Do-It-Yourself Vote Fraud

The most patently absurd of all statements made about this year’s farcical governor’s race in Washington State came from “winner” Christine Gregoire:

I think we have been a model to the rest of the nation and the world at large about how an election system, as close as this one is, can be done with the highest of quality. . . This is the biggest display of democracy I have ever seen and I am proud of it and I think it’s an inspiration. [quoted, with undisguised astonishment, by Sound Politics]

Meanwhile, in this universe, the vote counting and recounting and re-recounting exposed procedures that were, at the very least, slovenly. That they might also be less than honest is suggested by the fact that nearly all of the “corrections” just happened to favor one party’s candidate, to an extent difficult to account for by chance.

We will never know for certain which candidate really received more votes properly cast by registered, eligible voters. One reason is that ballot box stuffing is no longer a centralized affair orchestrated by political bosses. Inattention to even to most elementary safeguards has bred do-it-yourself cheating. Jim Miller usefully outlines the problem in “A Review of Distributed Vote Fraud”. He lists six factors, some obvious and others controversial, that explain why fraud is easier and more tempting than ever and why it tends to favor Democratic candidates:

1. Not every person who wants to vote is honest.
2. Dishonest people are more likely to cheat if controls on cheating are weakened.
3. Controls on vote fraud have been weakened in recent decades, notably by the passage of the 1993 “Motor Voter” Act and by the increase in absentee voting.
4. Dishonest people are more likely to cheat if they view an election as important.
5. Voters, especially on the left, viewed the [last] election as more important than most.
6. Cheaters are more likely to be Democrats than Republicans.

The last point in particular may sound like partisan sniping, but –

Democratic leaders act as if it is true. Both nationally, and in most states, most Republicans want stronger controls against cheating than most Democrats do. In 1993, nearly all of the opposition to the “Motor Voter” Act came from Republicans. President George H. W. Bush had vetoed it earlier; President Bill Clinton signed it.

What was almost certainly “distributed vote fraud” proved crucial in the Washington race. Democrat Gregoire’s official “victory” margin is 130 votes. She picked up a net of over 200 votes entirely from a court decision allowing her campaign to track down purported mail-in voters whose signatures on their ballot envelopes didn’t match their signatures on file. In a few instances, the mismatch may have been a false negative, resulting from aging or illness, but it is overwhelmingly probable that, in the great majority of cases, somebody other than the “voter” signed. Those ballots may have been given away or extorted or sold. Whatever the cause, there is no justification for letting them cancel legitimate votes, yet all that the court asked was that party operatives obtain an affidavit ratifying the fraud after the fact. As a further example, reviews of voter data from King County, Washington’s liberal stronghold (Republican Dino Rossi carried the rest of the state by a hefty margin), show hundreds of apparently bogus voter registrations and other irregularities. According to Sound Politics, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s office –

essentially confirmed that there are no safeguards to prevent these sorts of abuses from occurring. The only improvement in the process will be effective January 2006, when federal law requires that names and Social Security Numbers have to be matched against the federal SS database. Such checking will commence sometime in 2005. In the meantime, and certainly prior to our tainted election, there was effectively NO credible verification of identity.

Checking Social Security numbers isn’t a cure-all, since non-citizens who can’t legally vote can (and, if they wish to work legally, must) obtain Social Security cards. Still, it will help reduce fraudulent registrants in the future. As for the past, however,

While it is trivially easy for anybody to register and vote fraudulently, it is extremely difficult to cancel their registrations. The Sec. of State spokesperson explained that the elections officials do not investigate fraudulent registrations and voting; it’s up to other voters to file challenges and the burden of investigation and proof is very high.

The Washington GOP is, inevitably in this day and age, contemplating a lawsuit. Unlike most election-related litigation, this one might be a public service. As John Fund remarks in the OpinionJournal Political Diary (subscription only, but a bargain at $3.95 a month),

Any attempt to overturn Ms. Gregoire’s victory after three vote counts will face long odds. But the effort to uncover the flawed and fraud-prone procedures behind Washington State’s election debacle would provide a useful road map to the fixes the state will need to make in the future.

Washington isn’t the only place where a road map is needed. Distributed vote fraud bids fair to become a major anti-democratic (albeit pro-Democratic) force in 21st Century politics. Like Bolshevism, it should be strangled in its cradle.

Comments

[Katie]

Thanks from a Washington voter (a legal and registered one). I toured the state legislative building this weekend. The tour guide told how all of the state gets along so well and how we could come to an inaugural ball but we would have to wait four more years (here's hoping that one will be possible sooner than that).

[TimF]

Additional support for point #5:

Washington state has had Democrat governorship (and hence control of the state executive bureaucracy) for 20 straight years. There are plenty of bureaucrats in Olympia and the rest of the state that have plenty to lose from a party change.