President-elect Trump claimed ‘millions of people’ voted illegally in the election. Is that true?
How common is voter fraud?
The evidence suggests it is extremely
rare. In the 2016 election, state officials
found a few dozen suspected
incidents of voter fraud among the
137.7 million votes cast. All previous
research conducted on voter fraud
has reached the same conclusion: A
tiny, insignificant number of people
attempt to impersonate other voters
in order to cast ballots. In a comprehensive
study, the investigative journalism
organization News21 identified
just 2,068 incidents of alleged
election fraud among the hundreds
of millions of ballots cast in all U.S.
elections between 2000 and 2012. A 2014 study by Loyola Law
School in Los Angeles unearthed only 31 instances of voter impersonation
among the more than 1 billion ballots cast in all U.S.
elections since 2000. Richard Hasen, an election-law expert at the
University of California, Irvine, says that data from this and previous
elections show that Trump’s claim of millions of illegal votes is
“obscenely ludicrous.”
So why is voter fraud a hot-button issue?
The potential for fraud certainly does exist, and many Republicans
contend that the number of voters caught casting illegal ballots
may be just the tip of the iceberg. A 2012 Pew Center report
found that one in eight voter registrations was inaccurate, out of
date, or a duplicate; that 2.8 million voters were registered in more
than one state; and that 1.8 million dead people remain on the
electoral rolls. In 2013, undercover agents from New York City’s
Department of Investigations assumed the names of people who
were no longer eligible to vote because they had died, left town, or
were in jail, and 61 of the 63 polling places they visited allowed
them to vote. Since only 31 states require voters to show some
form of ID at the ballot box, Republicans say, it’s possible that illegal
immigrants, convicted felons, and politically motivated frauds
are casting ballots without being detected.
Has that ever been investigated?
Yes, and the results do not support widespread
voter fraud. High-profile “purges”
in Florida and Colorado in 2011 and
2012 found only a few hundred illegally
registered voters out of 15 million. After
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach in
2015 asked for prosecutorial powers to
go after voter fraud, he filed charges in
just six cases, two of which were thrown
out. When the Justice Department carried
out a crackdown on voter fraud
under President George W. Bush, it
yielded 86 convictions nationally—many
of which were the result of simple human
error. “If you were here as an undocumented
person, or even someone who
has a green card,” says Lori Edwards,
an elections supervisor in Florida, “why
would you risk that status for what
would be a minimal benefit?” Election
officials also argue that for fraud
to have any chance of influencing
state or national elections, tens of
thousands of people would have
to go to polling places pretending
to be someone else—a massive
operation to organize and carry
out without anyone ever finding
out. Supporters of voter ID laws,
however, argue that even one
fraudulent vote is one too many—
and that stricter voting laws are
the only solution. “It doesn’t matter
if there’s one, 100, or 1,000,”
says Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
“Who would like to have [their]
vote canceled out by a vote that was cast illegally?”
Do Democrats disagree?
Yes. They contend that Republicans exaggerate the effect of voter
fraud in order to pass laws making it more difficult for blacks,
Hispanics, and the poor to vote. No state required any form of
voter ID until 2008, when Barack Obama won the presidency. In
2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states with a history of
racial discrimination no longer had to acquire federal approval
to change their election laws, and 14 Republican-controlled
state legislatures quickly implemented new restrictions on voter
ID, early voting, and same-day voter registration—all of which
disproportionately affect minority voters. About 13 percent of
African-Americans and 10 percent of Hispanics, for example, lack
valid photo ID. A federal appeals court ruled last year that North
Carolina’s voter law targeted African-Americans “with almost surgical
precision.” Before passing the law, Republican legislators specifically
asked elections officials for data about black registration
patterns and what percentage of black voters lacked photo ID.
Do these laws depress turnout?
The evidence on that is mixed. When the nonpartisan Government
Accountability Office looked into the issue in 2014, five of the
10 studies they examined showed that
ID laws had “no statistically significant
effect on turnout.” But a recent
University of California, San Diego,
study concluded that “Democratic
turnout drops by an estimated 8.8 percentage
points in general elections
when strict photo identification laws
are in place”—enough to swing close
elections. Whether or not that’s true,
both parties apparently believe that
it is. Republican political consultant
Carter Wrenn, a longtime fixture in
North Carolina politics, admitted this
year that the state’s voter ID law and
attempts to restrict early voting were
designed to suppress Democratic votes.
“Of course it’s political,” Wrenn said.
“Why else would you do it? Look, if
African-Americans voted overwhelmingly
Republican, they would have
kept early voting right where it was.”
Voting laws under Trump
The Trump administration will very likely
reverse the Obama administration’s fierce
opposition to voter ID laws, and throw its
legal support behind states that seek proof of
identity at the ballot box and a limit on early
voting. Trump will also probably appoint a
Supreme Court justice who will side with states
that impose voting restrictions. President-elect
Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Alabama
Sen. Jeff Sessions, has called the Voting Rights
Act “a piece of intrusive legislation,” and was
denied a federal judgeship in 1986 in part
because of his attempts to prosecute three
activists who helped elderly black voters cast
absentee ballots. In 2013, Sessions praised the
Supreme Court’s ruling to weaken the Voting
Rights Act as a victory for the South. “If you go
to Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina,” Sessions
said, “people aren’t being denied the vote
because of the color of their skin.”
