Why Trump is Doubling Down on the Voter Fraud Fraud
by Thomas L. Knapp…….
“In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide,” US president-elect Donald Trump tweeted in late November, “I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” Kind of a sore winner. And now that he’s no longer just president-elect but actually president, he’s doubling down and says he “will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD …”
That’s dumb. And dangerous.
Dumb because voter fraud is almost non-existent. There are rare cases in which individuals will try to vote illegally. Former Republican congressman Todd Akin of Missouri, for example, who got caught voting at his old polling place after moving, presumably to hide the move from his constituents and opponents. But the key word is “rare.”
Voter fraud is not a strategy used by candidates and campaigns to move the needle on election results. Why? Because it’s just about the most expensive, burdensome, unreliable and risky way imaginable to do that. A successful voter fraud operation on any scale would require rounding up a whole bunch of people, trusting those people to cast the votes desired instead of just voting however they wanted to vote, and risking any or all of them getting caught (or sprouting a conscience) and blowing the operation. Too many co-conspirators and too many ways for things to go south fast and hard.
If we remove the letter “r” from the end of “voter,” things make more sense. Yes, elections are sometimes rigged. But they’re not rigged the hard way, by impersonating voters.
In some cases they’re rigged at the level of counting votes. Why recruit millions of voters as co-conspirators when a few key election workers (or voting machine programmers) are easier to find, probably more reliable, and far less vulnerable to detection?
In other cases they’re rigged by suppressing the other party’s turnout through fraud (for example, robocalls giving the wrong election date or mailings of fake absentee ballots with the wrong return address) or by law.
Which brings us to the danger of the “investigation” Trump is calling for: Its real purpose isn’t to uncover the truth, but rather to build support for “voter identification” laws.
Some, including me, have described these attempts to impose new and more onerous government identification schemes in the name of “fighting voter fraud” as a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist, but that’s not really accurate. It’s a solution to a problem. Not the problem of ineligible voters. The problem of eligible voters who don’t vote Republican.
Instead of this fake “investigation,” wouldn’t it be cheaper, and more honest, to just put a beige sign outside every polling place? As in: “You must be this pale to vote.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.
The historia some have about an investigation is because they have been the benefactor of the vote fraud that they know was taking place.
Here is a You Tube vid that lists about 15 Main Streem Medea articles documenting the massive extent of vote fraud:
>”” Greg Hunter-Weekly News Wrap-Up 1.27.17
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTNtyouzUI0 [29:10] (Only the first half is on the vote fraud)
The Government has no more important job that to insure our elections are fare and honest. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING else is second to that.
Trump hired an ex-Election Commissioner to do a private investigation, and that guy knows what he’s doing. His report was that between 3 to 5 Million illegal (criminal) aliens voted in this past Presidential election. On top of that were many dead people voting, people being bussed to several locations to vote, And that’s not counting the fraud that is our electronic voting created expresly to fabricat a rigged vote and you can read all about that here: http://blackboxvoting.org/
For decades the American people have been voting to keep American taxpayer money inside America, and the fraudulent voting system has been telling us we voted to give money to both the israelis and the Palestinians. It’s time for all that to stop.
Trump thinks the Federal fiscal bank is full like his bank accounts which are growing daily, by the way because he threw ethics down the drain. This investigation is a total waste of taxpayer money – and frankly, is the responsibility of each state. Right now, the Justice Dept. are pulling their hair because they investigate crimes, and no one has any evidence that any crime was committed – i.e., fraudelent voting, especially by the millions. The man did not win the popular vote, and his orange face is turning red because he’s so angry. When the Donald gets angry, he’s a loses his composure, bigly.
Him having it investigated only helps with future elections and will not help him in any way as he already has won.
If , and we do have fraud then it needs investigated regardless of cost.
What is the big deal if his face turns red when he is upset ? Mine and many others do the same.
Look back a few months to Mr Dean voting in Key West where he does not live and was plenty of proof. Likely plenty of fraud in Key West based on the idiots that .
I hope he cleans up america.
It has been reported that the vote fraud investigation will at least initially be concentrated to 2 states – which are probably California and New York. There has already been a mention that 800,000 illegal votes from the last election have been uncovered, but I am not taking that for fact until I hear it.
Even former President, Barack Obama, insinuated publicly on video that there has been voter fraud in his home town of Chicago.
I am asked for my photo I.D. by poll workers, and don’t see why everyone else in America should not have to produce a photo I.D. to vote. Some complained that they couldn’t get out to get a photo I.D. in time to vote, even those who have had decades to do so. That doesn’t add up for me.
Ben,
Somehow America managed to hold elections for more than 100 years before there was even any such thing as photo ID, and ever since without requiring it.
Thomas,
In 1947 the population of the United States was around 145 million, and now it is 325 million. Included in these additional people are millions of illegal immigrants of whom a certain amount might be voting illegally, and could possibly be in numbers that are so high that it has become increasingly harder to keep track of them as to whether or not they are voting.
People have different opinions, but I don’t see why anyone would object to having a photo I.D. and matching signature to vote in a free election in America…unless they have something to hide.
Ben,
There aren’t “millions of illegal immigrants.” Article 1, Section 9 of the US Constitution forbids the federal government to regulate immigration. That could have been amended any time after 1808, but never was.
“Conservatives” used to oppose government ID schemes (and support open borders).
Thomas, I enjoy your articles even though I don’t always agree, but bottom line:
You have to be an American citizen to vote.
Many people who aren’t American citizens have photo ID which doesn’t mention whether or not they’re American citizens. Requiring a photo ID wouldn’t prevent non-citizens from voting. It would just make it more difficult for low income citizens to vote. That, as with other Republican voter suppression projects, is its purpose.
Thomas, According to what I heard, the Executive Branch and government HAS THE RIGHT to regulate who enters the United States. Please double check your statement.
And as far as low income folks go, I have no idea why they would be impacted by requiring a photo I.D. to vote. For instance, if they started now they would have almost 4 years to get ready for the next presidential election.
Ben,
Governments don’t have rights, they have powers. Those powers are specifically enumerated in the US Constitution. If they’re not there, they’re not legit (see the 10th Amendment).
There is no federal power to regulate immigration enumerated in the Constitution. Not only is there no such power, but the exercise of such a power is SPECIFICALLY FORBIDDEN in Article 1, Section 9. It was considered so important that Article 5 forbade amending that section prior to 1808. There was a reason for this. It was a compromise to get the southern states (slave importation) and Pennsylvania (immigrant labor) to ratify the Constitution.
AFTER 1808, it was never amended, and Congress abided by that prohibition until 1882 (an activist US Supreme Court fantasized up such a power in 1875, but Congress distrusted that ruling and hung its first immigration law, the Anti-Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, on treaty provisions rather than the ruling).
Even for 70 years after that, Congress was pretty cautious in exercising the unconstitutional power. You didn’t even need a passport to enter or leave the United States until after World War II. The idiotic, unconstitutional and anti-American notion that immigration should be heavily regulated by the federal government didn’t become policy until the 1950s with “Operation Wetback” and so forth.
That does not mean fraud was involved. Only means we had elections.