Voter Supression, Fraud

The Issue
Voter fraud became an issue during the 2012 election cycle. Republicans voiced concerns that people ineligible to vote are voting or are otherwise causing problems in the election process. However, actual incidents of in-person voter fraud are almost nonexistent - which even the Bush administration concluded, finding only nine possible incidents of fraud, compared to 352 deaths caused by lightning and 32,299 UFO reports. Instead, Republicans have used in-person voter fraud as a cover in their efforts to stop Democrats from voting.

National/General
Voting restrictions put in place by Republicans nationwide may affect up to 5 million voters according to one report. These restrictions disproportionately affect young, minority, disabled, and low-income voters. College students in particular are also affected by these laws.

Republicans' Fraud
Ironically, Republican U.S. House staffers were indicted for felony election fraud regarding nomination petitions. Numerous other instances of this type of fraud have taken place, including by high-profile Republicans such as Mitt Romney and Ann Coulter. Republicans want to stop Democrats from voting, so the voter ID laws they pass do not stop instances of Republicans committing fraud, such as fradulent petitions, registrations, and efforts to change peoples' votes on electronic voting machines.

The founder of the conservative Heritage Foundation has even stated, "I don't want everybody to vote." He pointed out that as fewer people vote, his leverage in campaigns goes up.

Republican Voter Vigilante Project
Republicans are encouraging the True the Vote project, a group with the backing of wealthy donors which wants to deploy 1 million people to polling places to prevent the 'wrong' people from voting and to ensure that people who disagree with them don't get their ballots counted.

Tea Party Lies
Tea Party Nation founder and president Judson Phillips claims only liberals commit voter fraud, that Democrats steal elections, and says over 1 million Democrats voted twice in the 2012 elections even though the study he uses comes from a database designed to guarantee large numbers of false positives and even though zero of the people have ever been convicted of voter fraud.

Colorado
Colorado Republican Secretary of State Scott Gessler gave up on his state's voter purge after 90% of suspected invalid voters were proven to be U.S. citizens in a federal database. Only 1 person came forward as an invalid voter - and this person didn't even know he was registered to vote until he received the purge letter. Instead, his registration has been blamed on a DMV clerical error.

Florida
Republican Governor Rick Scott ordered a purge of the state's voter rolls in violation of the Voting Rights Act and against the wishes of the state's counties. The purge disproportionately affects minorities and Democratic constituencies. The United States Justice Department has asked the purge to stop, but Rick Scott has refused. In Rick Scott's first voter purge, 98.4% of voters who were purged were actually eligible to vote. Courts have also rejected Republican provisions that would have reduced the days and hours available for early voting.

Massachusetts
The National Voter Registration Act requires residents to be given the opportunity to register to vote when getting a driver's license or apply for social services. Massachusetts has not been complying with the law. Republican Senator Scott Brown says it's "outrageous" to register welfare recipients.

New Hampshire
New Hampshire Republicans attempted to pass a law ending same-day voter registration and which would have prohibited students from using their school addresses when registering to vote. Preventing students from using their school addresses would have effectively stopped them from voting altogether because they would be unable to register at all. The New Hampshire Republican House Speaker even told a tea party rally that students shouldn't vote since they don't have "life experience" and just "vote their feelings."

North Carolina
During the 2012 election, harrassment and intimidation of voters was common enough that poll workers were authorized to call the police if necessary. In 2013, Republican Governor Pat McCrory signed into law a bill allowing political parties to send observers from precinct to precinct during the voting process and allow citizens to challenge the legality of anyone's vote. The bill also requires types of ID that Democratic constituencies disproportionately lack, restricts early voting, cancels a program that registers high school students, and prohibits registration on voting days. The bill is referred to as the most restrictive in the country.

Ohio
Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted issued a directive that stopped county elections boards from allowing weekend early voting. One county's Democrats objected to this and were subsequently suspended from their elections board. When Republican counties proposed different rules, those rules were approved. Democratic counties' rules were not approved. In other words, the Republicans set up a special set of rules for Republican counties and another for Democratic counties.

An exception to early voting rules were military voters, who typically vote Republican. Democrats' efforts to expand early voting rights to all Ohio voters and not just military members were stopped. Of note, Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney lied about this and said President Obama wanted to restrict military rights. The fact however, as stated above, is that Democrats want early voting rights preserved for all Ohio voters.

Racial discrimination is one motivator for Republicans' efforts, with one county's Republican chairman stating voting rules should not have to accommodate urban African Americans.

As of early September 2012, a federal court ordered Ohio to restore early voting to all voters, stating the Republicans' rules were arbitrary and disproportionately affected low-income and minority voters - claims the Republicans didn't bother disputing.

In 2006, Republicans passed a law in Ohio that required ballots be thrown out if someone voted in the wrong precinct - even if poll workers told them to go to that precinct in the first place. Courts have thus far blocked this rule.

Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania Republicans, even after admitting they have no evidence at all of voter fraud, passed restrictive voter ID laws. The state's computer system was configured in a way that nearly prevented a 105-year-old from voting.

South Carolina
South Carolina Republicans passed a voter identification bill with the express intent of disenfranchising Democratic voters. The bill's author distributed peanuts with cards that said “Stop Obama’s nutty agenda and support voter ID.” Racist e-mails also surfaced indicating racial discrimination was a motive as well. Republican officials have admitted they have zero examples of voter fraud, and that their rules do not stop impersonators from voting as someone else.

Texas
Texas' Republican-controlled legislature and governor Rick Scott created and passed a redistricting plan that intentionally discriminates against minorities. Courts found that white incumbents' districts were mostly untouched while minority districts were altered to remove economically viable areas. Country clubs and schools that incumbents' grandchildren went to were added to whites' districts at the request of those incumbents.

Wisconsin
In the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall elections of 2012, Scott Walker won - but the exit polls did not match the reported results from the election. Of note is the fact Wisconsin's election systems are predominantly provided by Dominion Voting Systems, a company backed by Republicans. One of the two people responsible for testing the voting machines in Wisconsin was fired from one of her jobs for refusing to take the company's ethics exam, and the fact is the testers have "the ability to inject all the machines with a virus that will flip votes only on Election Day."

Scott Walker's campaign allies also made numerous robocalls telling people who signed the recall petition that they did not need to vote in the election because their signature counted as a vote - something that was not true. News outlets even reported that the person in the call sounded very similar to Walker's opponent, suggesting the Walker campaign hired an impersonator. An effort to disable Walker's opponent's campaign office phones was also made by Walker's allies.

Governor Walker also signed into law a restrictive voter ID law, that as of mid-September 2012 has been blocked by state courts.

Connections with Republicans
Ties have been uncovered between Mitt Romney's family and voting machine companies.

Hacking
Commonly-used voting machines are easily and quickly hacked as shown by both NSA analysts and national laboratories. All voting machine systems used in Ohio during 2008 had critical flaws according to Ohio's Secretary of State.

Votes Changed for Republicans
Voting machines in the 2012 Presidential election were documented switching votes from Barack Obama to Mitt Romney and/or from other Democrats to Republicans instead.

Further Reading and Other Resources

 * Policy Brief on the Truth About "Voter Fraud" (Sept. 2006)
 * An organized overview of the voter fraud issue, complete with the statistic that even in swing-state Ohio, voter fraud occurs 0.00004% of the time.
 * http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/policy_brief_on_the_truth_about_voter_fraud/; last accessed 9/16/2012
 * When You Can't Win - Cheat: Election Fraud From Coast to Coast (5/27/2012)
 * Includes information on voter suppression in California, Florida, and Tennessee
 * http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/05/27/when-you-cant-win-cheat-election-fraud-from-coast-to-coast/; last accessed 9/16/2012
 * The Myth of Voter Fraud (10/9/2011)
 * Editorial regarding Republicans' new voting laws
 * http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/opinion/the-myth-of-voter-fraud.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general; last accessed 9/16/2012

Continuing News

 * 5/14/2015: Ohio Students Push Back Against Latest Attempts To Keep Them From The Polls
 * 5/13/2015: No Money, No Vote: Ohio Republicans’ Diabolical Plan For A Poll Tax