HORIST: Expanded voting reduces turnout … increases fraud

For the first couple hundred years of the American Republic, voting procedures were straightforward.  You had to pre-register to be eligible and you had to appear at the polls on Election DAY to cast your ballot with some form of identification.

There was a small provision for absentee voting, but there were strict requirements to prove that you were totally unable to go to the polling place on Election Day – incapacity, out-of-town business or military service.  If you were fudging on your excuse, — your vote — could be challenged.  You could even be subject to civil prosecution.

Over time, the technology changed from long paper ballots to bulky paperless voting machines, to punch card with pesky chads and back to paper ballots — but this time, computer-read.  Because the Constitution gives the states the authority to set election rules and procedures – except qualifications for federal offices – voting laws differ from state-to-state.

Throughout the history of voting, there has been one constant – inaccuracy.  Some miscounts were honest mistakes, but many were institutional vote fraud.  While each new system was designed to address the frauds of the past, they were – and always will be – vulnerable to the creativity and skill of the vote thieves.  No system can ensure an honest count if there is not human supervision by all political stakeholders and impartial observers – even law enforcement — at every step of the way.

One of the historical trends in forming “a more perfect union” – as the Constitution admonishes us – has been to broaden the base of eligible voters.  We extended the franchise from landowners to all males. Republicans supported Negro voting rights in 1854 and led the suffrage fight that finally gave women the vote in 1920 with the passage of the 19^th Amendment. The Constitution was amended to allow for the popular election of United States Senators.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 — introduced by Illinois Republican Senator Everett Dirksen and signed by President Lyndon Johnson — was enacted to eradicate the last vestiges of racial discrimination in voting in the old solid Democrat southland.

In 1971, the 26^th Amendment granted voting rights to 18-year-olds.  The Vietnam War era slogan “old enough to fight, old enough to vote” carried the day.  The Amendment was passed by overwhelming bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate and ratified by the states in only eight days – the fastest ratification of any constitutional amendment in American history.

With virtual universal voting rights guaranteed, the issue moved to encourage greater participation – to get more of the eligible voters to the polls and make eligibility, itself, easier.  This resulted in such things as early voting, same day registration, provisional ballots for unregistered voters, vote by mail, reduced restrictions for absentee voting and abandoning requirements for proper identification at the polls.  While these changes were to create a greater turnout, they also provided greater opportunities to influence the count illegally.

One of the procedures that is legal but leads to illegality is the “harvesting” of votes.  This means that a person can collect absentee ballots from a number of people – and to even “assist” a supposedly willing person to fill out the ballot.

However, it is illegal to cast ballots for others without their knowledge or approval. Traditionally, only one relative or person living with the voter was allowed to “harvest,” but California Democrats passed a law – signed by Governor Jerry Brown — that allows anyone to collect and mark ballots.  This is just another example of Democrats attempting to “control” the vote through legal, semi-legal and outright illegal means.  For obvious reasons, “harvesting” had once been referred to as the “nursing home scheme.”

The courts also eased up the requirements to fill out the ballot properly.  There was a time when an X counted, but a check mark did not.  Was a hanging chad a legitimate vote?  Courts shifted from the precision of the law to what became known as the “intent of the voter.” Whether correct or not, can the marks on the ballot fairy indicate intent?  What was once specific is now arbitrary and subject to debate.  It also makes it easier for ballot handlers to mark ballots surreptitiously.

The liberalizing of the voting procedures had seemingly two outcomes.  Ironically, a peer reviewed study by the very liberal University of Wisconsin at Madison, partially funded by the equally liberal Pew Charitable Trust, showed a decline in voter participation by 3% to 4% due to voter confusion and uncertainty.  In other words, all the efforts to encourage greater voter participation actually reduced participation.  This does not matter to Democrats.  Despite claims to the contrary, Democrats are less interested in increasing turnout than influencing the outcome of elections.

Another favorite Democrat circumvention of the legal system is the issuing of driving licenses to illegal aliens.  Since the photo driving license is one of the standard identifications to prove eligibility, it is now easier for illegals to vote in elections, and almost impossible to prevent it.

In some jurisdictions, Democrats have even gone a step further – making it legal for non-citizens to vote.  Since cities and states cannot regulate federal elections, the permission can only be granted in local and state elections.  Often it is limited to school board elections under the theory that if they have children in American schools, they should have a voice in who runs them.

The second outcome of all these efforts to expand voting rights into populations of Democrat and would-be Democrat voters is even more disturbing.  It has resulted in a dramatic INCREASE in voting irregularities, including outright fraud.

Yes, we have all heard those absurd claims from the Democrats and the liberal news media that there is no such thing as vote fraud, but that flies in the face of insurmountable evidence that stealing votes and intentionally misreporting counts remain a problem in close elections.  The less restrictive rules for voting have opened greater opportunities for illegally influencing the outcome of elections by reducing the security of the process at a number of critical points.

One of the evergreen vote schemes is ballots cast by the deceased.  It is so prevalent that it has been a running joke for generations.  To this day, voting rolls maintain the names of the dead.  These provide opportunities for partisans or hired individuals to vote in the name of the dearly departed.  Many regions have more voters –by multiples– on the roll than there are registered voters.  In a few cases, there are more “eligible” dead people than real live registered voters.

Interestingly, Democrats are screaming vote fraud in the only unresolved congressional race in America based on a “statistical anomaly.”  It seems that Republican Mark Harris in North Carolina’s 9th District is ahead by 905 votes – generally considered an insurmountable lead in a congressional race.  The race has been called by all the major news outlets.  However, there is one county that is only partially in the 9^th District in which an ill-defined “anomaly” exists.  As a result, the party that claims there have only been about 30 cases of vote fraud in the past ten years (yeah, that is the Democrats’ claim) is now alleging multiples of that number in one Congressional District in one state.

Since the media is overwhelmingly composed of Democrat partisans, they do not wish to focus on vote fraud in Democrat strongholds – mostly the major urban centers – where most of the vote fraud takes place. That is not an opinion but a provable fact.   Not only is the Democrat media unwilling to use their investigative powers to follow up on complaints of vote fraud, the Democrat-controlled prosecutors and courts refuse to pursue the most obvious cases of vote fraud.

I have personally investigated THOUSANDS of cases of vote fraud in Chicago alone – and I could go there today and find case-after-case – none of which will be of interest to the local press or the local Democrat leadership.

This partisan disinterest in vote irregularities and current voting laws that open opportunities for manipulation by corrupt political machines is undermining the integrity of our elections.  If we pretended that bank robbery did not exist and refused to prosecute it, there would be a lot more bank robbery.  That also applies to voting.

So, there ‘tis.