This is the first in an ongoing series of factual counter-claims and/or debunking of right-wing attacks on Democrats and/or progressive principles.  These attacks are typically confined to the right-wing echo chamber, and may or may not leak out into the mainstream-media.  They tend to only peak out of hiding when you encounter a conservative on the street, at which point, having never heard the claim to begin with, you most likely will not have a response, thus allowing the conservative to “win” the argument.  I intend to change this imbalance of power by confronting these claims head-on, as they occur, no matter how ridiculous.

Due to a quirky timeline in Ohio state election law, there exists a 5 day window between Sept 30 and Oct. 6, in which a Ohio citizen can register to vote and cast an absentee ballot at the same time.  This has led to many conservative columnists and Fox News pundits to cry foul, and express concern for “voter fraud.”  A sampling:

Deroy Murdock

Election Day? Who needs it?

Americans already are casting ballots, five weeks before Nov. 4. This is a boon for vote fraud and a bust for democracy.

In Ohio, most dramatically, an individual can register to vote between Sept. 30 and Oct. 6, then immediately receive an absentee ballot. Existing and brand-new electors also can cast ballots at early-voting centers.

This is a gourmet recipe for voter fraud.

What if some new registrants turn out to be non-citizens? Or felons? Or gung-ho 16-year-olds who only look 18? No problem. Why, we’ll just fish out their ballots from the pile. Uh-oh. The secret ballots all look alike and no longer can be tied to any given voter.

Oops.

Michelle Malkin

A homeless thug now registered to vote comments: “They picked me up. They seen me walkin’ around. So day said, ‘You wanna vote?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll vote.’ (laughs) Day said, ‘We’ll take you anywhere you want.’ I said, ‘Dat’s cool’…If day say ’sign the ballot,’ just give ‘em and do exactly what they want you to do.’ I mean, hey, dis is America, you know?” (laughs).

Who does this new voter support?

“Barack! I mean, I want him to do his thang. You know, do his thug thizzle. You know. That’s how I like it to be. You know. (laughs).”

Organizers hoped to sign up 1,000 like him by the end of the day yesterday — and more all week.

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Okay.  So there are a lot of charges here.  Let me try to break these out:

• The Ohio SoS is not checking the validity of these newly registered voters before their ballots are counted.
• The Ohio SoS is not verifying the identity of these newly registered voters.
• Homeless people are voting even though they aren’t allowed to.
• GOP poll observers are not being admitted to these locations.

First of all, according to directive 2008-63 issued from the Ohio SoS office:

Additionally, there are several days before the 2008 general election during which a person may appear at the board of elections office and simultaneously submit for that election applications to register to vote or to update an existing registration and to request an absentee ballot. As discussed above, a board of elections must first obtain from the person who presents himself or herself to vote during this period a completed voter registration or change of address form.

Boards of elections are required to develop procedures to immediately register the applicant and issue an absentee ballot to the newly registered elector of the county at the time of registration, reserving the right to delay registration and immediate absentee voting if a board is not satisfied as to validity of the application and the applicant’s qualifications. Boards of elections utilizing satellite locations for early in-person absentee voting should develop sufficient procedures to enable them to comply with this directive as they would if in-person absentee voting were taking place at the board’s office. [my emphasis]

So, if something really crazy was going on, theoretically the poll workers could stop the whole process.  Surely not all government employees are Democrats in the tank for Obama and willing to fraudulently throw the election for him.  Secondly, let me explain how absentee voting works (at least in Ohio and Arizona).  The absentee ballots come in envelopes with the name and address of the person voting on them.  Observers (one from each party) then check each one to make sure that the person voting is indeed a registered voter.  Then they count the vote.  This is affirmed by the Sixth Circuit’s decision (Ohio Republican Party v. Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner) denying the injunction to stop this register-early-vote combo:

According to the Secretary, “each county board of elections keeps the absentee ballots, once cast, under lock and key.  Board employees—one member from each political party—then carefully check each ballot envelope before removing the ballot to ensure that the voter was properly registered and the ballot properly cast.”

And please realize that this isn’t just the procedure for these same day registered voters.  This is the procedure for all absentee ballots, so to say that we have to “trust” that these are going in a separate pile is outrageous.  I guess we have to “trust” that people working at the boards of elections do their jobs at all, and “trust” them to actually count the ballots on election day and not just make up the numbers.

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As for the validation of identity, Ohio state law provides for several methods to verify a voters identity when they register or when they request an absentee ballot.  These include presenting a driver’s license or other state/military ID, providing your driver’s license number, or providing the last four digits of your social security number.  Of course, you could make up any of these numbers, at which point, upon verfication, your registration would be thrown out and your ballot spoiled.

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Alright, now on to homeless people.  There is nothing in Ohio sate law that expressly state that you must be “un-homeless” in order to vote.  These are the requirements listed on the SoS website:

1. You are a citizen of the United States;
2. You will be at least 18 years old on or before the day of the general election. (If you will be 18 on or before November 4, you may vote in the primary election for candidates, but you cannot vote on issues until you are 18);
3. You will be a resident of Ohio for at least 30 days immediately before the election in which you want to vote;
4. You are not incarcerated (in prison or jail) for a felony conviction under the laws of this state, another state or the United States;
5. You have not been declared incompetent for voting purposes by a probate court; and
6. You have not been permanently disenfranchised for violations of the election laws.

In fact it specifically allows for people to vote who do not have a permanent residence:

If you do not have a fixed place of habitation, but you are a consistent or regular inhabitant of a shelter or other location to which you intend to return, you may use that shelter or other location as your residence for purposes of registering to vote.

So, the bottom line is, homeless people can vote.  This is not voter fraud.

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Finally, the poll observers.  According to advisory 2008-24 from the SoS office, the General Assembly never provided a mandate for poll observers during in-person early/absentee voting:

In sum, the General Assembly has not specifically provided for election observers during the 35-day in-person absentee voting period immediately preceding Election Day. Additionally, the General Assembly appears to have intended to foreclose such observers during that time by limiting the expressly provided-for presence of observers, with respect to absentee voting, to the processing and counting of absentee ballots. For all of these reasons, I am advising Ohio’s boards of elections that they are not required to allow election observers during the 35-day in-person absentee voting period immediately preceding Election Day.

Individual boards may receive requests that they exercise their discretion to allow opportunities for observers to be present at board offices or satellite locations during hours when in-person absentee voting takes place. The allowance of these requests may result in court challenges based on disparate treatment between counties. If all boards operate consistently in following the advice contained in this advisory, which is issued pursuant to R.C. 3S01.0S(B), any litigation regarding this advisory would necessarily be centered on the secretary of state rather than individual boards, allowing boards to proceed with election preparation unhindered by litigation. In addition, no statute provides deadlines for filing requests to be observers or conduct of observers during periods of in-person absentee voting, leaving a board open to challenge on rules established for such observers by that individual board. [my emphasis]

So basically this says, since they don’t require it, let’s not do it so that we’re all uniform and we don’t get sued for an equal protection violation, which, btw, was the basis for the Bush v. Gore decision, so I think SoS around the country are fairly sensitive to this.  But again, this is a moot point because observers are present during the counting process of absentee ballots, so it really doesn’t make sense to have observers at the beginning and at the end.  And one more thing, the headlines for this always are “GOP observer turned away.”  All observers are being turned away, not just GOP ones.  Ironically, I think the poll worker in the video being circulated around documenting this does a fairly good job of explaining the situation:

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So basically what we have here is much ado about nothing.  Anyone who’s spent any serious amount of time looking into this has realized that there’s no beef here, which is why you’ll only see this sort of argument being peddled by Pajamas Media and Fox News.  And on a much larger point, voter fraud has been largely non-existant in the United States in the modern era.  From the NYT:

Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews.

Although Republican activists have repeatedly said fraud is so widespread that it has corrupted the political process and, possibly, cost the party election victories, about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year.

Most of those charged have been Democrats, voting records show. Many of those charged by the Justice Department appear to have mistakenly filled out registration forms or misunderstood eligibility rules, a review of court records and interviews with prosecutors and defense lawyers show.

So now you know.

Tags: Arm Yourself, GOP, voter fraud, voting, wingnuts

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 5th, 2008 at 6:25 pm and is filed under Lots of Pulp. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.