Don’t Worry, There Is Absolutely No Voter Fraud, Anywhere, Anytime

I am in the free state of Florida and running behind.  Lot of posts coming soon.  (Update–In my haste I neglected to point out that the authors’ estimate means 6 million Americans are double registered.)

Donald Trump lost in 2020 and he needs to stop whining about it.  At the same time, there is a lot of voting fraud and impropriety in this country and calling people who point that out names doesn’t make the fraud go away.  Running the system in a way that encourages fraud undermines trust in elections, the outcome of elections and our entire democracy.  The voting process needs a major overhaul.  This paper points out one of the obvious and I believe widely used, opportunities for fraud.  In turns out that an estimated 3% of voting age Americans are registered to vote in more than one place.  That is 6 million people who could vote twice or could choose to vote where they aren’t registered.  SIX MILLION.  Let that sink in for a moment before we move on.  (NBER Paper)

Now this could happen by accident, someone moves and forgets to cancel their current voter registration.  There is no consistent process by which states review the rolls and remove voters who have left the state.  But it also happens intentionally.  People have two residences and register in both states.  College students do this frequently and intentionally.  Guess which party that benefits.  The study was about how these dual registered, and illegally so, voters decided which state to vote in.  As you might imagine they tended to choose a swing state if it was one of the places they were dual registered.  The researchers claim to infer that Republicans and Democrats are dually registered in equal numbers.  I don’t believe that for one second.

The authors also tiptoe around the issue of dual voting; that is voting in both states.  According to their estimate around 70,000 people voted twice.  That is 70,000 fraudulent votes.   Depending on where those votes are, they can make a difference in an election.  And I have no doubt that the number is actually far higher than 70,000; but no one is checking, especially in Democrat-run states.  I think 70,000 is not some small number of fraudulent votes.

So here is my solution.  We do need a federal law that covers all federal office elections.  In addition, no state should get any federal assistance for its elections unless it complies with the federal law for state and local elections.  The federal law should create a national voter database.  Every citizen who is 18 or over would be in the database with a unique number and other unique identifiers.  A person’s citizenship must be verified at least once to be on the database.  So registration would be automatic.  The database must be updated at least once a quarter as people move, die or have other changes affecting where they vote or their eligibility to vote.  (And no Illinois, you do not get an exemption to continue your practice of letting dead people vote.)  Every state and every election official would have to use the national database to determine eligibility and to record that a person has voted and to verify that the person only votes once.  People would have to prove their identity when they come ot vote and would be checked against the database before they are given a ballot.  Political parties would have a right at their own expense to audit the database for accuracy.  Legitimate media entities would have the same right.

Elections would last two weeks, and voting must be in person, with exceptions only for people who are physically disabled.  Ballot harvesting and mail voting would be illegal.  The system would be able to create a ballot for each person, so they could vote anywhere in person.  So if you are a Minnesotan who happens to be in Florida during the two week election period, the system knows the geography you are registered in and would print a ballot specifically for you.  All votes must create a paper ballot record and a voting trail that, while anonymous, can be later audited and tracked if necessary to determine that the voter actually voted.  If a person needs help voting and can’t do it in person, every party involved in an election would have a right to be present when the ballot was delivered to and completed by the voter.

I 100% guarantee you that this would eliminate any opportunity for significant fraud and result in Democrats losing a lot more elections, since they won’t be able to make up voters and votes anymore.  It will take a while to get something like this passed, so in the meantime I strongly encourage Republicans to learn to cheat as well as Democrats do.  There are lots of Republicans with residences in more than one state.  They should register and vote in both states.  Republicans should make up voters to be registered on the day of the election and deliver ballots filled in by these “voters”.   Making up voters is easy, just ask Ilhan Omar.  Make up a name, make up an address, get a fake utility bill or just someone to vouch for you.   Republicans should aggressively go to churches, bars, athletic events, anyplace that Republican voters may be hanging out, and get them to fill out ballots, more than one ballot each preferably, and then collect and deliver them.  There are a number of other Democrat fraud techniques that Republicans should mimic.  Once the playing field is leveled, we should see a lot more Republicans win.  Democrats think cheating is fine, all that matters is that they win.  Time for Republicans to have the same attitude.