When 1,099 felons vote in race won by 312 ballots

[teflep]

In the eyes of the Obama administration, most Democratic lawmakers, and left-leaning editorial pages across the country, voter fraud is a problem that doesn't exist. Allegations of fraud, they say, are little more than pretexts conjured up by Republicans to justify voter ID laws designed to suppress Democratic turnout.

That argument becomes much harder to make after reading a discussion of the 2008 Minnesota Senate race in "Who's Counting?", a new book by conservative journalist John Fund and former Bush Justice Department official Hans von Spakovsky. Although the authors cover the whole range of voter fraud issues, their chapter on Minnesota is enough to convince any skeptic that there are times when voter fraud not only exists but can be critical to the outcome of a critical race.

In the '08 campaign, Republican Sen. Norm Coleman was running for re-election against Democrat Al Franken. It was impossibly close; on the morning after the election, after 2.9 million people had voted, Coleman led Franken by 725 votes.

Franken and his Democratic allies dispatched an army of lawyers to challenge the results. After the first canvass, Coleman's lead was down to 206 votes. That was followed by months of wrangling and litigation. In the end, Franken was declared the winner by 312 votes. He was sworn into office in July 2009, eight months after the election.

During the controversy a conservative group called Minnesota Majority began to look into claims of voter fraud. Comparing criminal records with voting rolls, the group identified 1,099 felons -- all ineligible to vote -- who had voted in the Franken-Coleman race.

Minnesota Majority took the information to prosecutors across the state, many of whom showed no interest in pursuing it. But Minnesota law requires authorities to investigate such leads. And so far, Fund and von Spakovsky report, 177 people have been convicted -- not just accused, but convicted -- of voting fraudulently in the Senate race. Another 66 are awaiting trial. "The numbers aren't greater," the authors say, "because the standard for convicting someone of voter fraud in Minnesota is that they must have been both ineligible, and 'knowingly' voted unlawfully." The accused can get off by claiming not to have known they did anything wrong.

Still, that's a total of 243 people either convicted of voter fraud or awaiting trial in an election that was decided by 312 votes. With 1,099 examples identified by Minnesota Majority, and with evidence suggesting that felons, when they do vote, strongly favor Democrats, it doesn't require a leap to suggest there might one day be proof that Al Franken was elected on the strength of voter fraud.

And that's just the question of voting by felons. Minnesota Majority also found all sorts of other irregularities that cast further doubt on the Senate results.

The election was particularly important because Franken's victory gave Senate Democrats a 60th vote in favor of President Obama's national health care proposal -- the deciding vote to overcome a Republican filibuster. If Coleman had kept his seat, there would have been no 60th vote, and no Obamacare.

Voter fraud matters when contests are close. When an election is decided by a huge margin, no one can plausibly claim fraud made the difference. But the Minnesota race was excruciatingly close. And then, in the Obamacare debate, Democrats could not afford to lose even a single vote. So if there were any case that demonstrates that voter fraud both exists and has real consequences, it is Minnesota 2008.

Yet Democrats across the country continue to downplay the importance of the issue. Last year, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, denounced "the gauzy accusation that voter fraud is somehow a problem, when over and over again it has been proven that you're more likely to get hit by lightning than you are to [be] a victim of voter fraud."

Wasserman Shultz and her fellow Democrats are doing everything they can to stop reasonable anti-fraud measures, like removing ineligible voters from the rolls and voter ID. Through it all, they maintain they are simply defending our most fundamental right, the right to vote.

But voter fraud involves that right, too. "When voters are disenfranchised by the counting of improperly cast ballots or outright fraud, their civil rights are violated just as surely as if they were prevented from voting," write Fund and von Spakovsky. "The integrity of the ballot box is just as important to the credibility of elections as access to it."
washingtonexaminer.com/york-when-1099-felons-vote-in-race-won-by-312-ballots/article/2504163

Maybe this is the fraud all talk about?

[druidp]

Nuh-uh.

References to Gore v Bush in Florida.

Voter ID requirements are the devil.

Scene.

[y4m]

Why do you want to disenfranchise old, poor, and non-white people, Tef and Druid!?!?

[teflep]

I have issues with long-term loss of voting, but while on parole, etc? They are still serving for their wrong-doings. But, let's focus on Romney Richy-Rich. Both of these distract from the economy. Squirrel.

[StrawberryBlondie]

I'm not claiming this didn't happen (though I'm skeptical), but I live in Minnesota and I've never heard this. I did hear about some issues with ineligible voters being registered, not any actually voting. we have a voter ID issue coming up on the ballot in November. If there was an issue with 11000 ineligible people voting (not that an ID would solve this issue) I would think it would've been broadcast front and center.

Also, Minnesota doesn't permanently disenfranchise felons. Full voting rights are restored after you've done your time and completed probation (sorry if the article said that - I didn't see it).

ETA: I googled to try to find something else to give any support to what this article is claiming, and all I'm finding is this exact article re-printed a bunch of places.

[druidp]

Aug 7, 2012 21:16:40 GMT -5 StrawberryBlondie said:

If there was an issue with 11000 ineligible people voting (not that an ID would solve this issue) I would think it would've been broadcast front and center.

Wow. You have way more faith in the media than I do, especially considering the domino effect this provided when the HCR vote was going to be on the line.

[teflep]

I found this on the 2008 election (charged-160 in voting when not supposed to):
minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/01/30/felons-vote/

[soontobeka]

Okay this is going to be a long one.

I question their "science" for who they determined were felons (this is regarding the 2008 election). From their "Report on Fraudulent Votes Cast by Ineligible Felons...": From these records, we extracted a list of individuals charged
with felony crimes at the time of the 2008 election. We then compared this list of felons to voter history
records from the Secretary of State’s statewide voter registration system (SVRS). From this comparison,
we compiled a list of 2,803 felons who potentially voted in the 2008 General Election.

They are counting individuals who are CHARGED with a felony, not necessarily those who have been convicted (and would have had their voting rights taken away till the completion of their sentence).

However, in the methodology they state that they determined who was "off paper" vs those still serving their sentences (and ineligible to vote). On a personal note, I do wonder why they use "charged" vs "convicted" in the report when talking about those ineligible to vote.

Also further in the report, In all,1,359 names of suspected ineligible felon voters were forwarded to these county attorneys for
investigation, with supporting evidence. Eight months after Minnesota Majority provided evidence of
felon voters to the county attorneys, Hennepin County has charged 3 individuals with fraudulent voting
by felons and Ramsey County has quietly charged an additional 6 persons. So 9 out of the 1359 that MM determined to be ineligible to vote were actually charged.

edited to add link to report: www.minnesotamajority.org/Portals/0/documents/ReportOnFelonVoters.pdf

[druidp]

Aug 7, 2012 21:33:02 GMT -5 cjoy said:

minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/polinaut/archive/2011/10/poligraph_voter.shtml

I found this, strawberryblondie.

I still don't see how this is evidence that we need voter ID. Presumably Joe Smith the ineligible felon was voting as Joe Smith the ineligible felon. That's how he was caught, right?

I included it as a natural progression of where the thread commentary might go, as is usual when we discuss voter fraud.

[ChillyMcFreeze]

The thread commentary goes there because Republicans keep bringing it up as a remedy for voter fraud. But this scenario shows that it wouldn't in fact thwart voter fraud. So it's a solution in search of a problem that, in the meantime, disenfranchises already marginalized groups.

[soontobeka]

(admittedly from a progressive website- the word "clowns" is from the website and not my word) www.mnprogressiveproject.com/diary/10874/mn-majority-still-cant-find-any-vote-fraud

So here's what their shrieking about:

More than 160 Minnesota felons have been charged with voting illegally since the 2008 election.

Seriously. 2.8 million voted in 2008. 2.1 million voted in 2010. These clowns are concerned that out of nearly 5 million votes cast, around 160 felons voted.

That's 0.0032% of all votes cast. But maybe these morons at MN Majority mean excluding the 2008 votes. That raises the percentage to 0.0076% of all votes cast.

[soontobeka]

Aug 7, 2012 21:59:24 GMT -5 cjoy said:

Minnesota Majority's website (and ugh, I feel dirty just looking at this shit, seriously) keeps bringing up felons voting as evidence that we need voter ID in this state. But they won't tell me how it will stop them from voting, other than it will.

And here is what election officials are saying: Elections officials say because most felons do have current IDs, a photo ID requirement would not solve the problem. A state task force has studied possible solutions, including North Dakota's, which is to allow felons to vote once they are released from prison or jail, even if they remain on probation. www.startribune.com/politics/blogs/160859615.html

So, yeah I am not sure how an ID will fix this problem, either.

[MrsAxilla]

Aug 7, 2012 21:35:08 GMT -5 soontobeka said:

Okay this is going to be a long one.

I question their "science" for who they determined were felons (this is regarding the 2008 election). From their "Report on Fraudulent Votes Cast by Ineligible Felons...": From these records, we extracted a list of individuals charged
with felony crimes at the time of the 2008 election. We then compared this list of felons to voter history
records from the Secretary of State’s statewide voter registration system (SVRS). From this comparison,
we compiled a list of 2,803 felons who potentially voted in the 2008 General Election.

They are counting individuals who are CHARGED with a felony, not necessarily those who have been convicted (and would have had their voting rights taken away till the completion of their sentence).

However, in the methodology they state that they determined who was "off paper" vs those still serving their sentences (and ineligible to vote). On a personal note, I do wonder why they use "charged" vs "convicted" in the report when talking about those ineligible to vote.

Also further in the report, In all,1,359 names of suspected ineligible felon voters were forwarded to these county attorneys for
investigation, with supporting evidence. Eight months after Minnesota Majority provided evidence of
felon voters to the county attorneys, Hennepin County has charged 3 individuals with fraudulent voting
by felons and Ramsey County has quietly charged an additional 6 persons. So 9 out of the 1359 that MM determined to be ineligible to vote were actually charged.

edited to add link to report: www.minnesotamajority.org/Portals/0/documents/ReportOnFelonVoters.pdf

I'd also like to see their research indicating that felons are more likely to vote Democratic. What kind of bullshit allegation is that?? "We all know criminals are Democrats."

[druidp]

Aug 7, 2012 22:05:03 GMT -5 MrsAxilla said:

I'd also like to see their research indicating that felons are more likely to vote Democratic. What kind of bullshit allegation is that?? "We all know criminals are Democrats."

I imagine the right's general embracing of the death penalty for certain crimes could sway them a mite.

[MrsAxilla]

Aug 7, 2012 22:14:34 GMT -5 druidp said:

Aug 7, 2012 22:05:03 GMT -5 MrsAxilla said:

I'd also like to see their research indicating that felons are more likely to vote Democratic. What kind of bullshit allegation is that?? "We all know criminals are Democrats."

I imagine the right's general embracing of the death penalty for certain crimes could sway them a mite.

Nope. Not buying it. If the death penalty isn't enough to deter them from acting in their own best interest in the first place (i.e. not committing crime) I hardly think it deters people from voting against their own best interest.

[pixy0stix]

Also, these people were caught and tried, or are in the process of being tried.

I don't understand what you're trying to claim other than proving that the system is working? Bravo?

[llama]

Aug 7, 2012 22:14:34 GMT -5 druidp said:

Aug 7, 2012 22:05:03 GMT -5 MrsAxilla said:

I'd also like to see their research indicating that felons are more likely to vote Democratic. What kind of bullshit allegation is that?? "We all know criminals are Democrats."

I imagine the right's general embracing of the death penalty for certain crimes could sway them a mite.

Because all (or even most?) felons committed death-penalty eligible offenses? I don't see how positions on the death penalty would be at all personally relevant to the political opinions of most felons...

[pixy0stix]

I did a cursory search of felon political affiliation, and most of the links were hilarious. Really, as far as I can tell, there hasn't been any solid research on the matter.

[msmerymac]

Wasserman Shultz and her fellow Democrats are doing everything they can to stop reasonable anti-fraud measures, like removing ineligible voters from the rolls and voter ID.



Yeah, I, and the Constitution, beg to differ than these are reasonable measures.

[ttt]

Aug 7, 2012 22:14:34 GMT -5 druidp said:

Aug 7, 2012 22:05:03 GMT -5 MrsAxilla said:

I'd also like to see their research indicating that felons are more likely to vote Democratic. What kind of bullshit allegation is that?? "We all know criminals are Democrats."

I imagine the right's general embracing of the death penalty for certain crimes could sway them a mite.

I don't think "criminals" are really a voting bloc. And since most criminals aren't murderers, let alone capital murderers, I don't think this would really affect their voting habits.