A Lie Told Often Enough…

This meme has been in going around the internet, my question is where is your proof?

The Republicans have been using voter fraud to justify imposing laws to make it harder for minorities to vote. Judges in North Dakota, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Texas have struck down parts of the voter ID laws and in Texas the courts are hearing cases against the Texas law and as a result Texas has rolled back some of the provisions of their law.

Here in Connecticut you only need a driver license or a bill or document with your name and address on it and each election the Secretary of State does a random audit of towns ballots and voters and they have found "We note that the audits did not detect any cards whose data raised concerns about the integrity of tabulation." The law contains a detailed description of the audit process:

“The manual audit… shall consist of the manual tabulation of the paper ballots cast and counted by each voting machine subject to such audit. Once complete, the vote totals established pursuant to the manual tabulation shall be compared to the results reported by the voting machine on the day of the election or primary. The results of the manual tabulation shall be reported on a form prescribed by the Secretary of the State which shall include the total number of ballots counted, the total votes received by each candidate in question, the total votes received by each candidate in question on ballots that were properly completed by each voter and the total votes received by each candidate in question on ballots that were not properly completed by each voter. Such report shall be filed with the Secretary of the State who shall immediately forward such report to The University of Connecticut for analysis. The University of Connecticut shall file a written report with the Secretary of the State regarding such analysis that describes any discrepancies identified. After receipt of such report, the Secretary of the State shall file such report with the State Elections Enforcement Commission.”

Those same results have been found nationwide by organizations. In Florida the Department of Law Enforcement conducted an investigation to arrest all those people who were voting fraudulently, do you know how many they found in the 2012 presidential election? Two. That’s right only two cases.

The Christian Science Monitor reported that,

Overall, voter fraud is quite rare. Between the years of 2000 and 2012, there were only 867 proven cases of voter fraud in the United States. In fact, some studies have found this number to be even lower, depending on the definition of credible voter fraud. One study, which tracked all accusations of voter fraud across the country from 2000 to 2014, determined only 31 of them, out of one billion ballots cast, to be credible voter fraud. Throughout history, both parties have been found guilty of this crime. However, in the years since 2012, the Republican Party has been far more prevalent in the news regarding this matter than the Democratic Party. Case after case of voter fraud has been brought to light, and it seems that just about every one involves Republicans.

An article in Salon said this about Texas,

The statistics bear me out. From 2002 to 2005 only one person was found guilty of registration fraud. Twenty people were found guilty of voting while ineligible and five people were found guilty of voting more than once. That’s 26 criminal voters -- voters who vote twice, impersonate other people, vote without being a resident -- the voters that Republicans warn about. Meanwhile thousands of people are getting turned away at the polls.

In an opinion piece in Politico writing by Tova Andrea Wang who wrote…

Yet law enforcement statistics, reports from elections officials and widespread research have proved that voter fraud at the polling place is virtually non-existent. The motivation for ginning up this bogeyman is often to intimidate certain groups of voters and, ultimately, make it harder for minority or disadvantaged groups to exercise their right to vote. It is no accident that these operations have repeatedly focused on minority communities.

A CBS affiliate wrote this about voter fraud in North Carolina…

Elections officials in North Carolina said most of the voting fraud allegations they investigate turn out to be unfounded. Over the past five years, the state has referred about 350 cases to district attorneys for investigation, mostly in cases of felons who cast a ballot without first getting their voting rights restored. There are more than six million registered voters in the state. States already have ways to check the identity of voters when they register and when they go to cast a ballot. North Carolina’s current law requires residents to provide documents proving their name and address in order to register to vote. Those who register improperly can be charged with a felony.

Meanwhile in Pennsylvania the Republicans actually boasted about how the voter ID laws will give the elections to the Republicans…

House Majority Leader Mike Turzai was caught on tape this summer boasting about his colleagues' success: "... First pro-life legislation -- abortion facility regulations -- in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done."

Law officials said in court case against the law in Pennsylvania,

…in a stipulation agreement signed earlier this month, state officials conceded that they had no evidence of prior in-person voter fraud, or even any reason to believe that such crimes would occur with more frequency if a voter ID law wasn't in effect.

    "There have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania; and the parties do not have direct personal knowledge of any such investigations or prosecutions in other states,” the statement reads.

As the saying goes “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it people will believe” and that is what the Republicans are doing.