NC Voter fraud! (Or maybe not.)
Published April 6, 2014
Editorial by Charlotte Observer, April 5, 2014.
Here come the told-you-so’s. Here come Republicans justifying a bad N.C. voter ID law by pointing to a new report that shows hundreds of cases of potential ballot fraud in our state. If we didn’t know better, we’d think they were downright gleeful that people may have cheated the elections process.
The source of that joy is a Wednesday report by Kim Strach, executive director of the N.C. Board of Elections. Strach’s office did a cross-check of voters in 28 states and found 765 registered voters who shared identifying information – name, date of birth, and last four digits of Social Security number – with voters in another state. Thousands more shared first and last names, plus birth dates.
Slam dunk. Voter fraud. Right?
Not exactly. The report doesn’t say why those names are on the rolls of two states. Strach told a legislative oversight committee that she doesn’t know yet. It could be that people registered to vote in a new state without telling their former state they had left. It could be that those who shared names and birth dates merely had common names. It could be that in the rush of an election, precinct workers made mistakes marking who voted.
Or it could be voter fraud. “We have to ensure this is what happened, and it wasn’t an error on someone’s part,” Strach said.
She’s right – and after that, the state needs to determine when the possible fraud occurred and how it might be stopped. Sounds obvious, but that’s not how Republicans approached the issue of voter fraud before passing their restrictive voting law last year. If they had studied the problem, they would’ve learned that voter fraud rarely occurs at the polls. It happens during voter registration and with absentee ballots (as is likely with the last week’s cases). Then lawmakers could’ve crafted a law that addressed those problems with measures such as requiring new N.C. voters to provide a former address, so that they can contact other states and get the paperwork up to date.
The reason that kind of law never arrived: Republicans were hardly interested in making it harder to commit voter fraud. They wanted to make it harder for their opponents’ supporters to vote, so lawmakers required photo IDs and eliminated voting conveniences that Democrats largely took advantage of each election.
Now they may have backed into some cases of actual fraud. Or they may not have. As Strach completes her investigation, we’ll learn if and how and when double voting happened. Then legislators can do what they didn’t do last time – pass a law that stops people from voting illegally, instead of one that suppresses the legal ballots.
April 6, 2014 at 12:06 pm
Norm Kelly says:
First, not one opponent of voter ID has showed YET how exactly it will cut into Demon voters ability to vote nor how it will prevent blacks from voting. But facts are not important to libs, only accusations. It was a lib who in the past said that it was the seriousness of the accusations that was important.
Second, does ANY lib think for just one second that conservatives believe you would accept some OTHER form of legislation that is meant to prevent voter fraud? Every lib in every state across the country has opposed EVERY piece of legislation, either proposed or passed, that attempts to prevent voter fraud. Not just some legislation. Not just some states. But libs have protested, objected to, vilified Republicans for EVERY idea put forth that is meant to protect the vote. Attempting to prevent illegal aliens from voting is ALSO opposed by libs. Why is this so? Why is it that every piece of legislation meant to prevent voter fraud is looked at by libs as preventing those who vote for libs from voting? Are libs admitting that voter fraud happens more with lib supporters than with conservative supporters? If so, and I see no other logical conclusion, then admitting that your wins are partly due to voter fraud is reason enough to implement EVERY type of policy possible to prevent voter fraud. Instead of libs opposing, trying to prevent, or suing to repeal EVERY policy put forth by Republicans/conservatives, how about libs come up with SOME PLAN, ANY PLAN, of their own that is meant to prevent voter fraud. Some lib somewhere, anywhere, please show the rest of us with the ability to think what the lib plan is for insuring the vote is legitimate. Show the rest of us the lib idea you all have that will prevent voter fraud.
But once again, the only response we hear from libs is 'NO'. No to photo id. No to EVERY idea put forth by Republicans. No suggestion AT ALL from ANY lib ANYWHERE in the nation that is meant to prevent fraud. No to the idea that voter fraud is even possible. No to the idea that voter fraud is happening. Libs say NO to many ideas that support freedom, the law, individual rights, on a regular basis. No to allowing me to choose the school for MY kids. No to allowing me to choose the health insurance plan that fits MY needs best. No to allowing me to support ALL the political candidates that I PREFER; libs want to restrict my ability to support multiple candidates. No to the idea of expressing my thoughts about a specific candidate when it gets 'too close' to the election. I'm not allowed to write a letter to the editor the week before the election stating that K is a socialist who believes Obamacancer didn't go far enough and that she supports a full take-over of the health care industry in the country. She calls it 'single payer', because it sounds better than a full implementation of socialized medicine. But there actually is no difference between socialized medicine and K's idea. But I'm restricted as to when I can say anything about this particular idea because it might be too close to the election.
What exactly will libs say YES to besides higher taxes, more spending, bigger deficits, more social spending? Ideas? Libs? Where are you & your ideas? Hearing none, again, still, let's move on. History has shown us libs have no ideas. Current events are showing us they still have no ideas. So why are we stuck on what libs DON'T like. Let them be the party of NO, while the rest of us move happily into the future with at least the possibility of new, fresh ideas.
