Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters
Weekly Voting Rights News Update
By Erin Ferns
"I think the days of ballot box stuffing are more or less gone." - Allen Raymond, former GOP operative
Voter fraud
by individuals has been a major partisan debate in recent elections,
inspiring multiple states to consider or pass laws that purport to stop
it, including "no-match, no-vote" list maintenance procedures and
strict voter ID requirements. Despite federal findings that the act of
casting an illegal ballot is exceedingly rare, partisans often cite
large scale voter registration drives as voter fraud culprits, and
perpetuate the myth of voter fraud by spreading the fear that such
votes cancel out legitimate ones. With rising registration rates -
particularly among historically underrepresented Americans - it is no
surprise that partisans are spreading this myth, and the media often
perpetuates the hysteria by printing stories on the small numbers of
bad registration cards submitted by large scale voter registration
drives (including the 1.2 million submitted by Project Vote voter
registration partner, ACORN).
