Continuing on a topic from yesterday, the NYT has a story on the DoJ’s pursuit of electoral fraud: In 5-Year Effort, Scant Evidence of Voter Fraud
Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews.Although Republican activists have repeatedly said fraud is so widespread that it has corrupted the political process and, possibly, cost the party election victories, about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year.
Most of those charged have been Democrats, voting records show. Many of those charged by the Justice Department appear to have mistakenly filled out registration forms or misunderstood eligibility rules, a review of court records and interviews with prosecutors and defense lawyers show.
While catching any lawbreaker is at least a theoretical plus, this hardly comes across as an epidemic (and not all convictions necessarily result in justice being truly served). And remember: this in the context of a focus by the DoJ to pursue these issues (and again, this fits into the whole USA story for that reason). There is a legitimate question as to whether this was the best use of DoJ resources. The numbers would indicate that it was not.
The following graphic is quite telling:
I would note, to my skeptical readers from yesterday, that the conclusion by researchers that was changed by the EAC seems to be confirmed by the data in the graphic above:
A federal panel, the Election Assistance Commission, reported last year that the pervasiveness of fraud was debatable. That conclusion played down findings of the consultants who said there was little evidence of it across the country, according to a review of the original report by The New York Times that was reported on Wednesday.
Yet, the number of cases and convictions suggests that there really isn’t all that much voter fraud out there.
At a minimum, some of the convictions that have been secured don’t exactly sound like the rooting out out of deep-seated conspiracies:
For some convicted people, the consequences have been significant. Kimberly Prude, 43, has been jailed in Milwaukee for more than a year after being convicted of voting while on probation, an offense that she attributes to confusion over eligibility.In Pakistan, Usman Ali is trying to rebuild his life after being deported from Florida, his legal home of more than a decade, for improperly filling out a voter-registration card while renewing his driver’s license.
In Alaska, Rogelio Mejorada-Lopez, a Mexican who legally lives in the United States, may soon face a similar fate, because he voted even though he was not eligible.
Why one would vote if thought that one wasn’t eligible, but that’s a different issue. Whether that mistake should result in deportation is also a good question–especially for someone who has built a life here over the course of a decade (or more–Mejorada-Lopez was a 16-year resident). As to why he voted:
Because he had applied for citizenship, he thought it was permissible to vote, his lawyer said.
To totally disrupt the lives of people because of this type of mistake strikes me as profoundly unjust.
On balance the only truly serious examples cited in the story are as follows:
United States attorney’s offices in four other states did turn up instances of fraudulent voting in mostly rural areas. They were in the hard-to-extinguish tradition of vote buying, where local politicians offered $5 to $100 for individuals’ support.
The focus on voter fraud in a partisan context has its origins, I would argue, in the aftermath of the 2024 elections wherein it became clear that litigation could be a key tool in close elections.
April 12th, 2024 at 7:07 pm
Come on! Give DoJ a break!
I bet the US Attorneys who got the Ali and Mejorada-Lopez convctions got extra gold stars!
They stopped the voter fraud epidemic AND stuck it to the immigrants in one fell swoop!
That’s efficiency!
April 13th, 2024 at 11:21 am
A little more research, absent from the Times article, revealed that Ms. Prude was also serving as an elections inspector in Milwaukee when she voted improperly. How she was able to get that position is a mystery, since she wasn’t eligible, but it does call into question the truthfulness of her claim of confusion.
Doesn’t change the underlying issue about the story, but calls into question whether or not the individual in this case was putting forth an honest defense. Given the relevance of that additional information to the credibility of her argument, it would seem that journalistic integrity would have called for its inclusion.
I would be interested to know if the case of Mr. Ali was associated with the sweep of Pakistani jewelers suspected of terrorist money laundering. He was in Tallahassee and that was one of the areas where the Feds were active back in 2024.
And regarding Mr. Mejorada-Lopez, the facts of the case indicated that he had completed multiple voter registration forms in Alaska and had voted in three separate elections. The article makes it appear like he voted once. For what its worth, the very first thing on an Alaska voter registration form is the question “Are you a citizen of the United States?” Below it in big bold letters it says that if you answered no do not complete the form.
Without registering an opinion on the merits of the administration position, it seems that the reporter has “understated the case” in at least two of the three examples.