Voter Fraud, Voter Suppression, and Voter Rolls

By Michael Alan Prestwood

Voter fraud does not exist in large numbers, never sways elections, and barely exists. Voter suppression does exist. Republicans rely heavily on voter suppression to actually sway elections. Why? I think because they know they are wrong on the issues. If they don’t lie and cheat, they lose every time.
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Voter Fraud, Voter Suppression, and Voter Rolls

Do you know the ins and outs of voter rolls, voter registration, voter suppression, and voter fraud? How about their actual effect on elections? This article jumps straight to the bottom line on all four. Enjoy!

Cleaning Voter Rolls or Not is Not Voter Fraud

Voter fraud is not the same thing as cleaning up voter registration rolls. Both Democrats and Republicans want voter registration rolls cleaned up. The big difference right now is that Democrats don’t want to suppress votes by over cleaning rolls. Republicans sometimes use cleaning rolls to suppress votes by over cleaning them and removing legitimate voters. This seems to only happen in areas dominated by Democrats. For example, in African American and Native American communities.

High Voter Registration Rates is NOT Voter Fraud

Voter registration rates are always higher than actual voters because people die and move. Cleaning them up is easy and most of the time you don’t hear about it, because it’s easy. You usually only hear about it when it’s abused and used as a tool to suppress votes.

Democrats clean up registration rolls all the time and I know of no case of them getting sued. Republicans do it “sometimes” in such a way that gets them sued for voter suppression way too frequently. And, here’s the kicker, they lose in court. We are all law-n-order people and it’s a really big deal that they lose in court. This is NOT a throw away consideration. You can read the judgments yourself too.

Voter ID Laws: Voter Suppression is Not Voter Fraud

VOTER SUPPRESSION by Republicans EXISTS! But, there is NO SYSTEMIC VOTER FRAUD BY DEMOCRATS IN AMERICA. None. It’s a lie. Voter registration rolls are not votes, nor do they lead to voter fraud. If you think voter fraud exists, show me. I’ll be happy to listen. You’ll find that you can’t because it just does not exist. Trump created the Voter Fraud Commission after the election. Found none and the states refused to give up their state rights so he had to disband the commission. If there was even a tiny little bit, don’t you think Trump would have made it seem like a bigly bad thing?

Slight of Hand

All the articles you’ll find are fear mongering and performing slight of hand by equating rolls with votes, and with anecdotal evidence. Actual voter fraud is so rare that the numbers are crazy low. One study found only 56 votes from 2000 to 2011 in America and more of the 56 were by Republican voters.

But, again, I will read anything you send me.

Here’s a pretty good article on PolitiFact:

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/jan/04/donald-trump/donald-trump-says-theres-substantial-evidence-vote/

I’m okay with Voter ID laws if we can do it in a way that does not disenfranchise anyone, but the consensus is that many states who wish to require photo IDs have also shown that they are unwilling to issue state issued photo IDs in a fair and equitable fashion to members of certain minority communities.

Additionally, the costs of acquiring a photo ID in order to meet a requirement for photo ID are analogous to a Poll Tax, which is strictly unconstitutional. Those of us that like the constitution are not ok with poll taxes.

Personally, I’m not against it if it’s done in a way that does not disenfranchise anyone. On a similar topic, why not auto-register all Americans that get a drivers license? Are you ok with that?

Only 17 states require a photo ID, so this is not a liberal CA odd duck thing you all are trying to make it out to be.

Also, in the 17 states that do require it, why are NRA Member IDs frequently considered okay? But, not a student ID? If you’re honest, you’ll say it’s because college students vote more Democrat, and Republicans are all about suppressing those that vote for Democrats. NRA members mostly vote Republican that’s why those are ok. See? Republicans just want to cheat. This isn’t about democracy, it’s about power.

The consensus is that many states who wish to require photo IDs have also shown that they are unwilling to issue state issued photo IDs in a fair and equitable fashion to members of certain minority communities.

Additionally, the costs of acquiring a photo ID in order to meet a requirement for photo ID are analogous to a Poll Tax, which is strictly unconstitutional. Those of us that like the constitution are not ok with poll taxes.

NRA Pushed Gun ID Laws

With regard to Gun ID voter laws, is it propaganda to say NRA Gun ID?

I don’t think so, but I could be wrong. Propaganda is knowingly repeating a lie for political advantage. I frequently use the term NRA gun ID and I probably should just say “gun ID”. If one thinks there’s a “big” distinction between the two, we’ll just have to agree to disagree, but going forward I will try to separate the NRA lobby group from state laws they pushed.

At the heart of most Americans concern is voter rights. The bottom line is that Trump Republicans including the entire Republican establishment are against voter rights and directly causing and/or supporting voter suppression. They are trying to implement as many Jim Crow like laws as they can.

In my post above, I said “like” Jim Crow laws of the past. I used “like” because there are many examples of ACTUAL MODERN Republican Jim Crow laws that the court is knocking down in support of the Constitution. Here’s just one from a few weeks ago:

In Texas, and in California, you have to prove you are eligible to vote to get on the voter registration rolls. Now, to vote is a separate thing I seem to have trouble getting Trump republicans to understand.
To vote in Texas, you have to show an ID. That’s what the citizens decided. Prior to Republicans along with the NRA changing the law, the law was any form of ID could be used to establish you are the person voting.

From the previous law:

“form of identification containing the person’s photograph that establishes the person’s identity”

The Russian-backed corrupt NRA lobby group along with Republican representatives changed the law to allow Texas hand gun IDs, but not college IDs. Why? So they can cheat. They know hand gun ID folks are mostly Republican, and college kids have yet to be brainwashed with propaganda and will vote on actual issues so they mostly vote Democrat.
That’s voter suppression. That’s cheating. That’s un-American.

Bottom Line

Voter fraud does not exist in large numbers, never sways elections, and barely exists. Voter suppression does exist. Republicans rely heavily on voter suppression to actually sway elections. Why? I think because they know they are wrong on the issues. If they don’t lie and cheat, they lose every time.

Michael Alan Prestwood
Natural Philosopher

Mike’s throwback title simply means he writes about philosophy, science, critical thinking, and history with a focus on exploring boundaries and intersections. While his focus is on our rational ideas about empirical observations, he does enjoy dabbling in the irrational. His exploration of human thought led him to develop his Idea of Ideas which allows him to understand what is empirically true, rationally true, and irrationally false.

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