Is Voter Fraud on the Rise?

| Voter Fraud and Corruption just Business as Usual and 20% Admit to Voting Illegally? |

Voter Fraud has been a problem for as long as there have been elections, but is it getting worse? There are certainly indications that it is on an upswing and perhaps, even normalized as standards are continually loosened.

The Battle Over Felons Voting Continues

When research I led after the 2008 election revealed more ineligible felons voted in Minnesota’s monumental US Senate race than the margin of victory, our government didn’t seek new solutions to put a stop to felon voting. Instead, a movement began gathering steam to formally legalize it. It’s been a back and forth battle ever since, but this year, the legislature passed and the governor signed a new law giving supervised felons the right to vote (but notably not restoring any of their other civil rights). About 55,000 convicted felons still under Department of Corrections supervision were added to the state’s voter rolls as a result.

The Minnesota Voters Alliance challenged the new law in court, based on Article VII, Section 1 of the Minnesota Constitution, which states, “Every person 18 years of age or more who has been a citizen of the United States for three months and who has resided in the precinct for 30 days next preceding an election shall be entitled to vote in that precinct. The place of voting by one otherwise qualified who has changed his residence within 30 days preceding the election shall be prescribed by law. The following persons shall not be entitled or permitted to vote at any election in this state: A person not meeting the above requirements; a person who has been convicted of treason or felony, unless restored to civil rights; a person under guardianship, or a person who is insane or not mentally competent.”

Anoka County Judge Thomas Lehman dismissed the Minnesota Voters Alliance case with prejudice, stating, “Contrary to Petitioners’ argument, Article VII, section 1, does not say ‘restored to all civil rights.’ Instead, it says ‘restored to civil rights.’ Basic principles of constitutional interpretation require courts to presume that the framers of our Constitution chose language deliberately and used it precisely.”

MVA executive director Andy Cilek was quoted by KSTP News as responding, “We believe that for a felon to regain voting rights, the Constitution requires restoration of the civil rights a felon loses upon conviction, and only a constitutional amendment can change that. We are hopeful that the appeals courts will agree.”

The MVA is appealing the ruling and has asked to have the case fast-tracked to the Minnesota Supreme Court, bypassing the usual appeals court route.

Felons voting in Minnesota is just one example of normalizing election practices not long ago considered repugnant to democracy.

Elections Invalidated

Meanwhile, a Louisiana Sheriff’s race seemed to be decided by just one vote, but according to the Louisiana Illuminator, that election has also been tossed out due to voter fraud discovered after the results were in. Some of those fraudulent votes were allegedly cast by disqualified voters, like convicted felons, but these ones were apparently incarcerated at the time.

In Connecticut, the mayor of Bridgeport keeps getting caught up in election fraud scandals, but keeps getting reelected. Mayor Joe Ganim just won reelection, having previously won the job back under a cloud of voter fraud allegations, just after emerging from a seven-year prison term for previous corruption in office!

Joe Ganim’s latest win might not hold, because a judge threw out the results of the primary election that put him on the ballot in the first place. That’s because Ganim’s staffers had been caught on video illegally stuffing unattended ballot collection boxes with stacks of ballots.

The mayor finally admitted, under insurmountable evidence, that his staffers broke the law, but he denies having anything to do with it, according to the Associated Press.

A new primary may be forthcoming while legal battles play out, but it’s clear that the people of Bridgeport have had to simply accept open corruption and subversion of the democratic process at City Hall, as this entire ugly drama has been ongoing there for decades. It’s just business as usual.

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More Ballot Harvesting Folly

Since the exponential increase in mail-in voting that was rushed into practice and then normalized after the worldwide Covid Panic, there can be little doubt that fraud was made easier and more common. Another example comes from New York, where one man was just arraigned on what the New York Post described as a “Monster 140-count indictment.”

During the “early voting” phase of the 2023 Democrat Primary in Queens, Abdul Rahman dropped off ballots in bulk, as if “harvested” from other voters, but the major apparent problem was that none of those voters gave him permission to handle their ballots. When some of them later showed up in person to vote and were told they couldn’t, because they’d already submitted absentee ballots, Rahman’s alleged voter fraud scheme came under scrutiny. If convicted, he faces seven years in prison.

1 in 5 Mail-In Voters Admit they Broke Election Laws

In another, rather stunning piece of recent news, a polling firm decided to basically just ask voters if they cheated in the last election. An eye-popping 20% said they did.

A survey conducted by well-known pollsters, Rasmussen Reports found 21% of those who cast a mail-in or absentee ballot in the 2020 election claimed to have filled out a ballot on behalf of someone other than themselves. 19% claimed someone else completed their ballot for them and 17% claimed to have submitted a ballot in a state where they were not a permanent resident. All of these are examples of election crimes.

If someone had previously asked me to guess what percentage of mail-in votes were illegally cast, I’d have guessed between two and ten percent. To learn that 20% freely admit it when asked during a survey call is stunning, even to this jaded voter fraud researcher. Based on this admittedly limited poll, the problem appears worse than most have imagined and growing.

Without swift and decisive action to shore up the integrity of our nation’s elections, we’re heading into banana republic territory, where no one will trust any election outcomes. For a nation dependent on faith in its democratic processes, that can only spell disaster.