Voter fraud as described by Trump is a myth and is feeding a dangerous rise in election based conspiracies
From the Brennan Center:
Donald Trump continues to claim the November election will be “rigged,” urging his supporters to monitor polling places for “large scale fraud.” President Michael Waldman and other experts from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law — who have studied voter fraud allegations and election issues for more than a decade — are available to comment.
We recently released a series of briefing memos on these subjects:
- Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth. There is no basis to the claims of widespread fraud or rigged election outcomes. Fraud by voters at the polls is vanishingly rare. Every major study, investigation, and court decision has found little evidence of fraud — and substantial evidence of disenfranchisement. Instead, these claims are used to push restrictive laws that block legitimate voters.
- The Dangers of “Ballot Security” Operations and Voter Intimidation. Every eligible citizen has the right to vote free of intimidation and discrimination — regardless of political affiliation, race, disability, sexual orientation, or gender. Deploying non-official, private actors to challenge voters’ eligibility can lead to illegal intimidation, discrimination, or disruptions, and undermine confidence in our election system. This analysis outlines the threat, explains what is and is not allowed under the law, and highlights what can be done to protect against harmful activity in November.
See more of the Brennan Center’s Election 2016 Controversies resources.
Michael Ossipoff says
It’s amusing how, when the subject of rigged elections comes up, some people equate “fraud” with “voter fraud”. Wrong.
There’s another kind of fraud: Count-fraud.
If you have count-fraud, you don’t even need voter-fraud.
Trump is at least partly right about that: There’s no particular reason to believe that the election isn’t rigged, by count-fraudl.
In fact, that’s an understatement: Look at the Harpers Magazine issues immediately after each of George W. Bush’s elections. There were mountains of evidence of large-scale count-fraud.
I’m hot talking about voter-intimidation, hanging-chads, the Supreme-Court forbidding a count. I’m referring to evidence of couint-fraud. There was plenty of such evidence.
That should be enough to put subsequent elections (like the upcoming one) in doubt.
Of course, in general, it might not be possible to get proof of count-fraud, because…..how would you if the count results aren’t verifiable??
The mere fact of an unverifiable vote-count is, by itself, enough to make the election illegitimate.
So:
1. Boycott the illegitimate elections.
2. Demand verifiable vote-counting, with gigantic (legal) street demonstrations and marches.
Let all the foreign TV news show our empty boycotted polling-places, and those gigantic pro-democracy demonstrations all.across the country.
Michael Ossipoff