A Professor Looked At 15 Years' Worth Of Information. Then A Designer Packed It Into 1 Punchy GIF.

[MH1]

27. I heartily agree with the conclusion but suspect 31 is understated.

But that said, following the buried link to the actual study, my suspicion is fairly well addressed. The "31" number refers ONLY to that certain type of voter fraud that would be addressed by voter id laws - NOT the more effective types of fraud where multiple fraudulent ballots could be cast.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/08/06/a-comprehensive-investigation-of-voter-impersonation-finds-31-credible-incidents-out-of-one-billion-ballots-cast/

Election fraud happens. But ID laws are not aimed at the fraud you’ll actually hear about. Most current ID laws (Wisconsin is a rare exception) aren’t designed to stop fraud with absentee ballots (indeed, laws requiring ID at the polls push more people into the absentee system, where there are plenty of real dangers). Or vote buying. Or coercion. Or fake registration forms. Or voting from the wrong address. Or ballot box stuffing by officials in on the scam. In the 243-page document that Mississippi State Sen. Chris McDaniel filed on Monday with evidence of allegedly illegal votes in the Mississippi Republican primary, there were no allegations of the kind of fraud that ID can stop.

Instead, requirements to show ID at the polls are designed for pretty much one thing: people showing up at the polls pretending to be somebody else in order to each cast one incremental fake ballot. This is a slow, clunky way to steal an election. Which is why it rarely happens.

Who in the world would risk a felony conviction to cast ONE fraudulent ballot? And who in the world would be willing to pay enough for multiple people to take that risk?

For the cases of organized, multiple-ballot fraud, there needs to be another solution, and in some cases it's already fixed. For example, in Philadelphia, there is a saying, "voting the cemeteries". Sure that could have happened in the past - but ONLY in precincts that are solidly one party and when the other party just isn't paying attention. But yeah, it could have happened. But with modern information technology, the only "cemetery" voters that should even be in the pollbooks are people who died shortly before the election. So that problem, if it ever existed (and I'm willing to say it may have, once), is FIXED. And not by denying any legitimate voters the right to vote, but rather by technology and process improvements.

But, don't even get me started on black-box voting. (Still, even that kind of fraud would require a conspiracy.)