Vote Fraud in Dallas.More Is Better? Efforts to increase voter turnout may encourage fraud.
Wall Street Journal: September 19, 2002. WSJ's political editor John Fund writes, about motor voter, absentee, and early voting laws:
"We've been down this road before. Motor voter laws allow people to register to vote at the department of motor vehicles. Liberal absentee voter laws let people cast ballots while on vacation or from remote locations. And some states allow for early voting--casting a ballot before Election Day. All of these provisions have failed to increase voter turnout. It's about time that someone step forward and admit that the root cause of low turnout isn't restrictive voting laws, but voter apathy. People are fed up with mediocre candidates, gerrymandered districts and uncompetitive elections."
"But skittish district attorneys almost never go after voter fraud cases because of their clear partisan overtones. It's better to have safeguards in place making it harder to commit fraud in the first place."
Massive absentee ballot fraud in Dallas.
NPR: July 25, 2002. NPR's Wade Goodwyn reports that absentee ballot fraud is tipping elections in Dallas. One city council election was invalidated and two big civic projects squeaked through, thanks to a longstanding practice in the city's minority neighborhoods. Brokers know when absentee ballots are delivered and scoop them out of mailboxes at houses and nursing homes. Prosecutors and legislators says it's fraud that must be stopped.
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Vote Fraud in Dallas.
A 'modern' democracy that can't count votes
LA Times: December 11, 2000. Special Report: What happened in Florida is the rule and not the exception. A coast-to-coast study by The Times finds a shoddy system that can only be trusted when the election isn't close.
Click to read the LA TIMES staff report, which in part says:
Because ballots can be bought, stolen, miscounted, lost, thrown out or sent to Denmark, nobody knows with any precision how many votes go uncounted in American elections.
In Oregon, a preliminary survey indicates that more than 36,000 of the state's 1.5 million voters may have mailed in ballots this year that were signed by someone else.
America has learned two things from the 2000 election, says Robert Richie, executive director of the Center for Voting and Democracy, a nonprofit, nonpartisan election watchdog group in the Washington suburb of Takoma Park, Md.:
"Your vote certainly
counts. On the other hand,
your vote may not be counted."