A Note on “Voter Fraud”
By design, it’s relatively difficult in the United States to register to vote compared to what exists in many other countries or compared to other systems one could imagine. One consequence of this is that incentives exist to mount “voter registration drives” that would be superfluous if we made the voter registration process something more automatic. These drives involve registering large numbers of people. And as you’ve no doubt noticed if you’ve ever done anything, it’s not possible to do anything perfectly. A process with a 95 percent success rate is a pretty solid process. But if you register 1 million voters with a 95 percent success rate, you’ll wind up submitting 50,000 forms that are, for one reason or another, bad forms. If you want to spin this out into a story of “tens of thousands of fraudulently registered voters” you can, but you’re not being very honest.
What’s needed to make a real case for voter fraud is instances of people actually voting fraudulently — people who aren’t registered to vote voting, or people voting multiple times. But year after year nobody can ever find more than a trivial number of instances of fraudulent voting. Instead, the issue is raised every year in order to raise barriers to voting by perfectly eligible voters. Raised by people who think that the high-SES voters who are disproportionately likely to overcome the barriers are likely to make better choices in the voting booth than are the low-SES voters who are disproportionately likely to be disenfranchised by broad-brush anti-”fraud” efforts.
31 Responses to “A Note on “Voter Fraud””
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October 10th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
In Canada, you can literally bring a roommate or family member to the polls with you on election day to vouch for your identity.
That is, if you didn’t simply check off the “Register Me to Vote” box on your income tax.
It’s a beautiful thing.
I’ve always thought it was strange that voting wasn’t coordinated at a national level in the states. Ah, the vagaries of federalism.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
By design, it’s relatively difficult in the United States to register to vote compared to what exists in many other countries or compared to other systems one could imagine.
Would anyone with actual experience care to comment on this?
As a datum, looking atthis site and this one look pretty much identical to what I use to register absentee in the US. Since motor voter was passed some fifteen years ago now, I don’t see how much easier one can make it.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I’ve always thought it was strange that voting wasn’t coordinated at a national level in the states. Ah, the vagaries of federalism.
For military absentee ballots it is.
But like I said it’s not that hard. Use google search enter “[your state] register to vote” and you’ll get the appropriate state website. Or go to any library, post office, DMV, or most other municipal and state office buildings. If your not willing even to make that minimum effort, how the heck are you going to be aware on who or for what you are voting?
October 10th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
For those – like me – that didn’t immediately parse the acronym: SES = Socioeconomic Status
October 10th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
I’ve always thought this was a weak argument. If there are clear and easy paths to commit voter fraud, then they should be blocked. Showing actual instances is superfluous.
Imagine the IT department at Wells Fargo Bank telling management that there are several easy ways to hack the website and steal money. Would it make sense for them to just say “Well, until someone does it, I’m not going to worry about it.”
October 10th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Why are there so many unregistered voters in the US? Any time you get a drivers license you are asked if you want to register– and it’s automatic, no hassle at all (beyond the hassle you already have to go through there). Are there really that many people without licenses? Or people who say No at the DMV?
October 10th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
I’ve moved since the last time I renewed my driver’s license, so I wasn’t registered at my new residence until I filled out the new forms a couple weeks ago.
So that’s one way to not be registered to vote; driver’s licenses can be valid for many years, and young people in particular are likely to move more frequently.
Still, it’s not like it was an onerous task to fill out the registration form.
October 10th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
“Would anyone with actual experience care to comment on this?”
In Sweden every citizen gets a ballot in the mail and just show up and vote. Registration is automatic. We have 80-85% turnout.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
If there are clear and easy paths to commit voter fraud, then they should be blocked. Showing actual instances is superfluous.
I think you miss the point.
It’s easy to commit registration fraud. It’s difficult to vote fraudulently. For instance, the recent reports talk of “Mickey Mouse” being registered. But unless someone shows up at the polling station and can actually prove they’re Mickey Mouse they won’t be able to vote. The same thing goes for dead people or famous football players. And signing up people more than once doesn’t make it any easier for them to vote more than once.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
I should point out the contrast: we have our election Tuesday, and I’ve moved since that last time I voted. I could have changed my voting registration address, but never bothered to. So on Tuesday, I’ll show up at the local polling station, show them my licence with my new address, and vote.
You can make voting easy if you want to.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Re: So that’s one way to not be registered to vote; driver’s licenses can be valid for many years, and young people in particular are likely to move more frequently.
You don’t update your address on your license when you move? I must be too much a goody-two shoes as I’ve always done, and changed my voters registration when I did. Although in 1992 I moved in the fall (just across town) so kept my license at the old address until after the election, and voted at my old polling place.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Good point, McKingford.
The real problem is not voter fraud but vote suppression.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:13 am
There’s also a flipside to voter fraud: private groups sending misinformation to particular groups to prevent them from voting. Flyers with incorrect polling dates and locations, pamphlets claiming that you’ll get arrested if you try to vote and one of your family members is in any kind of legal trouble.
The fraud directed AT potential voters is FAR worse than any kind of fraud perpetuated by people trying to vote.
October 11th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Yes indeed, Aatif, that kind of fraud is vote suppression.
October 11th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Beautiful formulation. Too many has never done anything I guess.
October 12th, 2008 at 5:35 am
What is urgently needed is a DOJ probe of voter suppression, starting in January should work.
October 12th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
use of that magic purple finger stain could easily prevent most voter fraud
October 12th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
One thing I wonder about: if a single person can register both as John Jones and Jack Smith, can’t he vote both as John Jones and Jack Smith?
October 14th, 2008 at 4:54 am
I’d like to remind everyone that for a percentage of the city-dwelling population in the US, they have no car, no drivers license and no need to go to the DMV. Therefore, “motor voter” or similar methods aren’t applicable.
There may be a better correlation to social security numbers instead of drivers licenses.
Having to register is a relatively strong method to prevent fraud. Once registered you get assigned to a polling place, so you can’t vote in multiple locations, or you get ONE absentee ballot that you can then mail in only once. Combine that with any checks that happen after your registration is processed and hopefully checked to make sure that the same person hasn’t registered in two locations, and hundreds of fictitious persons aren’t getting absentee ballots to the same address.
Not to say that there aren’t ways to game the system – but the system seems to err on the side of making it harder for legitimate voters to vote in order to reduce small-time fraud by an even smaller percent. By small-time fraud I am talking about a single voter voting multiple times which in no way can compare to fraud at a higher level, say, when a voting machine redirects hundreds or thousands of votes from one candidate to the other. We have to keep these in perspective. Without a massive conspiracy, fraud from voters voting multiple times can’t change the outcome of an election. And massive conspiracies are hard to keep quiet. On the other hand, a single person operating as part of a very small team can tamper with voting machines, or the printing of ballots, or the taunting of voters, and influence thousands of votes in one big fell swoop.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
The real problem is not voter fraud but vote suppression.
Actually, the real problem is that all aspects of our electoral system are operated on a partisan basis by the two major parties.
It’s almost always in the interest of Republicans to suppress the vote, so they do so.
It’s usually in the interest of the Democrats to increase the number of voters (especially if they can target their registration drives), so they do so.
It’s usually in the interest of both parties to keep parties and individuals other than Democrats and Republicans off the ballot, so they both do what they can to do so.
Neither party has a commitment to democracy for democracy’s sake. But we shouldn’t expect them to. They’re political parties and of course they’re both going to do whatever it takes to increase their chances of victory.
But they shouldn’t be controlling our electoral system.
We should have a constitutional right to vote (this would probably take a Constitutional amendment to establish). Our electoral process ought to be opened up. Registration ought to be automatic. And the entire system should be controlled by non-partisan career civil servants, not partisan elected officials.
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