How Many Eligible Voters In Florida Are Not Registered

Virtually every time I write about voter fraud, I feel compelled to make ii over-arching points beyond the specifics of whatever given case. First, despite the president's baseless claims to the opposite, in that location is no evidence that big-scale voter fraud is an epidemic in America. The notion that "millions" of illegal votes were cast for Hillary Clinton last fall is preposterous. Trump does himself no favors past wildly exaggerating the impact of a phenomenon that many on the Left insist is a fictional problem. 2d, it'south non a fictional trouble. As we've seen over and over and over and over and over and over again, people do cast fraudulent ballots in American elections. This should be unacceptable, and (overwhelmingly pop) attempts to preserve the integrity of our electoral organization should not be demagogued as "voter suppression." Illegal votes should be suppressed through common-sense legal measures that impose minimal hardships and obstacles upon eligible citizens.

One of the arguments that voter fraud apologists offering when they're confronted with difficult show of a practice they deny exists is that even if at that place are "isolated incidents" here and there, they still amount to rounding errors that don't impact the outcomes of races. This is a weak argument, peculiarly in light of the fact that the US presidency was decided past a margin of a few hundred Floridians in 2000. Speaking of Florida, go back and read this postal service most the illegal voters uncovered by a local reporter a few years ago; he used a narrow method, and limited his search to a limited area of the land, still he tracked down multiple non-citizens who were actively voting in American elections. In a new case out of Florida, one county has merely purged xvi ineligible voters from the rolls among a legal battle over a local election that concluded upward being determined by a margin of...sixteen votes:

Putnam County elections officials said Mon they have now purged 16 people from the voter rolls who cast fraudulent ballots in last fall'south election. The news comes as a judge weighs the fate of an election contest lawsuit that challenges the legitimacy of Sheriff Homer "Gator" DeLoach'due south election in a race decided by 16 votes. The instance went to trial April 12. The lawsuit was filed by Jonathan Kinney, who lost after multiple recounts subsequently unofficial ballot dark returns had him alee by 18 votes. It says 42 ballots cast by ineligible voters, from non-residents and felons to dead people, undermined the integrity of the election...Carolyn Faunce, chief deputy to Overturf, confirmed that officials accept removed six voters, including five felons and a homo deemed incompetent past the court organization, in addition to the x felons previously detailed at trial.

The Florida Times-Marriage story goes on to note that due to ballot secrecy, it'south impossible to know if all, or even most, of the ineligible voters helped tip the race to the winning candidate. Simply Kinney's attorneys constitute at to the lowest degree one convicted felon who attested in a deposition that he'd contributed to the dubious victory margin. Sometimes races come down to a partial handful of votes. How much fraud are "anti-suppression" activists willing to tolerate in the proper name of preserving voting rights? Don't legitimate voters have the correct to non have their ballot canceled out by an illegitimate tally? Meanwhile, out of North Carolina:

An investigation past the N.C. Board of Elections has found that 508 voters who cast ballots last November weren't eligible to vote – and the vast majority of them were felons serving active sentences. The Country Board of Elections released the audit report Friday in response to public records requests and a request from members of Congress. The report says that 441 voters announced to have been serving agile felony sentences on Election Day – many of them on probation. Convicted felons can vote in North Carolina only later on completing their sentences, including whatsoever probation and parole. In addition, the investigation establish 41 non-citizens who cast ballots, 24 voters who voted twice and 2 people who falsely voted using the name of a family member who'd recently died.

Again, this is a minuscule number in the context of the millions of North Carolinians who voted last fall. Just that state's gubernatorial race was decided by 2-tenths of one percent. Mix in potentially more-widespread instances double voting (a problem nosotros've flagged earlier, based on Due north Carolina officials' findings), and things could await dicier. Opponents of voter ID laws, including Politifact writers, are eager to signal out that requiring identification would only accept potentially prevented a handful of documented cases of 2016 voter fraud in the Tar Heel State -- where a contempo ID law has been thrown out by the courts. Information technology'south true that photo ID provisions simply become so far in blocking or deterring illegal voting. That'south why other measures should be seriously considered, including much more efficient systems of purging expressionless and ineligible voters from the rolls, likewise as potential safeguards against people voting in multiple states. President Trump signed an executive order final calendar week to establish a commission charged with exploring some of these problems. If the panel focuses on conjuring up some fig foliage justifications for the president's bogus "millions" exclamation, it will be a waste of fourth dimension and coin. For what it's worth, one of the officials tapped to lead the task force says that's not their goal. Merely if information technology approaches these questions seriously, and manages to eschew partisan rancor, it could bear witness to exist a worthwhile endeavor.