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Courts Repeatedly Refused To Consider Trump’s Election Claims On The Merits
On Monday, without comment, the Supreme Court ended the last of the 2020 election cases, rejecting Trump v. Wisconsin Election Commission in a one-line order. It was a quiet ending to a tumultuous election season, but like a football game with a contentious call at the end, the debate over who really won will likely go on much longer.
The courts have always served as a pressure-relief valve on our internal disagreements. From the battle with an unscrupulous car dealer to a nasty divorce that requires discernment over how to split everything from the antique Corvette to the kids, wise judges can help to bring peace and healing. Surely, for a nation reeling after a tempestuous presidential election filled with strange occurrences, the courts were needed to bring us together.
We needed the steady hand of impartial jurists. Most of all, the losing side needed to know that a fair shake was given, and that justice prevailed, even if it wasn’t the outcome they wanted. That did not happen after Nov. 3. Despite a stack of cases that worked their way through the legal system, we remain bitterly divided.
A Rasmussen survey last month found that 61 percent of Republicans say Joe Biden did not win the election fairly. That number hasn’t changed much since early January, when 69 percent of GOP voters voiced the same concern. That 34 percent of all voters and 36 percent of independents agree with them is a strong signal that something went terribly amiss in the maelstrom of election cases.
The election is over. There has been an inauguration. So why did ABC’s George Stephanopoulos feel the need to berate a U.S. senator and his audience with the demand, “Can’t you just say the words: This election was not stolen?” Why must he shout, “There were 86 challenges filed by President Trump and his allies in court. All were dismissed!”
Perhaps, the answer lies in the details of those cases, as much in how they were adjudicated as in the final rulings.
Taking Stock of the 2020 Election Case List
Let’s start with some clarity: The list of more than 80 cases includes both the same cases that were appealed through various courts and many that had no direct tie to the president’s legal team or the Republican Party. In reality, there were 28 unique cases filed across the six contested states by President Trump or others on his behalf.
Twelve were filed in Pennsylvania, six in Georgia, and two or three in each of the other states. Of course, there was also the lawsuit filed by the state of Texas against the state of Pennsylvania that had the potential to change the outcome. So let’s call it 29.
To be sure, that is still a lot of cases. Yet to understand why there is still widespread unease with the election, would it not be better to stop demanding conformity and instead dig deeper to see what the courts told us in those cases, and what they did not? A review of them shows that, contrary to a common narrative, few were ever considered on the merits.
Death by Technicalities
First of all, we can recognize that many of the cases produced no useful information relative to election integrity. We learned nothing from a lawsuit dismissed by a state judge in Georgia (Boland v. Raffensperger) on the basis thatthe plaintiff had sued an “improper party” rather than hearing the merits of why the ballot rejection rate allegedly dropped from 1.53 percent in 2018 to 0.15 percent in the 2020 general election.
Also, did 20,000 people vote who do not live in the state, when Georgia’s electoral votes were allotted by an approximately 12,000 margin to Biden? We never learned the answers to those questions nor even examined the evidence, because Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was not a candidate for office nor the election superintendent who conducted the election, and therefore per state law, was not liable.
Similarly, a Trump lawsuit in Michigan (Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v. Benson) alleging state law was violated by the failure to allow access by observers, and seeking to stop counting, was ruled moot since it was not filed until 4:00 p.m. on Nov. 4, after votes were counted. The judge simultaneously relieved the secretary of state of responsibility for any wrongdoing because she had issued guidance requiring admission of credentialed challengers.
So we are left with the memory of the videos of vote counters clapping as Republican observers were evicted and of covers being placed over windows. The judge on this case also said Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson bore no legal responsibility for video monitoring of drop boxes nor of making video from such surveillance available, despite a recently passed law requiring surveillance of all drop boxes installed after Oct. 1.
A lawsuit in Pennsylvania, Metcalfe v. Wolf, claimed “approximately 144,000 to 288,000 completed mail-in and/or absentee ballots” in Pennsylvania may have been illegal based on testimony from a U.S. Postal Service contractor. The contractor said he was hired to haul a truck of what he believed to be this many completed mail-in ballots from New York to Pennsylvania. The complaint also alleged there was “evidence” of ballots that were backdated at a postal facility in Erie.
The judge tossed it since the state’s Election Code required their request to be filed within 20 days of the alleged violation, which was Nov. 23. They filed Dec. 4. We’ll never know if that truck brought in pallets of completed ballots—an amount sufficient to overturn the state’s Electoral College vote.
In Wisconsin, the Trump v. Evers suit allegedthat violations of state election law had occurred in Milwaukee and Dane Counties as municipal clerks issued absentee ballots without the required written application, that they illegally completed missing info on ballots, that absentee ballots were wrongly cast by voters claiming “Indefinite Confinement” status (and for which no ID was provided), and that Madison’s “Democracy in the Park” event violated election laws.
A divided Wisconsin Supreme Court refused to hear the lawsuit, sidestepping a decision on the merits of the claims and instead ruling the case must first wind its way through lower courts—an effective death sentence given the timing.
Absurdities: When ‘Shall’ Doesn’t Mean Shall
At times, judges resorted to Clintonian wordsmithing to relieve a word of its recognized meaning. A state Supreme Court judge in Pennsylvania was tasked with reviewing the eligibility of 2,349 mail-in ballots that were purportedly defective according to the state Election Code (Ziccarelli v. Allegheny County Board of Elections).
In the court’s decision, he noted “We agree with the Campaign’s observation that…the General Assembly set forth the requirements for how a qualified elector may cast a valid absentee or mail-in ballot … We further agree that these sections of the Election Code specifically provide that each voter ‘shall(emphasis added) fill out, date, and sign’ the declaration on the outside envelope. We do not agree with the Campaign’s contention, however, that because the General Assembly used the word ‘shall’ in this context, it is of necessity that the directive is a mandatory one …”
Indeed. Why even write laws? Perhaps the Pennsylvania Supreme Court would feel differently if their rulings were subjected to such an open interpretation.
A federal lawsuit in the same state (Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v. Boockvar) included a claim that some Democrat counties implemented a “notice and cure” policy, allowing defective ballots to be fixed and counted, while Republican counties did not, thereby creating an equal protection issue.
The judge found that two individual plaintiffs had indeed been harmed by the denial of their votes, but that they lacked standing since the defendant (Democrat) counties “had nothing to do with the denial of Individual Plaintiff’s ability to vote” as their “ballots were rejected by Lancaster and Fayette [Republican] Counties, neither of which is a party to this case.”
So the judge effectively created a legal “Catch 22” in which one must show direct harm from an unrelated party in order to prevail. Logically, under this standard, no equal protection claim could ever be substantiated.
In a Nov. 5 filing (Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v. Philadelphia County Board of Elections), Republicans alleged that the Philadelphia County Board was “intentionally refusing to allow any representatives and poll watchers for President Trump and the Republican Party … [and] continuing to count ballots, without any observation” by Republican poll watchers. The Commonwealth Court agreed on appeal that observers be allowed within six feet of vote counting while complying with COVID-19 protocols.
However, the state Supreme Court reversedthat ruling, finding that the Election Code allows the board to make rules “for protecting its workers’ safety from COVID-19 and physical assault,” and that the only requirement is that “one authorized representative of each candidate in an election and one representative from each political party shall be permitted to remain in the room”— not necessarily within close-enough range to observe vote-counting (emphasis original in court decision). So what is the point of an observer who cannot observe anything?
In the case of Ward v. Jackson et al. in Arizona, an issue over election observers was ruled as “untimely” since “the observation procedures for the November general election were materially the same as for the August primary election, and any objection to them should have been brought at a time when any legal deficiencies could have been cured.” Lacking in that statement was an explanation as to why any Republican observers would have been needed in a Democrat-only party primary.
Judicial Blindness: See No Evil
In the same lawsuit (Ward v. Jackson et al.) the judge also rejected a claim of improper signature verification after allowing a review of 100 sample ballots. Plaintiff and defense experts found 6 and 11 percent of signatures, respectively, to be “inconclusive.”
On the same page of his opinion, the judge noted that out of the total 1.9 million mail-in ballots, only approximately 20,000 had been identified as having a signature issue, or 1 percent. There was no explanation as to why poll workers found six times fewer issues with signatures. The math would suggest either a bias to accept, despite signature issues, or that the sample examined was statistically invalid.
Further mystifying, he wrote that “there is no evidence that the manner in which signatures were reviewed was designed to benefit one candidate or another.” But surely fraud can easily benefit the offender alone, even with use of a uniform vote-count procedure. Fill out 1,000 ballots consisting of 500 for Trump and 500 for Biden, then mix in 100 more that are fraudulent for Biden and count them using any method. Who wins? It’s not a hard possibility to imagine, but the judge ignored it.
He also concluded “the evidence does not show illegal votes”—in a state in which an estimated 419,000 illegally present foreign citizensreside, and which went to Biden by a margin of just more than 10,000 votes out of a total of more than 3.2 million.
Importantly, the judge noted at the outset that “the Plaintiff in an election contest has a high burden of proof and the actions of election officials are presumed to be free from fraud and misconduct.” It’s a fair statement of the law. It’s also an indication of the difficulty in prevailing, even when issues exist. Every case across the nation was evaluated under a similar high hurdle, with the status quo treated as sacrosanct.
Too Early and Too Late
Republicans also often found themselves in an impossible “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation on the timing of challenges to election laws.
In Georgia Republican Party, Inc. et al. v. Raffensperger et al, candidates Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue sued prior to their U.S. Senate run-offs, alleging harm would occur from unconstitutional election procedures. Their counsel noted (on appeal) that the court “dismissed the case for lack of standing, reasoning that ‘the Supreme Court instructs that a theory of future injury is too speculative to satisfy the well-established requirement that threatened injury must be certainly impending.’” Filed too early.
In the same state, a federal judge dismissed Sidney Powell’s lawsuit (Pearson v. Kemp), in part citing that it was filed too late—it should have been filed before the election. As another example, in Trump v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, a judge dismissed the president’s suit saying it involved “issues he plainly could have raised before the vote occurred.”
Together, it demonstrated the hurdle that many election cases faced—denied before the election as “speculative,” or afterward as too late.
The Clock Ran Out: January 6
Several lawsuits were resolved not by a weighing of merits, but as a practical consequence of the electoral vote on Jan. 6 that certified Biden as the winner of the presidency.
Trump had filed suit on Dec. 4 in Georgia (Trump v. Raffensperger) alleging violations of state election law and the inclusion of specific ineligible votes: 66,247 underage votes, 2,423 persons not registered, 15,700 who had changed address, 1,043 who illegally listed a P.O. box address as their address, 8,718 who died prior to their votes being cast, 92 absentee ballots counted prior to the date those voters requested a ballot, 217 ballots shown as applied for and sent out and received on the same day, and 2,560 votes from felons with uncompleted sentences. These were significant numbers in an election that was decided by fewer than 12,000 votes.
The suit had also noted that 305,701 had applied for an absentee ballot more than 180 days prior to election, thereby violating state law. Importantly, it also took issue with the secretary of state’s Consent Decree with Democrats, which allowed signature matching on envelopes and applications, but not versus registration rolls. And it cited the low 0.34 percent rejection rate of mail-in ballots, a tenth of the rate of prior elections, despite a six-fold increase in number of such ballots cast.
The suit was withdrawn on Jan. 7, with none of the issues resolved, the day after Congress met and the matter was rendered moot.
Another Georgia suit (Still v. Raffensperger) alleged that Coffee County Board had been unable to replicate electronic recount results, and that the error was sufficient to put the outcome of that county in doubt, with a potentially similar issue in others across the state. It noted that Raffensperger had forced an arbitrary Dec. 4 deadline to certify the results despite the county’s letter of the same date saying the results “should not be used.”
The legal battle continued, and the state’s counsel eventually demanded in a Jan. 3 letterthat all lawsuits against Kemp, Raffensperger, and the State Elections Board be dropped in order to “cooperatively share information.” Otherwise, they would remain in a “litigation posture”—quite a telling comment. Why was cooperation ever resisted?
Trump’s counsel accepted the offer of dismissal to get information they had requested, but it came as the timeframe to use it ended on Jan. 6. The suit was withdrawn on Jan. 7.
The Supreme Court Punted
The nation’s highest court showed some early inclination for involvement in the brewing election issues, such as Justice Samuel Alito’s order to separate certain late ballots in Pennsylvania in Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Boockvar. Yet it soon took a different tone. A petition to expedite a hearing was denied and later the court refused the case.
In December, the court rejected a key lawsuit filed by the state of Texas (Texas v. Pennsylvania), and joined by 18 other state attorneys general, alleging that Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin violated the U.S. Constitution by changing election procedures through non-legislative means. The justices ruled that Texas lacked standing under Article III of the Constitution to challenge the results of the election held by another state.
In Kelly v. Pennsylvania, Rep. Mike Kelly claimed that the recently enacted Act 77 to expand mail-in balloting violated the state constitution, as amended in 1967, that “allowed for absentee ballots to be cast in the four (4) exclusive circumstances authorized under Article VII, Section 14.”
He also noted that “the legislature first recognized their constitutional constraints and the need to amend the constitution in order to enact mail-in voting, sought to amend the constitution to lawfully allow for the legislation they intended to pass, and subsequently abandoned their efforts to comply with the constitution and instead enacted Act 77 irrespective of their actual knowledge that they lacked the legal authority to do so unless and until the proposed constitutional amendment was ratified by approval of a majority of the electors …”
A Commonwealth Court judge agreed on Nov. 25 and ordered that any action to certify the election be stopped, pending an evidentiary hearing two days later. However, on Nov. 28, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reversed that decision, saying the “Petitioners sought to invalidate the ballots of the millions of Pennsylvania voters who utilized the mail-in voting procedures established by Act 77 and count only those ballots that Petitioners deem to be ‘legal votes.’”
Yes, that is exactly what the plaintiffs sought—the counting of only legal votes. But again, like many other courts, this one relied on a philosophy that excluding any ballots would disenfranchise voters. So they set aside the state constitution for their own preference.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to expedite an appeal on this case when it would have mattered, then recently refused to hear it at all, a decision Justice Clarence Thomas called “inexplicable” in his dissent.
The Supreme Court also refused to hear any of Sidney Powell’s cases—in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Michigan—and in doing so, deprived Americans of the chance to hear evidence for and against very serious claims that electronic voting machines could be manipulated. Of all of the allegations, perhaps none more so instilled fear into voters as the possibility that our votes could be tampered with and changed, thwarting democracy itself.
Did the machines really show decimal totals for votes rather than integers? Were they designed to flip votes, and in such a way that no audit could trace it? Were these machines connected to the internet on election night, and did data show that foreign actors accessed it? Voters will never know. The court could have held these claims up to the objective light of justice, and either exposed it all as painfully true or wildly false, but it didn’t.
When most needed, the court that once took the time to render a decision on whether a tomato is a fruit or vegetable chose to punt on each of the key presidential election cases. American voters are worse off for it as confidence in elections erodes.
Lessons Learned
President Trump always had a very uphill climb to prevail. This wasn’t a one-state battle as in the George W. Bush versus Al Gore contest. Trump was effectively required to play six-dimensional chess, in six states, all in the span of a few months.
As Andy McCarthy noted, “a brutally tight time frame took effect [upon contesting the election], imposed by state and federal deadlines. It is a drastic departure from the normal litigation pace of investigation, legal research, and the formulation of cognizable claims.” Indeed, it was a nearly impossible task. It was even harder when Trump’s attorneys were influenced and threatened.
In the end, should we be surprised that voters retain a strong sense of skepticism over the outcome of the presidential election? That a man who largely campaigned from his basement, who exhibited signs of age-related mental decline, could handily defeat a vigorous incumbent who drew immense crowds is naturally hard to believe.
The election of 2020, which included more than 155 million votes, was decided by approximately 300,000 votes in six states, or 0.2 percent of the electorate, all of which came by an unnatural flip of results late on election night. Despite judges’ repeated hand-wringing that any court action would disenfranchise millions of voters, the reality is that millions of others may have been disenfranchised, and they instinctively suspect so.
The one thing many voters seem to have learned through the legal chaos is that it’s easier to commit election violations than to stop them. So the electorate remains divided—even after “86 election cases.”
On Sept. 19, 2005, former President Jimmy Carter (left) returned to the White House to provide President George W. Bush a copy of the report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform. Carter co-chaired the commission with former Secretary of State James Baker. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)
They called on states to increase voter ID requirements; to be leery of mail-in voting; to halt ballot harvesting; to maintain voter lists, in part to ensure dead people are promptly removed from them; to allow election observers to monitor ballot counting; and to make sure voting machines are working properly.
They also wanted the media to refrain from calling elections too early and from touting exit polls.
All of this may sound eerily similar to the issues in the prolonged presidential election battle of 2020. But these were among the 87 recommendations from the 2005 report of the bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform, known informally as the Carter-Baker Commission.
The bipartisan commission’s co-chairmen were former Democratic President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican who served in the George H.W. Bush administration.
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The commission was created to address voting and election integrity issues raised by the tumultuous 36-day postelection battle of 2000, which was settled by the U.S. Supreme Court decision that resulted in awarding Florida’s 25 electoral votes and the presidency to Republican George W. Bush over Democrat Al Gore.
Had Congress and state governments adopted many of the panel’s recommendations, the 2020 postelection mess between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden might have been avoided, said Carter-Baker Commission member Kay C. James, now the president of The Heritage Foundation.
“So many of the problems we’re now hearing about in the aftermath of the 2020 election could have been avoided had states heeded the advice of the Commission on Federal Election Reform,” she said.
James continued:
Simple protections against fraud, like voter ID and updated voter registration lists, make perfect sense if we truly believe that every vote must count. Election officials should take another look at the commission’s recommendations and make sure they’re doing everything possible to protect the integrity of our elections.
Several state legislatures adopted aspects of the recommendations, particularly voter ID proposals. However, Congress reportedly was unenthusiastic about the report.
Major media outlets have called the race for Biden, but election litigation is still playing out in courts, and votes are still being counted.
However, 70% of Republicans do not believe the 2020 election was free and fair, according to a Politico/Morning Consult poll. Before the election, just 35% of Republicans didn’t believe the election would be free and fair. The shift was different among Democrats, where 95% believed the election was free and fair afterward, compared with 52 who said the same before the election.
Here’s a look at the 2005 panel’s recommendations relevant to this year’s elections.
1) Voter IDs
With the vast expansion of mail-in voting this year, voter ID requirements were less likely.
Today, states have a patchwork of voter ID laws, with 36 states either requiring or requesting voters to present identification at the polls, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The conference says only six states have “strict” photo ID requirements—Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.
The Carter-Baker Commission called for voter ID standards nationwide in its 2005 report.
“To ensure that persons presenting themselves at the polling place are the ones on the registration list, the Commission recommends that states require voters to use the REAL ID card, which was mandated in a law signed by the President in May 2005,” the Carter-Baker Commission report said.
“The card includes a person’s full legal name, date of birth, a signature (captured as a digital image), a photograph, and the person’s Social Security number. This card should be modestly adapted for voting purposes to indicate on the front or back whether the individual is a U.S. citizen. States should provide an [Election Assistance Commission]-template ID with a photo to non-drivers free of charge.”
Carter, when speaking months after the release of the report, said other countries not known for being examples of democracy had fairer elections than the United States, and stressed the need for photo IDs.
“It’s disgraceful and embarrassing,” the former president said in May 2006. On IDs, Carter said, “Americans have to remember you have to have the equivalent to what we’re requiring to cast a ballot to cash a check or board a plane.”
2) Mail-In and Absentee Voting Risks
In a brief filed supporting the Trump campaign’s Pennsylvania litigation over mail-in ballots, a group of Republican state attorneys general reference the Cater-Baker Commission report among other items regarding mail-in voting and ballot harvesting.
The 2020 election trends seemed to shift dramatically as mailed-in votes were counted. Further, many questions have emerged about the point of origin for ballots.
Specifically, the report called on states to prohibit third parties or political operatives from collecting ballots—a practice commonly known as “ballot harvesting.”
The report stated: “Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.”
“State and local jurisdictions should prohibit a person from handling absentee ballots other than the voter, an acknowledged family member, the U.S. Postal Service, or other legitimate shipper, or election officials,” the 2005 commission report said. “The practice in some states of allowing candidates or party workers to pick up and deliver absentee ballots should be eliminated.”
However, this year, as mail-in voting veered into becoming a partisan issue, the Carter Center issued a statement promoting support for mail-in voting, but maintaining safeguards against ballot harvesting.
The Carter Center, founded by the former president and first lady Rosalynn Carter, is affiliated with Emory University and promotes peace and democracy efforts globally and domestically.
A Carter Center press release in May said the commission report “noted among its many findings and recommendations that because it takes place outside the regulated environment of local polling locations, voting by mail creates increased logistical challenges and the potential for vote fraud, especially if safeguards are lacking or when candidates or political party activists are allowed to handle mail-in or absentee ballots.”
“However, the Carter-Baker Commission found that where safeguards for ballot integrity are in place—for example in Oregon, where the entire state has voted by mail since 1998—there was little evidence of voter fraud,” the Carter Center statement continued.
The commission’s main recommendations on vote-by-mail and absentee voting were to increase research on vote-by-mail (and early voting) and to eliminate the practice of allowing candidates or party workers to pick up and deliver absentee ballots.
Fortunately, since 2005, many states have gained substantial experience in vote-by-mail and have shown how key concerns can be effectively addressed through appropriate planning, resources, training, and messaging.
Carter himself is quoted in the press release saying, “I urge political leaders across the country to take immediate steps to expand vote-by-mail and other measures that can help protect the core of American democracy—the right of our citizens to vote.”
3) Avoiding Duplicate Registration Across State Lines
In Nevada, the Trump campaign asserts there were potentially thousands of out-of-state votescast in one of the most closely contested states.
The Carter-Baker Commission report called for states to make it easier to track registered voters who move from one state to another to reduce duplication of registrations.
The report states, “Invalid voter files, which contain ineligible, duplicate, fictional, or deceased voters, are an invitation to fraud.”
“In order to assure that lists take account of citizens moving from one state to another, voter databases should be made interoperable between states,” the Carter-Baker report stated. “This would serve to eliminate duplicate registrations, which are a source of potential fraud.”
The report calls for states to maintain and update their voter registration lists.
“When an eligible voter moves from one state to another, the state to which the voter is moving should be required to notify the state which the voter is leaving to eliminate that voter from its registration list,” the report said, adding:
All states should have procedures for maintaining accurate lists, such as electronic matching of death records, driver’s licenses, local tax rolls, and felon records.
Federal and state courts should provide state election offices with the lists of individuals who declare they are non-citizens when they are summoned for jury duty.
4) Election Observers for Integrity
In Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Nevada, Republicans have complained that qualified election observers have been prohibited from watching the counting.
The Carter-Baker Commission report stressed the need for election observers to maintain the integrity of the ballots.
“All legitimate domestic and international election observers should be granted unrestricted access to the election process, provided that they accept election rules, do not interfere with the electoral process, and respect the secrecy of the ballot,” the 2005 report said.
Such observers should apply for accreditation, which should allow them to visit any polling station in any state and to view all parts of the election process, including the testing of voting equipment, the processing of absentee ballots, and the vote count.
States that limit election observation only to representatives of candidates and political parties should amend their election laws to explicitly permit accreditation of independent and international election observers.
5) Reliable Voting Machines
Voting machines have also been a significant issue in 2020, particularly in Michigan, as one county there flipped from Biden to Trump after a hand recount showed the machine count to be inaccurate.
The Carter-Baker Commission suggested that machines print out paper receipts for voters to verify their vote was accurately counted.
“States should adopt unambiguous procedures to reconcile any disparity between the electronic ballot tally and the paper ballot tally,” the 2005 report says. “The Commission strongly recommends that states determine well in advance of elections which will be the ballot of record.”
6) Media Calling Elections
On election night, Fox News Channel was the first to call the state of Arizona for Biden, prompting outrage in the Trump camp. Moreover, major media outlets have projected Biden to have won the election, even as vote counting and litigation continue.
The 2005 commission report also addressed problems with the media, suggesting news outlets voluntarily offer candidates free airtime and also show restraint in calling a state for one candidate or the other. The First Amendment would prevent any such rule from being mandatory.
“News organizations should voluntarily refrain from projecting any presidential election results in any state until all of the polls have closed in the 48 contiguous states,” the report states. “News organizations should voluntarily agree to delay the release of any exit-poll data until the election has been decided.”
7) Prosecuting Voter Fraud
The Carter-Baker Commission suggested that federal and state prosecutors should more aggressively monitor voter fraud.
“In July of even-numbered years, the U.S. Department of Justice should issue a public report on its investigations of election fraud,” the report says.
This report should specify the numbers of allegations made, matters investigated, cases prosecuted, and individuals convicted for various crimes. Each state’s attorney general and each local prosecutor should issue a similar report. … The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Public Integrity should increase its staff to investigate and prosecute election-related fraud.
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John Fund
Voter Fraud is real and can affect the outcome of close elections!!!
May 17, 2013 at 2:58 pm
Newscom
A guilty plea in a Kansas City, Missouri, voter fraud case this week illustrates something the U.S. Supreme Court pointed out when it upheld Indiana’s voter ID law in 2008:
[F]lagrant examples of [voter] fraud…have been documented throughout this Nation’s history [and] occasional examples have surfaced in recent years that…demonstrate that not only is the risk of voter fraud real but that it could affect the outcome of a close election.
On Monday, John C. Moretina pleaded guilty to a federal felony count of voter fraud in the August 2010 Democratic primary in Missouri’s 40th legislative district. Moretina falsely claimed he was living in the 40th district just so he could vote in the primary. This is a Democratic district where the winner of the primary, John J. Rizzo, was highly likely to become the district representative in the state house and, in fact, was elected. But Rizzo beat his Democratic opponent, Will Royster, by only one vote: 664 to 663.
Moretina did not inform the court whom he voted for, but since he is Rizzo’s uncle, it is not too much of a stretch to guess that he gave his nephew the winning margin of victory. Moreover, there were also allegations that Moretina’s wife fraudulently voted in this primary election as well, although she was not charged.
What is undeniable is that, as the Kansas City Star says, “the wrong candidate was declared [the] winner of the 2010 Democratic primary.”
Some opponents of voter ID mistakenly claim that this fraud shows that “stricter voter ID” requirements are not needed because voter ID would not have stopped this fraud. While no one claims that voter ID is a solution to all types of voter fraud, it is one of the critical steps that should be taken by states to improve the integrity of the election process.
As John Fund and I outlined in our book Who’s Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk and as the Supreme Court said, voter fraud is real, and it can change the outcome of a close election. It certainly changed the outcome of this state legislative race in Missouri.
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