Widespread “voter fraud” is a myth promulgated to suppress voter participation, according to a new Project Vote report

New Report Examines "The Politics of Voter Fraud" | March 05, 2007

Washington, DC - Widespread “voter fraud” is a myth promulgated to suppress voter participation, according to a new Project Vote report released this week. “The Politics of Voter Fraud” finds that fraudulent voting, or the intentional corruption of the voting process by voters, is extremely rare. Yet, false or exaggerated claims of fraudulent voting are commonly made in close electoral contests, and later cited by proponents of laws that restrict voting. The report is authored by Lorraine Minnite, Ph.D., Barnard College, Columbia University.

“I set out to study what situations generated incidents of voter fraud and, after researching the laws and examining the existing evidence, I found that voter fraud did not occur with enough frequency or was enough of a significant factor in elections to model or study,” Minnite said. “Instead, in this report, I examined circumstances in which claims of voter fraud were made and how they came to receive widespread public attention.”

Analysis of federal government records concludes that only 24 people were convicted of or pleaded guilty to illegal voting between 2002 and 2005, an average of eight people a year. The available state-level evidence of fraudulent voting, culled from interviews, reviews of newspaper coverage and court proceedings paints a similar picture.

“We shouldn’t base public policy on urban legends but on sound facts. It’s clear from this report that fraudulent voting isn’t threatening the integrity of our elections; we do know that erecting additional bureaucratic obstacles to voting discourages legitimate voters,” said Project Vote Deputy Director Michael Slater. ...