibid)

0—number of the 106 people in the initial batch of responses to the Board of Elections not verified as citizens who voted in the last election (Bob Hall, Democracy North Carolina)

212—total number of 637 people investigated as non citizens who the Board of Elections believes voted in the last election (Bob Hall, Democracy North Carolina)

212—number of 637 people investigated as non citizens likely to have voted in the last election who election officials believe had become citizens (Bob Hall, Democracy North Carolina)

6,102,163—total number of registered voters in North Carolina (State Board of Elections).

2,700,383—number of votes cast in North Carolina in 2010 elections.

0—number of people that voter ID supporters can prove voted illegally in either example currently cited as support for legislation (Bob Hall, Democracy North Carolina)

0—number of times that supporters of voter ID legislation have acknowledged that their claims about dead people voting in Washington County or noncitizens voting have proven to be false.

In other words, there is no voter fraud. Every case they have raised has been proven false, but they continue to insist we need this legislation.
The reason they want it is that a lot of people don’t have a photo ID, mostly poor and elderly people who don’t drive. These people tend to vote Democratic, so if you can deny them their right to vote, you have a larger percentage of Republicans voting. It’s exactly how the South held down the African-American vote for generations after slavery ended.
You start with the poor and elderly, you get rid of agencies that help make it easier for them to vote — like ACORN — and then you deny the vote to anyone who’s been in jail — a population that is disproportionally African-American and Latino, who also tend to vote Democratic.
Then you send out notices to predominately low-income and minority neighborhoods and give them disinformation on what date or where they should vote, and make sure there are too few voting machines and too few poll workers for the people who do show up.
Pretty soon you have a majority of Republicans.
Now, that’s what I call voter fraud.

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