Voter ID and voter fraud are topics once again with Donald Trump claiming 3.5 million illegal immigrants voted. With this in mind, we set out to determine just how much voter fraud and election fraud exists. First, we need to define both. Voter fraud is directly done by an individual to impersonate someone else, attempt to vote multiple times or in different districts. Election fraud refers to perjury, voter registration fraud, forgery, counterfeiting, bribery, destroying already cast ballots, and a multitude of crimes related to the electoral process. Election fraud would not be stopped with voter ID.
According to News21, who analyzed 2068 cases of alleged voter fraud from 2000 to 2012 there were 10 proven cases of voter fraud out of 146 million registered voters during that time period. For perspective, voter fraud, according to this analysis would equate to .00000007% of registered voters.
Politifact checked the claim of 10 cases of voter fraud by News21 and rated this mostly true. Politifact’s only concern was a “few missing pieces in the data.”
Poltifact also did a fact check on whether it is more likely to be struck by lightning than to have an individual commit voter fraud. Politifact rated it true that more people are struck by lightning.
In an analysis conducted by the Republican National Lawyers Association, which supports Voter ID laws, they found 375 cases of voter fraud between 2000 and 2012. News21 also analyzed the 375 cases and determined that the majority were actually election fraud as opposed to voter fraud. Even if all 375 cases were actually voter fraud the percentage would be .0000004% of registered voters.
According to the Federal Election Commission, nearly 1 billion votes have been cast during the period of 2000 to 2012. In a news report from the Washington Post on 8/6/14, their research found 31 cases of voter fraud in the 12 year period. This would equate to .000000003% of votes cast.
The conservative think tank Heritage Foundation has also been tracking fraud and has come up with 300 documented cases in the time period between 2000 and 2012. The Heritage Foundation used newspaper articles from around the country citing convictions and allegations to compile their list. I was unable to find a source that has disputed their claims and would consider this a valid number.
In summary, evidence of voter fraud over the 12 year period from 2000 to 2012 reveals that anywhere from 10 to 300 cases of voter fraud have been documented to have occurred. There can be an argument made that there were some who did not get caught and certainly there were. However, to remain evidence and scientifically based we have to use the information that we have. Regardless, if there were 1000 more or even 10000 more cases, the probability of voter fraud having any impact on an election is virtually zero. Another aspect that needs to be looked at is how and why over 2000 cases of election fraud occurred over that time period.
Sources:
http://votingrights.news21.com/article/election-fraud-explainer/
http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2015/pdf/VoterFraudCases-Merged-3-2.pdf
by Dave Van Zandt
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They seemed to be very thorough with their research, but the research was over time period between 2000 to 2012. Trump’s claims were referring to the most recent presidential election. I would like to see research done on this election.
So, according to an article at the “The Daily News” that stated that the police issued 397 jaywalking tickets in 2019. New York Population 2019 – 20.106 Million (estimated). So according to your logic, it is only 0.0000197% that someone is going to Jaywalk in New York. That percentage is so small as drivers, we should not worry about Jaywalker when we travel to New York city.
Or is it that nobody is really proactively monitoring to catch the Jaywalkers in the act or are they waiting a week, 10 day, a month or 2 later trying to investigate alleged infraction after all the “evidence” is now across the street?