From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Phantom Voters
Ballot-box fraud may have real impact at the polls.
The audience laughed at the end of the third debate when George W. Bush closed by thanking his supporters and saying "for those of you for my opponent, please vote only once." It was a joke, but one with serious overtones.
Many experts think this election could be as close as the one in 1960, when John F. Kennedy won by less than one vote per precinct. If so, this year's election could include similar allegations of vote fraud. "Just as in 1960, the temptation to steal votes in key swing states will be enormous," says political scientist Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia. "Complacency is so great and enforcement so lax that the odds are we'll never know how much fraud was committed."
Kennedy supporters used local political bosses in Chicago and Texas to pad vote totals. Vote fraud today is more sophisticated but may be just as pervasive. "We have the modern world's sloppiest election systems," says University of Texas political scientist Walter Dean Burnham.
Indeed, voter fraud has become a bigger problem since the 1993 federal Motor Voter law required states to allow people to register to vote when they get a driver's license; 47 states don't require any proof of U.S. residence for enrollment. Motor Voter has added some eight million people to the rolls, but the bipartisan polling team of Ed Goeas and Celinda Lake estimates that less than 5% of "motor voters" normally go to the polls. The Justice Department has often blocked states from weeding out people who have died or changed addresses.
That's important because in most states you don't have to show photo identification to vote, making it quite easy for someone to vote in someone else's name. It also makes it easier to manipulate the growing number of absentee ballots. In 1998, more than 40% of ballots cast in Washington, Oregon and Nevada were absentee votes. Another 13 states saw between 20% and 40% of their votes cast absentee.
In 1998, the mayoral election in Miami was thrown out after it was learned "vote brokers" had signed hundreds of phony absentee ballots. That same year, former Democratic Rep. Austin Murphy of Pennsylvania was convicted of absentee voter fraud. "In this area there's a pattern of nursing-home administrators frequently forging ballots under residents' names," says Sean Cavanagh, a Democratic county supervisor who uncovered the scandal. He believes law enforcement turns a blind eye to voter fraud in many other places.
A number of hotly contested races this year could hinge on voter fraud. Rep. James Rogan (R., Calif.), a House impeachment manager, says that in this year's primary his sister-in-law accidentally discovered someone had cast an absentee ballot in her name. "The system is ripe for abuse," says Mr. Rogan, a former municipal judge.
Mr. Rogan's biggest complaint is that California and many other states don't require voters to show any identification at the polls. This continues at a time when you have to show photo ID to cash a check, board an airplane or even get a library card. Those under age 27 now have to show ID to buy cigarettes, but not to vote. Four attempts to pass a photo ID requirement in California have died in the legislature.
Some politicians try to make the current system even more susceptible to fraud. Vice President Gore's office took the lead in convincing the Immigration and Naturalization Service to waive "stupid rules" on background checks so that hundreds of thousands of people awaiting citizenship would be "processed in time" for the 1996 election. It was later learned that 75,000 new citizens had arrest records when they applied. A spot check of 100 random new citizens by the House Judiciary Committee found that 20% of the sample had been arrested for serious crimes after they were given citizenship.
What can be done about voter fraud? This year, Virginia will require voters to show ID or sign a sworn statement of their identity. The Voting Integrity Project, a national watchdog group, is helping local governments clean up their voter rolls. Mike Rogers, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who is running for Congress in Michigan, says one precinct in his district has had a 109% voter turnout; he plans to employ off-duty policemen to check up on polling places.
But anyone who combats vote fraud comes in for abuse. The Justice Department has become expert at raising cries of "voter intimidation" at any attempt to monitor polling places. Last week Justice dispatched investigators to Fort Worth, Texas, merely because a political activist there distributed leaflets alleging Democrats were casting absentee ballots on behalf of shut-in voters. When the Miami Herald won a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on the fraud in that city's mayoral election, the Pulitzer jury noted it had been subject to "a public campaign accusing the paper of ethnic bias and attempted intimidation." Local officials who've tried to purge voter rolls of felons and noncitizens have been hit with nuisance lawsuits alleging civil-rights abuse.
Nonsense. A generation ago, the existence of insidious poll taxes and other forms of voter intimidation represented a real threat to local democracy. But those problems have receded, only to be replaced by old-fashioned ballot rigging. This year saw teams of election observers in Peru, Zimbabwe and Yugoslavia, countries where fraud has been rampant. Perhaps it's time for some election observers in our own backyard. Surely the right to vote includes an equal right not to have that ballot diluted by phantom or manipulated voters, especially when the stakes are nothing less than the presidency.
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