Voter Fraud

[philunderwood]

Voter fraud 'a normal political tactic' in upstate NY city

By Eric Shawn

Published January 17, 2012

| FoxNews.com

Michael LoPorto arrived at the Rensselaer County Courthouse in Troy, N.Y. on Tuesday for his trial, which accuses him of being part of a “massive” voter fraud scheme.

The former Democratic city councilman and popular local restaurant owner appeared jaunty and relaxed as he answered a series of questions from Fox News -- despite facing felony allegations that could send him to prison for seven years.




"Did you do anything wrong?"

"No."

"Did you forge any absentee ballots?"

"No, I did not."

"Did you steal an election, or try to steal one?"

"Again, you asked me that before, I told you no!"

For a year now, LoPorto has steadfastly maintained his innocence, along with current Rensselaer County Democratic Elections Commissioner Edward McDonough, who refused to comment on the case Tuesday. They are the first indicted officials to be tried in a widespread investigation that has implicated eight Democrats, including county and city elected officials and party operatives. Four defendants have already pleaded guilty to a variety of charges, and what has already unfolded exposes just how easy it could be for political insiders to illegally manipulate the electoral system.

Voters told Fox News they never filled out absentee ballot applications for the 2009 Working Families Party primary, and were later stunned to learn the applications were, in fact, turned in to the Board of Elections, with ballots cast in their names. Democratic candidates routinely try to secure the Working Families electoral line to obtain more votes in the general election. The party was associated with the now-defunct community group ACORN.

"Jackals prey upon the weakest member of the herd. That's what happened here," LoPorto's attorney Michael Feit said of the guilty pleas in which former officials admitted forging ballot applications and submitting them as legitimate votes.

Feit concedes "there is no question" that someone tried to steal the election. "It is awful, it's despicable, it's terrible," he added.

But he insists his client was not a part of what happened, noting neither LoPorto's DNA nor fingerprints were found on any of the allegedly faked applications. Forgery charges were dropped against LoPorto before the trial began, leaving 29 counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument.

“There is no proof, in my view, that will show ... that he knew that what he possessed was a forged instrument," said Feit, referring to the allegedly faked absentee ballot applications. "Michael LoPorto is not 'a good 'ol boy.' He’s not been a politician all his life. He doesn’t rely on a political job to support himself and his family. He, in fact, got the most votes in this election. He didn't need to rig any election."

McDonough’s attorney, Brian Premo, has said in court papers that his client “asserted his innocence” and has called the proceedings “a wrongful scapegoat investigation and prosecution.” McDonough faces 74 counts of forgery and criminal possession of a forged instrument.

Two veteran Democratic political operatives in Troy said voter fraud is an accepted way of winning elections, and faking absentee ballots was commonplace.

Anthony DeFiglio, a Democratic Committeeman who pleaded guilty to falsifying business records, told state police investigators that such fraud is actually "an ongoing scheme and it occurs on both sides of the aisle. The people who are targeted live in low-income housing and there is a sense that they are a lot less likely to ask any questions... What appears as a huge conspiracy to nonpolitical persons is really a normal political tactic."

Anthony Renna, another longtime Democratic operative and party committeeman, admitted to forging an absentee ballot application. He said the process of handing in forged ballots and fake votes ensures that "ballots are voted correctly."

"I knew that the actual voters had not voted the ballots or signed the envelopes, but that did not concern me. I am not the ballot police," Renna said in a statement to police. "I have been present when 'ballots were voted correctly' by party operatives. Voted correctly is a term used for a forged application or ballot."

According to transcripts, Renna said, “I have been asked if I ever discuss forging ballots/applications with anyone and whether any ballots/applications were ever forged in front of me. The answer is no, because if two people know a secret, it is one too many. There is a saying in politics, 'I can't rob a bank with you.' This saying refers to someone who can't be trusted."

DeFiglio, through his family, declined an opportunity to comment to Fox News. Renna also declined to comment.

"It shakes the confidence of the voters when they see something like this happened," said former Troy Mayor Harry Tutunjian, who recently left office and is now a Republican member of the county legislature. "We want to encourage people to get out and vote and express their democracy. But if they see their right to vote being taken away by others, they are going to be hesitant and think that their vote isn't worth anything,"

Special Prosecutor Trey Smith obtained indictments against a slew of public officials, including former City Council President Clem Campana, City Clerk William McInerney, and two city councilmen besides LoPorto, John Brown and Gary Galuski. Campana and Galuski have pleaded not guilty.

Brown, who pleaded guilty to possession of a forged instrument, could go to jail for six months. LoPorto, who ran for re-election last November as the Working Families Party candidate, was defeated.

McDonough remains at the Board of Elections.

"Vigilance on our level as elected officials in the city of Troy, and the county and even state level, can make sure that things like this don’t happen in the future," said Tutunjian, who hopes “the trial's beginning will help put a resolution to this ugly chapter in Troy's history."

As for LoPorto, he had a simple message for reporters as he stood in the courthouse: “I hope I get vindicated.”

Meredith Orban and Tamara Gitt contributed to this report. If you suspect voter or election fraud where you live, tell us: [e-mail]


Read more: www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/17/voter-fraud-normal-political-tactic-in-upstate-ny-city/#ixzz1k6NVzS4y

[philunderwood]

The voting dead are understated

By Deroy Murdock

www.JewishWorldReview.com |

Reports of dead voters are greatly understated.

While Democrats dismiss voter fraud as a collective Republican hallucination, a study released Tuesday by the Pew Center on the States confirms the GOP's concerns. The ghosts in America's voting machines may be the least of our worries.

Pew has discovered that 1.8 million dead Americans are registered to vote. Perhaps worse, 2.75 million Americans are enrolled in two states each, while 68,725 are signed up in three. Indeed, Pew found, "24 million -- one of every eight -- active voter registrations in the United States are no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate."

This is just what America needs in an election year.

The U.S. boasts atomic weapons and an election apparatus worthy of Laos. More charitably, Pew states that America's electoral systems "are plagued with errors and inefficiencies that waste taxpayer dollars, undermine voter confidence, and fuel partisan disputes over the integrity of our elections. Voter registration in the United States largely reflects its 19th-century origins and has not kept pace with advancing technology and a mobile society. States' systems must be brought into the 21st century to be more accurate, cost-effective and efficient."

Americans are highly peripatetic, with civilians and GIs moving among their parents' homes, college dorms, military bases and large houses in boom times, and returning to modest dwellings when things go bust. Amid this tumult, some people vanish from the rolls while others wind up registered in multiple locations. While most are innocents in these situations, this confusion also invites and facilitates abuse.

Exacerbating this mess, Pew finds, America's "antiquated, paper-based system remains costly and inefficient." Oregon and Wyoming spend about $4 to register and manage each active voter. Canada, in contrast, uses modern, private-sector name-matching techniques to process registrations. Cost: 35 cents each.

For its part, President Barack Obama's Justice Department exacerbates these matters.

As former federal prosecutor J. Christian Adams explains in his superb 2011 book, "Injustice," Section 8 of the legislation popularly known as the Motor Voter Act "requires voter rolls to be kept free of dead and ineligible voters." As Justice attorneys were poised to investigate eight states rife with nonliving and otherwise unqualified voters, top Obama appointees balked.

Adams heard Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes tell headquarters staffers in November 2009: "We have no interest in enforcing this provision of the law. It has nothing to do with increasing turnout, and we are just not going to do it."

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission reported in June 2009 that in North Dakota, registered voters totaled 101.6 percent of the voting-age population. In Michigan, that figure was 101.9 percent; in Alaska, 102.2 percent; and in Maine, 103.9 percent. Alarms should wail when there are more registered voters in a jurisdiction than eligible adults. Instead, Justice's snooze buttons are busier than ever.

South Carolina's attorney general determined last month that 953 people "were deceased at the time of their participation in recent elections." Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler compared voter rolls and driver's license records. Last March 8, he determined that "it is likely that many of the 4,947 voters were not citizens when they cast their vote in 2010."

These problems vindicate efforts, primarily by Republicans, to require photo ID at the polls. Such rules will slow or stop those who try to cast ballots on behalf of deceased-Americans. Citizens who lack ID cards should get them for free. Such a requirement will be far less inconvenient than another presidential recount fiasco fueled by posthumous voters.

Another solution: A company called Catalist assisted Pew's research. Catalist, Pew notes, "applies a complex matching process to combine and analyze data to verify or update records of voters." States should hire Catalist to update and oversee their election procedures.

As voters choose this nation's leaders this year, America deserves better than an electoral system reminiscent of the McKinley administration.

[philunderwood]

www.qando.net/?tag=voter-id

NAACP brings the UN Human Rights Council in to investigate US voter ID laws

Published March 15, 2012 | By Bruce McQuain

I’m sure you heard about Eric Holder’s DoJ striking down the Texas voter ID law. His reasoning? The usual. While it isn’t too much of a burden to have to show an ID to buy liquor, cash a check, rent a hotel room, rent a car, rent an apartment, buy a house, boarding a plane, buying cigarettes or any of a myriad of other daily requirements, it is apparently too much of a burden when it comes to voting.

Of course most reasoning people understand that all of that is a load of nonsense. Laws very similar to the Texas law are and have been operating in states like Georgia and Indiana with no problems noted. And they’ve been upheld by the Supreme Court.

In fact a little history is in order. First, how about liberal stalwart and self-described voting expert, former President Jimmy Carter?


Requiring an ID to vote was one of the proposals in 2005 of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, chaired by Jimmy Carter and James Baker, neither of whom had previously been noted for his hostility to minorities or the poor.

Indeed. And the mentioned Supreme Court’s 6-3 OK of the Indiana voter ID law?


The liberal Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the majority opinion. The Court held that “there is no question about the legitimacy or importance of the State’s interest in counting only the votes of eligible voters,” and “we cannot conclude that the statute imposes ‘excessively burdensome requirements’ on any class of voters.” The decision cited the finding of a district judge that plaintiffs had “not introduced evidence of a single, individual Indiana resident who will be unable to vote as a result of the law.”

In essence the Texas law is no different than the Indiana law, but the chief law enforcement officer of the United States has decided that he will force the state of Texas to go to court, meaning, of course, that the law won’t be in effect until after the 2012 election. And it most likely will be settled in court in the state’s favor.

This is simply an administration pandering to a demographic that it wants on its side on election day, pure and simple. Holder also struck down a similar South Carolina law.

The NAACP, on the other hand, is an organization struggling for relevancy. It has decided this is the hill they want to die on. Somehow, as the NAACP and DoJ’s reasoning goes, “minorities” have more difficulty than others obtaining proper ID for voting (that has not proven to be true in GA where minority participation has been greater after the law’s passage than before). The minorities apparently manage all the other chores that require they show proper identification but somehow can’t manage voting. They can get to the voting booth, but apparently aren’t able to get to the office in Texas where the state will provide them an approved ID free.

If you’re having a hard time swallowing the “reasoning” don’t feel like the Lone Ranger. Its nonsense on a stick.

That said, the NAACP thinks it has a winner here. And to help in their struggle they’ve enlisted what body?

The UN Human Rights Council. That makes three laughing stocks (DoJ, NAACP and UNHRC) working on this “problem”.

Why is the UNHCR a laughing stock? Well take a look at this. An example of the Council’s bona fides or lack there of, one only has to look at their latest action.


A United Nations panel has adopted a report praising Qaddafi-era Libya for its human rights record, a year after the report was sidelined amid international objection.

The report initially came before the U.N. Human Rights Council in the middle of the uprising against the Muammar Qaddafi regime. At the time, the U.N. had just voted to suspend Libya from the rights council — under pressure to maintain a consistent message toward Libya, the council later postponed consideration of the report.

But the Human Rights Council on Wednesday returned to the document — and approved it.

That’s right – yesterday. This is the organization that will be “investigating” what the NAACP likes to call “voter suppression”. What other, more rational actors call ensuring the integrity of the voting system.

But the NAACP? Listen to the “reasoning” for asking the UNHRC to “investigate”:


"This really is a tactic that undercuts the growth of your democracy," said Hillary Shelton, the NAACP’s senior vice president for advocacy, about voter photo ID requirements.

In a Fox News interview prior to his trip, Shelton said the message from the NAACP delegation to the Human Rights Council is that the photo ID law "undercuts the integrity of our government, if you allow it to happen. It’s trickery, it’s a sleight-of-hand. We’re seeing it happen here and we don’t want it to happen to you, and we are utilizing the U.N. as a tool to make sure that we are able to share that with those countries all over the world."

If you’ve ever wondered what word salad looks like, feast your eyes.

Of course the UN has no jurisdiction here. Instead its an opportunity for the UN, or as I like to call it, the “Third World Debating Club” to try to embarrass the US – something it loves to do. And, of course, the NAACP will be its enabler.

Examples the NAACP plans to present to the UN to bolster its case? Well first we go to the lifeboat:


The NAACP had scheduled two American citizens to present their claims at the U.N. panel who, the group says, worry they will be disenfranchised by the requirement to present a photo ID to vote. The civil rights group says one, Kemba Smith Pradia, was convicted of a drug-related offense and is concerned that if she moves back to Virginia from the Midwest, state law will block her voting because of her record, even though she was granted clemency by President Bill Clinton.

So we have a convicted drug offender who is “concerned” that if she moves she may have problems voting. “Concerned”. She’s not been denied, but she’s “concerned”. That ought to wow them.

And number two?

A second American, Austin Alex, is a Texas Christian University student. The NAACP says he is worried that he will be barred from voting because he only holds an out-of-state driver’s license and a non-government student ID, not a Texas issued photo ID.

Of course Texas offers such IDs necessary to vote for free. You just have to get off your fat ass and go apply. And not again – he’s “worried”. Not denied, just “worried” he may be denied.

The NAACP plans on presenting this little dog and pony show to the UNHRC which is composed of countries very familiar with voting rights having such solid credentials in enabling free and open elections:


The U.N. Human Rights Council members include communist China and Cuba. In addition, several Arab nations are on the council that have only granted the right to vote to women in recent years, such as Kuwait in 2005 and Qatar in 2003. Women in the Republic of Moldova have had the right to vote for less than 20 years.

Council member Saudi Arabia announced six months ago that women will be granted the right to vote, but that change does not go into effect until 2015.

And, until recently, it also included Libya.

This would be a joke if it wasn’t so serious. If you can’t be assured of the integrity of your voting system, then you’re likely not to hold its results in high regard and you may feel that those who are “elected” may not be legitimate. The integrity of the system is both critical and in question. Common sense reforms are being obstructed by organizations which should be working for them. Actions like those of the DoJ and NAACP work counter to ensuring the voting system’s integrity despite their tortured rhetoric to the contrary.

The fact that DoJ, the NAACP and the UNHRC are involved in this farce should be all that’s necessary to determine this is all about politics and not at all concerned with the integrity of our voting system. The Democrats need votes, and they really don’t care from whence they get them. Graveyards or across the border, it’s all the same to them if the numbers come out to their advantage.

~McQ

[philunderwood]

www.qando.net/?tag=voter-id

ICYMI: Democrats losing the voter fraud argument

Published April 17, 2012 | By Bruce McQuain

At least in the eyes of the American people if this Rasmussen poll is accurate:


Despite his insistence that voter fraud is not a serious problem, Attorney General Eric Holder was embarrassed last week when a video surfaced of someone illegally obtaining a ballot to vote under Holder’s name in his home precinct in Washington, D.C. Most voters consider voter fraud a problem in America today and continue to overwhelmingly support laws requiring people to show photo identification before being allowed to vote.

Why do they support the requirement so overwhelmingly?

Simple common sense. The arguments we’ve been putting forward for years – a photo ID is absolutely necessary to do many of today’s daily chores, so producing one to vote is no big deal. And, in fact, it helps maintain the integrity of a system that badly needs such a shot in the arm.

Or said another way, most Americans don’t buy the argument that voter fraud isn’t a problem. Additionally most Americans certainly don’t see one of the solutions – voter ID—to be a problem either.

We’re not talking about a slim majority here:


A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 64% of Likely U.S. Voters rate voter fraud at least a somewhat serious problem in the United States today, and just 24% disagree. This includes 35% who consider it a Very Serious problem and seven percent (7%) who view it as Not At All Serious. Twelve percent (12%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

As for photo IDs?


Seventy percent (70%) of Likely U.S. Voters believe voters should be required to show photo identification such as a driver’s license before being allowed to cast their ballot. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 22% oppose this kind of requirement. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

So here’s a loser for the left. It is something that actually hurts the left because most people don’t accept the argument that obtaining acceptable ID is either discriminatory or difficult. They also know, from personal experience, how often they are asked to produce such ID while navigating everyday life.

Consequently, when the left tries those arguments, it falls on deaf ears. They are instead seen as a group with something to hide, a group with an ulterior motive for wanting the requirement struck down. And that motive isn’t seen as a positive one either.

So? So let the left continue to push the issue and continue to alienate those who see the requirement as a common sense safeguard against fraud. It certainly isn’t going to help Democrats convince voters they’re for voter integrity, that’s for sure.

~McQ

[philunderwood]

Holder's Chutzpah

By Thomas Sowell

www.JewishWorldReview.com |

Attorney General Eric Holder recently told a group of black clergymen that the right to vote was being threatened by people who are seeking to block access to the ballot box by blacks and other minorities.

This is truly world-class chutzpah, by an Attorney General who stopped attorneys in his own Department of Justice from completing the prosecution of black thugs who stationed themselves outside a Philadelphia voting site to harass and intimidate white voters.

This may have seemed like a small episode to some at the time, but it was only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. The U.S. Attorney who was prosecuting that case — J. Christian Adams — resigned from the Department of Justice in protest, and wrote a book about a whole array of similar race-based decisions on voting rights by Eric Holder and his subordinates at the Department of Justice.

The book is titled "Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department." It names names, dates and places around the country where the Department of Justice stopped its own attorneys from pursuing cases of voter fraud and intimidation, when it was blacks who were accused of these crimes.

If Mr. Adams is lying, he has taken a huge risk in citing individuals by name and quoting them directly. Yet, despite the fact that most of those he accuses are lawyers, apparently no one has sued him. Moreover, Adams has also testified under oath before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, on the racial double standard at the Department of Justice, when it comes to voting rights.

What Attorney General Holder has been complaining loudly about, and launching federal lawsuits about, are states that require photo identification to vote. Holder calls this blocking minority "access" to the voting booths.

Since millions of black Americans — like millions of white Americans — are confronted with demands for photo identification at airports, banks and innumerable other institutions, it is a little much to claim that requiring the same thing to vote is denying the right to vote. But Holder's chutzpah is up to the task.

Attorney General Holder claims that the states' requirement of photo identification for voting, in order to prevent voter fraud, is just a pretext for discriminating against blacks and other minorities. He apparently sees no voter fraud, hears no voter fraud and speaks no voter fraud.

Despite Holder's claim, a little experiment in his own home voting district showed how easy it is to commit voter fraud. An actor — a white actor, at that — went to a voting place where Eric Holder is registered to vote, and told them that he was Eric Holder.

The actor had no identification at all with him, either with or without a photo. He told the voting official that he had forgotten and left his identification in his car. Instead of telling him to go back to the car and get some identification, the official said that that was all right, and offered him the ballot.

The actor had the good sense not to actually take the ballot, which would have made him guilty of voter fraud — and, being white, he would undoubtedly have been prosecuted by Eric Holder's Department of Justice.

But the actor had made his point. When a white man with no identification can go to a voting site, impersonate a black man who lives in that district, and get his ballot offered to him, then it is far too easy to commit voter fraud.

Does not Attorney General Eric Holder understand that? Of course he understands it! The man is not stupid, despite his other failings.

Holder's pooh-poohing of voter fraud dangers, and hyping the "threat" of denying minorities "access" to the voting booth, are completely consistent with his drive to (1) maximize the number of votes by black Democrats and (2) spread as much fear as possible among minorities that they are under siege, and that the Democrats are their only protection and salvation.

It is a political protection racket, with payoffs in votes.

Nor can Holder's boss, Barack Obama, be unaware of voter fraud. After all, he comes from Chicago, where voting officials refuse to discriminate against dead people.

[philunderwood]

www.qando.net/?tag=voting-integrity

There is no voter fraud, except when there is voter fraud

Published August 7, 2012 | By Bruce McQuain

Like in the MN Senate race that put Al Franken in office and provided Senate Democrats with their 60th vote.

Byron York provides the short version of the story and what was found subsequently:


In the ’08 campaign, Republican Sen. Norm Coleman was running for re-election against Democrat Al Franken. It was impossibly close; on the morning after the election, after 2.9 million people had voted, Coleman led Franken by 725 votes.

Franken and his Democratic allies dispatched an army of lawyers to challenge the results. After the first canvass, Coleman’s lead was down to 206 votes. That was followed by months of wrangling and litigation. In the end, Franken was declared the winner by 312 votes. He was sworn into office in July 2009, eight months after the election.

During the controversy a conservative group called Minnesota Majority began to look into claims of voter fraud. Comparing criminal records with voting rolls, the group identified 1,099 felons — all ineligible to vote — who had voted in the Franken-Coleman race.

And what has happened since?


And so far, Fund and von Spakovsky report, 177 people have been convicted — not just accused, but convicted — of voting fraudulently in the Senate race. Another 66 are awaiting trial. "The numbers aren’t greater," the authors say, "because the standard for convicting someone of voter fraud in Minnesota is that they must have been both ineligible, and ‘knowingly’ voted unlawfully." The accused can get off by claiming not to have known they did anything wrong.

Still, that’s a total of 243 people either convicted of voter fraud or awaiting trial in an election that was decided by 312 votes.

And, of course, the probability is these felons absolutely knew they were breaking the law and fraudulently voted anyway.

Obviously making a connection between them and Democrats is likely impossible, but it does point to something that the left consistently denies – the existence of voter fraud.

It exists. Denying it exists, as the left does, only damages their credibility.

Many times it is the system itself which enables fraud to be carried out. Incompetence and inefficiency within government agencies charged with supervising voting are as much the problem as the frauds. For instance:


The Houston-based True the Vote said it has identified 160 counties across 19 states with more registered voters on their rolls than eligible live voters. This chart highlights the 19 states and how they voted in the 2008 election.

Keeping the voter roles current and ensuring all registered voters are eligible would seem to be a primary mission of any state’s voter bureaucracy, wouldn’t it?

Yet what did we recently see – the Obama DoJ go after the state of Florida for doing its job and purging it’s voter roles of the dead and ineligible. You’d think that they’d encourage such an action because it helps guarantee the integrity of the voting system.

But instead, it tried to stop it.

There is all sorts of fraud. That like York points out. That like this case in Miami:


It’s a shady world, as the case of 56-year-old Deisy Cabrera in Hialeah shows.

Cabrera was charged Wednesday with a state felony for allegedly forging an elderly woman’s signature on an absentee ballot, and with two counts of violating a Miami-Dade County ordinance banning the possession of more than two filled-out absentee ballots.

Much of the fraud takes place within the early voting venues. As the above case illustrates, preying on nursing home residents is only one of many ways fraudulent ballots are cast.

However the Democrats contend that voter ID laws are a means of stopping a problem that doesn’t exist. They claim there is very little if any fraud to be found in same day voting. Of course that’s hard to substantiate when voter roles are larger than the pool of eligible voters in many areas and no on is asked to prove who they are.

The other complaint is that voter ID laws “disenfranchise” minorities and the poor. Yet Georgia’s experience directly contradicts that claim with minority and overall voter turnout increasing in the elections following the implementation of a voter ID law.

Bottom line: the integrity of the voting system is paramount to instilling confidence in the citizenry that their voices are being truly heard. If ever there seemed to an issue that should be truly bi-partisan, this would be it. Yet there are very clear battle-lines drawn with one side claiming fraud doesn’t exist (and they’re factually incorrect about that) and the other saying it does and something should be done about it.

Guess which side I come down on?

~McQ

[Ritty77]

Report: New York Investigators Obtain Fraudulent Ballots 97 Percent of Time
By John Fund
December 31, 2013 8:25 AM

New York City’s Department of Investigation (DOI) has just shown how easy it is to commit voter fraud that is almost undetectable. Its undercover agents were able to obtain ballots for city elections a total of 61 times — 39 times using the names of dead people, 14 times using the names of incarcerated felons, and eight times using the names of non-residents. On only two occasions, or about 3 percent of the time, were the agents stopped by polling-place officials. In one of the two cases, an investigator was stopped only because the felon he was trying to vote in the name of was the son of the election official he was dealing with.

Ballot security in checking birth dates or signatures was so sloppy that young undercover agents were able to vote using the name of someone three times their age who had died. As the New York Post reports: “A 24-year female was able to access the ballot at a Manhattan poll site in November under the name of a deceased female who was born in 1923 and died in April 25, 2012 — and would have been 89 on Election Day.” All of the agents who got ballots wrote in the names of fictitious candidates so as not to actually influence election outcomes.

Last year, guerrilla videographer James O’Keefe sent hidden cameras into polling places around the country to demonstrate just how easy it is to commit voter fraud and how hard it is to ever know it happened. In Washington, D.C., one of his assistants was able to obtain Attorney General Eric Holder’s ballot even though Holder is 62 years old and bears no resemblance to the 22-year-old white man who obtained it by merely asking if Holder was on the rolls. In New Hampshire, poll workers handed his assistants ballots in the names of ten dead people. After a public outcry, New Hampshire’s legislature passed a photo-ID law over the veto of the state’s Democratic governor.

But opponents of photo-ID laws scoffed at O’Keefe’s revelations. The Department of Justice, which is currently suing Texas to block that state’s photo-ID law, dismissed the Holder ballot incident as “manufactured.” The irony was lost on them that Holder, a staunch opponent of voter-ID laws, could have himself been disenfranchised by a white man because Washington, D.C., has no voter-ID law. Polls consistently show that more than 70 percent of Americans — including clear majorities of African Americans and Hispanics — support such laws.

An even richer irony is that it is the people Attorney General Holder purports to speak for — the poor, often minority, inner-city residents — who suffer the most from voter fraud.

As law professor Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit noted: “Many of America’s largest and worst-governed cities suffer from entrenched and corrupt political machines that maintain their position in no small part via voter fraud. Corrupt machines (like that of Detroit’s disgraced ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick) siphon off money that should go to essential services and instead divert it to political fatcats and their supporters.”

But after O’Keefe’s stings, the elite media once again yawned and dismissed concerns about voter fraud. New York magazine asked if it were possible to organize fraudsters to go to different polling places to vote for a particular candidate. “Sure, it’s probably doable,” they concluded. “But it has never happened. . . . National Weather Service data shows that Americans are struck and killed by lightning about as often [as voter fraud happens].”

But how would we know fraud had occurred if procedures are as lax as New York’s Department of Investigation found? If one of the undercover agents had cast a vote for a real candidate, would any of the dead people, felons sitting in jail, or out-of-city residents have complained? “It could be the perfect crime because once a secret ballot is cast you can’t go back and identify one that’s fraudulent,” former California secretary of state Bruce McPherson once told me. “Because it’s so hard to detect is why strong prevention measures against fraud, like clean voter rolls, voter ID, and better security on absentee ballots are vital.” The issue of dead people on the voter rolls is a real one: A 2012 study by the Pew Research Center found that nationwide that are at least 1.8 million deceased voters still registered to vote.

The New York Department of Investigation’s report doesn’t address the serious issue of absentee-ballot fraud, where at least a paper trail to catch fraud can be created. But it does highlight a troubling case indicating that voter impersonation Chicago-style is still with us. The report noted that the Gothamist newspaper had reported that in New York City’s September primary election:

People had attempted to vote for other registered voters at IS 71, a poll site in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. DOI spoke with four poll workers assigned to IS 71 who cited multiple instances of young men they believed were attempting to vote for other registered voters at IS 71 during the 2013 primary and additional instances during the 2013 runoff election. Two of the poll workers recalled instances where young men who appeared to be 19 or 20 years old sought to vote as registered voters who were in their thirties or sixties based on the dates of birth recorded in the registration books. One of the poll inspectors stated that she asked some individuals to confirm their dates of birth, after which they typically walked away without voting.”

The city’s Board of Elections monitored that polling site for the rest of the day but how much hanky-panky could have been happening at the city’s other polling places? The DOI report paints a scathing picture of a Board of Elections chock full of political patronage employees and rife with “systemic problems with accountability, transparency and dysfunction.”

As the New York DOI report demonstrates, it is comically easy to commit voter fraud in person, and, unless someone confesses, it’s very difficult to ever detect — or stop. The Gothamist reported that police officers observed the problems at IS 71 last September but did nothing because voter fraud isn’t under the department’s purview.

Opponents of photo-ID laws — which the DOI report does not address — claim they will block people from voting. But there are very few cases of legitimate voters who have been unable to have their vote counted because they lacked ID. People who show up without photo ID at the polls are allowed to cast a provisional ballot that is counted after proof of identity is offered.

“From voter fraud to election chicanery of all kinds, America teeters on the edge of scandal every November,” writes Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia and author of a comprehensive survey of voter fraud called “Dirty Little Secrets.” The fact that so many people want to thwart legitimate and prudent efforts to improve ballot integrity has become a scandal in its own right.

www.nationalreview.com/corner/367278/report-new-york-investigators-obtain-fraudulent-ballots-97-percent-time-john-fund