Common Sense Political Thought

Elections have been rigged and they will continue to be rigged. However, such perversion of political process is only possible in certain jurisdictions and those unfamiliar with such locales may find the notion of vote fraud incredible. The techniques that work and have worked cannot be implemented in most of the polling places in the nation.

People can joke about ‘canvassing the tombstones’ but such a technique would be readily detected. Effective techniques for vote fraud are a bit more sophisticated.

An understanding of the voting process is needed to comprehend the ease with which elections are stolen.

We must first distinguish between retail vote fraud and wholesale vote fraud. Retail vote fraud could be done by a ‘sunbird’ couple with a strong partisan sense. They have moved from New York to Florida and never notified their old election board of their move nor did they notify the Florida officials of their New York registration. They could vote absentee in New York and in a polling place in Florida. Such people would be motivated by extreme partisanship and a member of either party could do it. Such rare incidents could have little effect on the outcome of an election and could be canceled out by persons of the opposite party with a similar motivation.

Wholesale vote fraud is an organized activity and is not something that can be implemented without years of preparation. The motivation for such fraud was seldom ideological and the winning of National elections. It was venality rather than ideology. The money and power that greases political machines comes from the offices far down on the ballot, often judges and prosecutors. Fixing of cases and steering of contracts can be worth the cost of rigging elections. As an example of the nature and extent of judicial venality, refer to Operation Greylord, a Federal investigation of a pattern of corruption in Cook County courtrooms.

When votes are ‘generated’ for down-ballot candidates, substantially number more votes must be created for candidates at the top of the ballot. A greater number of votes cast for a judicial candidate than for a presidential or senatorial candidate would raise obvious suspicion. This requires that more votes be generated for the candidates at the top of the ticket. This can elect a Senator or even a President.

The essential ingredient for vote fraud is an overwhelming voter registration advantage for one party, something in excess of 5-1. Such partisan disparities are typical in ethnic enclaves with an unsophisticated electorate. These are typically in large cities under Democrat control. The lack of an effective Republican organization may allow a few machine Democrat loyalists to make a tactical change of registration and serve as polling officials for the ‘minority party’. This removes a safeguard for the integrity of the voting process.

The tool for vote fraud is an inflated list of ‘registered voters’. These are names of persons who have moved from a precinct but have not been deleted from the rolls. Such a list is accumulated over time and allows other parties to vote in the name of the absent voter. Such votes can be cast over the course of a voting day or at the end of the day after the polls are officially closed. In the latter scenario, the election officials at the polls perform the illegal applications and with all parties present loyal to the machine, no one will be the wiser.

Periodic purging of the voter rolls helps to eliminate the reservoir of ‘supplementary voters’. However, legislation to ‘improve’ the voting process may dilute the effect of this safeguard. Purges may be selectively done and concentrate on those precincts where machine control is weak.

While volunteer observers may be placed in suspect precincts, these are typically outsiders who may be made to feel very unwelcome. They seldom know individual voters. These observers have no way of identifying those who are casting ballots under a false name when no positive voter identification is required. Efforts to demand that a photo ID be requested before voting is permitted have been fought in legislatures and in courts by the primary beneficiaries of vote fraud: Democrats.

Democrats have made legislative efforts to enfranchise career criminals by eliminating felony conviction as a barrier to voting. Will such felons show their gratitude with a new-found civic spirit by voting for those identified with their interests or will more names be thrown into a murky pool?

Such problems do not exist in suburbia or in rural precincts, where there is typically a truly bipartisan representation at the polling places. Yet the real votes of such citizens may be negated by those that were fraudulently cast in other jurisdictions.

The reward for vote fraud is enhanced power for corrupt political machines and the punishment for involvement in vote fraud is minor and may be no more than a token fine.

Regrettably, what passes as ‘reform’ of the voting process has enhanced wholesale vote theft. One warning sign has been the repeated exposure of the fraudulent voter registration efforts of a group with close ties to the Obama campaign. The group called ACORN claims that misbehavior of a few volunteers has tainted their otherwise noble efforts. Yet have any of these (paid) ‘volunteers’ been indicted or prosecuted? The mere threat of prosecution might encourage some truth-telling but when the act was done in a jurisdiction with the finest judges (and prosecutors) money can buy, any criminal sanctions are unlikely.

While some of the clumsier efforts of ACORN to pad the voter rolls have been detected, adding more fraudulent names will enhance the vote theft this year. Provisions for ‘instant voting’ following a fraudulent registration make the threat of a stolen election even more likely.

Perhaps federal law with severe penalties for vote fraud would discourage such practices but such reform is unlikely from the beneficiaries of the criminality.