Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

What Do You Know, There Is Electoral Fraud in Virginia

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by

James A. Bacon
in , ,

Commonwealth Attorney Michael Herring. Photo credit: Times-Dispatch.

by James A. Bacon

Not long ago, I dissed the need for a Voter ID law in Virginia on the grounds that it was a solution in search of a problem. Electoral fraud in the Old Dominion, I suggested, was such a rarity that there was no need to get people riled up. It just gave ammo to Democrats who charged Republicans with “voter suppression.” Just let sleeping dogs lie, I said.

Well, the sleeping dog just got up and started biting people. Foolish me.

Yesterday, a Richmond grand jury indicted 10 convicted felons on charges of electoral fraud for allegedly falsifying information on their voter registration forms during the 2008 presidential election, the Times-Dispatch reports today. The charges stem from an initiative in which the State Board of Elections had forwarded hundreds of referrals of possibly fraudulent registration forms to the state police. The state police forwarded 70 to the City of Richmond Commonwealth Attorney’s office.

It appears that the Richmond registrar’s office handled more voter registration transactions in the three months preceding the 2008 presidential election than in the entire fiscal years of the previous two presidential elections. Commonwealth Attorney Michael Herring attributed the allegedly fraudulent registration to the activity of unnamed “solicitors” who urged the felons to indicate on the form that they had not been convicted of a crime.

“The real criminal actors here are the solicitors, who are telling these people, ‘Don’t worry about it; sign up,” Herring said. “They kind of disappear like ghosts.”

Herring said he did not know whom the felons voted for. But we can take an educated guess. In 2008, community action groups like ACORN were conducting massive voter registration drives, especially in the African-American community, to drum up support for Barack Obama. This is precisely the reason that Republicans distrust the integrity of the electoral process, and that distrust is the impetus behind the Voter ID laws. It is not immediately apparent to me how Voter ID laws would address the problem of false registrations, however. I repeat myself: It may be a solution in search of a problem.

But voter fraud is obviously real. And fraud of this type apparently is hard to prevent. Herring suggested having undercover police posing as felons, but that sounds impractical. Would it not be possible to cross-reference the names of registered voters with the names of convicted felons? Perhaps that’s what the State Board of Elections did — the article is not clear on that point.

But I do await the reaction of Democrats who harp on the topic of “voter suppression.” Do they acknowledge that a voter fraud problem does, in fact, exist? Are they really interested in protecting the integrity of the electoral process — or are they just trying to stack the deck in their favor?

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  1. Richard Avatar
    Richard

    While we’re at it, why don’t we crack down on all those voters who violate all those other voting rules, such as voting only in the precinct where you reside. Let’s get the voting monitors on top of that by requiring a current i.d. – one issued within the last year. [That will really suppress the vote!]

    The problem with voting suppression laws such as those proposed is that they focus on those citizens least likely to have an i.d. or the means of getting one (such as being able to take off an afternoon to go to DMV). If you had voting suppression laws that were equally burdensom to all citizens (such as a requirement for a current i.d.) you’d get an uproar and claims of intrusive government, and it would go nowhere.

    The point is that voting is a fundamental right, and the government ought to be in the business of making it available to everyone.

    1. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      All very fine, Ricardo, but you’re engaging in an intellectual dodge here. Let us assert that voting is a fundamental right, and government should make it available to everybody who is lawfully entitled to that right.

      Do you acknowledge that voter registration fraud is a problem, and, if so, what should we do about it?

      1. Lance Avatar
        Lance

        Ok, throwout those 10 votes from 3+million votes cast in 2008 in Va. It really doesn’t matter. It’s only .00027% of the vote. So is it fraud if these individuals were misinformed about the law. The fraud that everyone seems to think is happening is not really happening, yet disenfranchising close to 5 million Americans across the nation is acceptable to prevent nearly non-existent fraud.

        1. James A. Bacon Avatar
          James A. Bacon

          Those ten votes are just in the City of Richmond. And those are just the 10 that the C.A. could gather enough evidence to prosecute. There were hundreds of irregularities. Let’s assert that voting is a fundamental right. Let’s assert that Voter ID is not the right answer. I ask you the same question I ask Richard above:

          Do you acknowledge that voter registration fraud is a problem? Are you willing to do anything about it? Or do you only care about protecting the integrity of the electoral process when you’re protecting the rights of likely left-leaning voters?

  2. Richard Avatar
    Richard

    Jimbo – you’re entirely missing the point, and if I didn’t think more of you I would say that you were the artful dodger.

    The point is that the cure for the “problem” is 100 times worse than the problem because 1. the problem is miniscule (10 out of a million?), 2. the cure infringes on basic political rights, and 3. the intent is not to clean up the voting lists (do they care about voting in the wrong precincts?) but to suppress the voting by certain blocs of voters because those blocs favorable to their opponents.

    It’s cynical, not idealistic. Admit it.

    1. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      As I understand you, then, your assessment is the problem of registration fraud is miniscule…. therefore, what? Not worth bothering about?

      Just curious: How many *documented* instances have been found of voters being unable to vote because of Voter ID laws? Is it possible that that is a miniscule problem as well?

      1. Richard Avatar
        Richard

        Yes, I would say that miniscule problems should sometimes be ignored. [After all, isn’t this what being a Republican is all about – complaints about petty FDA, EPA, zoning, and tax rules?]

        So far as your question, it’s better to allow a very few people to vote who shouldn’t than to prevent a very few people to vote who should’ve. The bias should be towards the vote.

        Philosophically speaking, wouldn’t you say that absolute purity is not really possible in anything? Doesn’t any real life enterprise involve some error? Don’t we have to make judgments about what is worth doing, and what is not? You’re being disingenious (IMHO) when you argue that these proposed laws are justified because you’re concerned about fraud – you know that’s not what they’re really about. In my view the value you are purportedly espousing – absolutely clean voting lists – is not nearly so important as my value, which is that the legislature not impose burdensome regulations upon a fundamental right.

        You’re an historian. You must know that these sorts of laws are exactly the sorts used in the post-Reconstruction era by Southern whites to reclaim control of government resulting in the imposition of Jim Crow for another 50 years.

  3. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    We get sent Voter ID cards right? How about this. When you pay your taxes, you get an ID card automatically.

    by the way..it was never asserted that there was ZERO fraud. It was asserted that it was .000001% or so. The question stands. Why is this an issue?

    Clearly this is about voter suppression and look at how much of this is going on across the US …right before the next Presidential election.

    Anyone who cannot put 2 and 2 together to see why it’s always Republicans concerned about this and usually right before an election… is probably… a Republican, eh?

    How about we jerk the voter ID of anyone found to be employing illegals?

    🙂

  4. Darrell Avatar
    Darrell

    You want to see voter suppression? Just look at what happened in the latest GOP presidential primary.

    1. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      Well said, Darrell. The political elite in Richmond established a system whereby getting on the ballot in Virginia is an absurd hardship for candidates who need to be on 50 ballots (and DC). Virginia required 10,000 signatures. The next most difficult state (Indiana) required 4,500.

      Once again, Virginia is an outlier.

      So, what does a primary candidate do? Come begging one of the political elite to use his political machine to get the required signatures.

      Romney went to Bolling. Gingrich had no political pal in Richmond.

      Net effect? Limited choice for Virginia’s voters.

      Chicago has nothing on Virginia when it comes to political corruption.

  5. FreeDem Avatar
    FreeDem

    There’s some confusion here James. You’re taking a broad category of crimes involving the voting process and summarizing them as electoral fraud. You’re then going back to debates over voter registration, which Republicans sold as an anti-electoral fraud measure, and saying perhaps they were onto something. But you’re only able to do that because you start off by combining the crime that happened, improper and illegal voter registration, with other forms of fraud in the electoral process, such as the claim that there are people who aren’t even registered showing up and voting as either themselves or someone else, which I think is obviously the type of voter fraud a voter ID would be designed to prevent.

    Suppose I propose that the government mandate new tracking devices in all automobiles, first in all newly produced vehicles and over time we have a transitional period where people have to install them into old vehicles (we’ll work out a voucher for lower income folks like we did with the digital TV conversion). I believe there is a rash of motor vehicle theft that we have to take extreme measures against. Property crimes must be stopped!

    I could, for example, combine grand theft auto and burglary into property crimes and use statistics about the rise in burglary to argue that I’m right that there’s a rash of property crimes. But anyone with a brain would understand that my car tracking device proposal has nothing to do with burglaries, and the burglaries have nothing to do with the motor theft.

    In this situation, a local registrar appears to have been overwhelmed by a flood of registrations in 2008. Some individuals violated the law, or at least were instructed to by others. First off, let’s recognize that the system is working, we’re catching people who violate the law.

    Second, let’s recognize that part of the problem is Virginia’s dependence on local registrars for the protection of the voting process. If we were serious about fighting this aspect of voting fraud, fraud at the registration step, we’d step up and better fund the registrar process and probably consider ways to centralize it to cut down on the possibility of fraud. Voting is serious, democracy is serious, let’s not leave it up to some underfunded local official.

    This also helps address the issue in Virginia that has allowed the registrar to have a lot of leeway in how they interpret the registration laws. There are still some problems regarding student voting, for example, that arguably violate the equal protection clause. Centralizing and streamlining the process would clear this up.

    1. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      FreeDem, Thanks for your comments. You raise a good point about Virginia’s dependence upon local registrars and the need to properly fund their offices. Streamlining, and possibly centralizing, the registration process might be the way to go for reducing the number of crimes described in the article. It’s worth debating.

      Just as point of information, I did not advocate Voter ID as a solution for voter registration fraud. As I wrote above, “It is not immediately apparent to me how Voter ID laws would address the problem of false registrations, however. I repeat myself: It may be a solution in search of a problem.”

  6. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    I’m totally in favor of a registration system that discourages and eliminates fraud.

    I think the way we go about doing this today is out of step with how many companies that do online business do this.

    NOT having a centralized database is dumb. Imagine what would happen if DMV was a local operation.

    We modernized DMV. We can do this for voter registration.

    What we don’t need to do is to come up with cockamamie, punitive, voter suppressing Republican ideas every time we have an election coming up.

    1. madness Avatar
      madness

      Actually, voter registration is centralized in VA. While the locality enters the information and is responsible for its accuracy, the voter rolls are still entered in a centralized system. The poll records are sent from Richmond right before the election, so that they’re up to date on who has made a request to vote absentee (which causes special handling if that person then shows up in person to try to vote).

      There is definitely not funding for the local Boards of Elections to do background checks to try to find potentially fraudulent registrations ahead of an election.

  7. MaryJo Avatar
    MaryJo

    A voter ID law wouldn’t stop people from lying to register. On the issue of state support for local registrars’ offices, the state pays only about 22% of the cost of elections at the local level. The rest is paid by cities and counties with local tax dollars. Each year the state budget further nickels and dimes the local electoral boards-for example, this year the state “saves” money in the state board of elections by eliminating the printing of absentee and voter registration applications. Instead the localities pay those costs. Just another example in a long string of how the state balances its budget-by passing on costs to someone else.

  8. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    I “get” what is being said here about the “state” funding but I have to point out that “state funding” comes from the same folks who pay local taxes.

    What is the state’s legitimate interest that would justify returning tax dollars to the locality?

    However, there is another state level interest here IMHO and that is to provide a centralized state database for BOTH registration AND voting.

    that database (perhaps it already exists in some form?), would then be accessible from each registrars office so that new registrations, changes of address and precinct, transfers in and out of state or other counties, etc would all be tracked in one place.

    And I would say that anyone who pays taxes or buys a dog tag or has other transactions that validate their residency should automatically be certified to register and vote.

    We are being lazy and incompetent in this function and we then blame the voter for not doing what we ourselves have not provided a basic competent system for them to do.

    Instead we are creating a whole separate process that is inconvenient and a little intimidating …to 99 44/100% of people who have done nothing wrong and have voted legitimately their entire lives.

    I have nothing but unkind thoughts for those who have a role in any part of this.

  9. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    As a citizen – one inevitably “touches” local and state govt. It’s almost impossible not you. And the govt uses those different contact points to not only find you but collect on what you owe.

    What I do not understand is that if you receive Social Security checks or you file State Income Tax or you pay local property taxes or even if you buy a dog tag or receive public assistance – you have a residence that they reach you at. The Govt KNOWs where you live.

    Why do you not automatically receive a voter card ?

    I receive a voter card in the mail.

    Why does not everyone receive one in the mail?

    Bonus Question – WHY when I go to vote, the voter officials are verifying my car with a desktop full of computer printouts instead of a computer especially when after I get “verified”, I go straight to a computer to vote?

    Why do we have such an antiquated and convoluted system in the 21st century and we essentially use that as an excuse to make laws that essentially make it harder to vote? Why don’t we make it like taxes or Jury duty or dog or car licenses where you are not only not prevented..you are strongly encouraged?

  10. MaryJo Avatar
    MaryJo

    State and local funding don’t necessarily come from the same sources, as local funding is primarily dependent on real estate taxes while state funding is dependent on income and sales taxes. There’s overlap, but the local funding will fall more heavily on those who own real estate taxes. Further, local governments have virtually no control over the electoral function and it should be a basic premise that if the state sets the rules, it pays for meeting those.

  11. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    well they come from the same people. Va sets standards for basic govt functions, at the local level – and they help fund them but they also require a local match in many cases.

    but my main point here is that advocating for the ‘state’ to pay is not going to shake money from the magic tree. If the State is going to “pay”, they’re going to get it from taxpayers the same way the local govt would.

    Don’t get me wrong. I’m NOT a tea pot or a “no mo tax” guy but I think it is important to admit that when we say the state “should fund” that it’s not the state who is going to pay – it’s taxpayers so when someone wants the state to pay for something..they’re really advocating for tax increases on local taxpayers.

    Again, I’m not advocating that we should not tax people to pay for important services, even new services, I’m only saying we should be honest about where the money is going to come from – AND I would ask what is the difference from local taxpayers sending it to the state and getting it back for local spending …and just paying for it locally to start with?

    So here’s the hypothetical example question. Should the locality pay for deputies or the State – and why? HINT: who sets the rules?

  12. MaryJo Avatar
    MaryJo

    The difference from local taxpayers sending money to the state, or paying directly to the locality: The relative burden of the taxes falls differently on different populations for state and local taxpayers. The state income tax, particularly because it’s fairly flat, falls directly on a broad proportion of the population, as do sales taxes, another important state tax revenue. Real estate taxes fall directly on those who own real estate, a smaller proportion of the population. Renters pay a portion but indirectly. Second, state lawmakers, who make the rules, don’t have to raise the taxes to pay for those rules. They don’t have to evaluate whether the cost of any changes are worth the price of raising taxes or shifting funding from one function to another. As to your hypothetical, right now the locality pays the salaries, benefits, etc. of deputies. The state pays most of the salary for the registrar and a stipend for the members of the electoral board. Salaries for deputies or assistants, and other costs-equipment, storage and security, election officials at the polls, printing of ballots, office expenses, etc., are paid by the locality.

  13. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    all things being equal… I’m not sure one could make a case for unfairness or inequity on the locality side or the state side. It’s different but not in greater scheme of things as most folks will pay a mixture of the taxes and it would be near impossible to determine if or how a higher locality share would adversely affect one person or group over the other. It would be akin to looking at how re-assessments affect everyone when some end up with a higher burden and others a lower one.

    But the basic premise is the same. Money coming from the state has to come from somewhere and it comes from the localities via income or sales or other taxes and if you want the state to pay more, someone is going to have to pay more.

    My deputy question was designed to reveal that deputies, teaches, social services and constitutional offices are often shared between the state and the locality with the state having a strong role in standards for the positions.

    as far as evaluating … don’t you think both the state and the local do evaluation to determine the value of the taxes and benefits even when they shift funding ?

    It just seems to me that when we say the state should fund something that what we really are saying is that the state should raise taxes on somebody (or divert taxes already collected form somebody).

    and when we advocate for more funding, we are, in effect, advocating for higher taxes OR we are advocating to take money from some other function … without evaluating …just shift the money.

    Where I believe the state should tax is when they use the money to achieve a state level objective and operating a state-standardized voting system similar to how DMVs operate would be justified but the local staffing probably should be paid for by each locality – but they use the state system and follow state standards.

    I’ve obviously got an opinion and I defend it but I certainly appreciate opposing or differing views as long as we agree that the money ultimately does come from taxpayers in the localities or in the case of shifted funding, taken away from one locality function and spent on another one but still ultimately funded by local tax payers paying state level taxes as well as local taxes .

    The primary area we often hear about “state” funding is transportation and at times it’s almost as if some folks think the state has transportation money that does not come from the localities.

    It does not help that the state never really provides each locality an accounting of how much that county generates in fuel taxes and how much it receives in maintenance, operations and improvements so virtually every locality suspects that other localities receive more that their share.

    I admit, an accounting of the other functions such as registrar is near impossible but I still think it’s important to admit that ultimately the funding for the registrar and and other functions comes primarily from the folks in that county through local and state taxes ( returned).

    I don’t know how much the state “keeps” to fund state level agencies, what some folks call “overhead”.

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