No, let’s not ‘let it go.’ How much research did the Mainstream Media do before assuring us there’s ‘no vote fraud’ in America?

With more data now in hand, we return to the self-confident assertion of Michael Grunwald of the leftist/globalist Web site Politico, who wrote on Jan. 27 (at http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/president-trump-week-one-first-administration-214699 ):

“At a White House reception on that very busy Monday” (Jan. 23), “Trump told befuddled congressional leaders that he lost the popular vote in November only because 3 million to 5 million undocumented immigrants cast fraudulent ballots. This was rank baloney. Although Spicer . . . incorrectly claimed a Pew study found massive voter fraud in the past, in fact, the study had nothing to do with voter fraud, which other studies have found virtually nonexistent in the U.S.”

A few days before, in an otherwise unrelated Jan. 24 news story about President Donald Trump signing executive orders to put back on track some major oil pipelines (purposely stalled by the anti-American Barack Obama in his ongoing effort to cripple America’s energy industry), The Associated Press similarly couldn’t help themselves, adding:

“Yet even as Trump moves to implement his agenda, he is still making false claims.”

(Note this was again in a supposedly “straight news” story — not identified as a “commentary” or “opinion” piece -— credited to The AP’s Darlene Superville, Ken Thomas, Erica Werner, Jonathan Lemire and Jill Colvin. And the same assertion was repeated in other AP stories filed from Washington that same date. Listen:)

“During a reception with lawmakers at the White House Monday evening,” (Jan. 23) “Trump claimed the reason he’d lost the popular vote to Democratic rival Hillary Clinton was that 3 million to 5 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally had voted,” The AP writers reported.

“There is no evidence to support Trump’s claim. He made a similar statement on Twitter in late November that he had won the Electoral College in a ‘landslide’ and ‘won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.’ Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 2.9 million votes but lost the electoral contest.

“Trump’s assertion appears to be part of a continuing pattern for him and his new administration in which falsehoods overshadow his outreach efforts,” the AP writers concluded.

“Falsehoods.” Pretty strong stuff.

Barack Obama spent his term of office lying like a rug about all kinds of stuff. He “barely knew” Bill Ayers the unrepentant police-station bomber (in whose living room “community organizer” Barry’s curious political career was launched), or those Acorn vote-fraud people . . . who’d invited him back repeatedly to lecture them on how to do it “The Saul Alinsky Way.” Under ObamaCare we’d be able to “keep our doctor and our plan” if we wanted. All the bailout funds would go to “shovel-ready jobs” . . . though he later admitted there “are no shovel-ready jobs.” You can go compile your own list; I still find it too depressing.

So did The AP hand crypto-Muslim B. Hussein Obama a big Pinocchio Nose as a going-away present? Work to get him impeached for all his “falsehoods” that they labeled with that word and reported so diligently? Use that word a lot when Hillary Clinton swore there was no classified State Department material on her private, easily hackable laptop? Not that we noticed.

And once again, please note The Associated Press on Jan. 24 did not say “Trump may be exaggerating the number of illegal aliens who cast illegal ballots, the precise number of which has not yet been firmly established.”

No, no. They accused the president of uttering a “falsehood,” which is to say a “lie,” clearly implying NO substantial or significant or measurable number of illegal aliens — or legally resident non-citizens who are equally ineligible to vote in our elections — cast illegal ballots in the 2016 American presidential election . . . clearly asserting EVERY VOTE of Hillary Clinton’s “2.9 million popular vote majority” was valid and untainted.

Following along, so far? OK.

TWO MILLION

Yet at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/15/nearly-2-million-non-citizen-hispanics-illegally-r/ , Rowan Scarborough of The Washington Times reported on Feb. 15: “A large number of non-citizen Hispanics, as many as 2 million, were illegally registered to vote in the U.S., according to a nationwide poll.

“The National Hispanic Survey provides additional evidence for use by anti-voter fraud conservatives and bolsters an analysis by professors at Old Dominion University who say non-citizens registered and voted in potentially large numbers.

“President Trump has announced he will appoint a task force on voter fraud headed by Vice President Mike Pence. He says he wants the investigation to focus on inaccurate voter registration rolls, which are maintained by the states and the District of Columbia.

“‘It is a fact and you will not deny it, that there are massive numbers of non-citizens in this country who are registered to vote,’ White House adviser Stephen Miller told ABC News. ‘That is a scandal. We should stop the presses.’”

The little-noticed Hispanic survey was conducted in June 2013 by McLaughlin and Associates to gauge the opinions of U.S. resident Latinos on a wide range of issues.

Inside the poll a page was devoted to voter profiles. Of the randomly selected sample of 800 Hispanics, 56 percent, or 448, said they were non-citizens, and of those, 13 percent said they were registered to vote. The 448 would presumably be a mix of illegal immigrants and noncitizens who are in the U.S. legally, such as visa holders or permanent residents.

Multiplying through by the number of Hispanics in the country (which may result in too LOW a number, since one imagines many of those registered to vote illegally might shy away from responding honestly to such a question) the McLaughlin and Associates results show that as many as 2 million non-citizen Hispanics had illegally registered to vote in the United States by 2013.

Which leaves out the many NON-Hispanic illegal aliens living in the United States, of whom the number who have illegally registered to vote remains unknown.

Yet Michael Grunwald of Politico insists voter fraud is “virtually nonexistent in the U.S.”

These statements can’t BOTH be true. Where is Mr. Grunwald’s evidence?

And “There is no evidence to support Trump’s claim” that 3 million to 5 million immigrants” — many HERE illegally -– “voted illegally,” The Associated Press insists.

OK. Where did the AP writers LOOK to see if there’s any evidence? It takes a pretty exhaustive search to conclude there’s NO evidence — none AT ALL.

MORE THAN THREE MILLION

Have they checked http://phibetaiota.net/2017/02/gregg-phillips-three-million-illegal-votes-data-backs-up-assertion-by-donald-trump-analytics-algorithms-and-hundreds-of-millions-of-data-points/ , where Gregg Phillips reports his groups, AutoGov and TrueTheVote, have now verified more than three million votes were cast last November, illegally, by non-citizens?

“I recently became Internet famous for a tweet . . . after having been identified as the source for a similar tweet by President-elect Trump,” Phillips writes.

“Twitter blew up. . . . Thousands of trolls, bots and haters beat those drums accusing me of all manner of atrocity. Several went so far as to say they would kill me if I released the numbers.

“At first, I thought I had cut deep into a long-standing narrative that voter fraud doesn’t exist and non-citizens don’t vote. I quickly realized I had cut all the way to the bone of these myths. . . .

The new narrative, Phillips asserts, has become a question: “How big is the problem?”

“In my opinion and based on my methodology, more than three million non-citizens voted. . . .

“In 2009, a group of volunteer election integrity researchers formed by True the Vote began the tedious process of gathering and updating voter registration records, augmenting them with voting records and geocoded addresses,” Phillips explains. “The database now contains in excess of 180 million up-to-date records.

“In an amazing effort best described as brute force, thousands of TTV’s citizen volunteers analyzed records that resulted in thousands of duplicate records and registrations of dead people being removed from the rolls. In addition, TTV volunteers identified thousands of instances where individuals voted more than once.

“AutoGov, a technology company I founded, partnered with True the Vote in 2013. The result of this partnership is a technology solution to analyze the nation’s voter registration records to quickly and easily verify identity, residency, non-citizens, citizenship, age, duplicates, dead and felon status in real time.

“Comparing these registrations to voting records has produced results so troubling, I decided now was the time to speak out. . . . In one study done in 2015 with more than 20,000 federal voter registrations, 42 percent of the registrations were so flawed they could not be recommended for inclusion in the voter rolls.

“Forty-two percent. Stunning. . . .

HUNDREDS IN OHIO, FOR STARTERS

“Eligible citizens don’t vote for two primary reasons — they don’t like the candidates and they don’t trust the election system. If we were concerned with non-voting citizens, we would research the reasons people don’t vote and seek to remedy those factors. . . . There is an incongruence between the concerns that people don’t participate and the denials that fraud exists. The American people are not stupid. They know something is wrong and therefore don’t trust the election system, staying home by the millions. . . .

“(That) we don’t verify identity, residency, age, citizenship and felon status is silly in an age when we can buy a car on the internet simply by placing our thumb on the home button to place a secure order,” Mr. Phillips asserts.

“Mexico, whose (sic) election system is considered by many observers as a best practice combines citizen involvement with IDs linked to ballots. No ID. No vote. Blockchain, the same technology used to secure bitcoin transactions, is a promising solution currently in use in places like Estonia. The technology secures transactions (ballots) with a high level of security and produces a transparent and verifiable result.

“These are solutions that people can trust. Voting percentages in Mexico and Estonia are very high.”

Meantime, the Daily Caller reported Feb. 28 at http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/28/hundreds-of-non-citizens-registered-to-vote-in-ohio-investigation-finds/ :

“Hundreds of non-citizens are registered to vote in Ohio and some have even cast ballots, a state investigation of its voter rolls reveals.

“According to Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, his office has identified a total of 821 non-citizens registered to vote in the Buckeye State since 2011 — 126 of whom voted in at least one election,” writes reporter Caroline May.

That’s at least 126 illegal votes in one important “swing state” alone . . . out of 50 . . . found so far.

So how can Michael Grunwald of Politico say voter fraud is “virtually nonexistent in the U.S.”? And how can Erica Werner and the rest of the gang at The Associated Press insist “There is no evidence to support Trump’s claim” that 3 million to 5 million immigrants” – many HERE illegally – “voted illegally”?

How hard have they LOOKED for such evidence? I mean, they just accused the President of the United States of LYING. Shouldn’t their editors require a pretty high burden of proof — erect a pretty high hurdle — for such a statement? Unless of course, their agenda now is simply to try and discredit anything and everything Donald Trump and his administration says and does, in hopes of reversing the results of last November’s election. Is that it?

Five AP reporters were credited on that Jan. 24 story. AP reporters are supposedly drawn from newspapers all over the country. So out of the five, what would you guess — that two voted for Donald Trump? One? Surely their editors wouldn’t allow an important story about the Trump White House to be cobbled together by a team of five who ALL hail from blue states between Boston and Washington, who ALL voted for Hillary Clinton . . . do you think?

ROSA MARIA ORTEGA

“But Vin, if people are voting illegally, why aren’t they being caught and arrested and jailed?” you ask.

Well, for starters, congressional Democrats not only oppose and block efforts to LOOK AND SEE how many people cast illegal ballots, they’ve actually worked to PREVENT simple and systematic solutions -– such as demanding proof of U.S. birth or other proof of citizenship upon registration, and demanding to see a photo ID when a vote is cast -– claiming this would “suppress the black vote” because people with dark skin are too stupid to figure out how to get a photo ID.

(Really.)

But in fact, people ARE now getting caught.

On Feb. 11, Fox News reported at http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/02/11/mexican-woman-in-texas-sentenced-to-8-years-in-prison-for-voter-fraud.html :

“A Mexican citizen living in Texas was sentenced this week to eight years in prison for voting illegally in elections in 2012 and 2014.

“Rosa Maria Ortega, 37, was found guilty Wednesday on two counts of illegal voting after she falsely claimed to be a United States citizen and voted at least five times between 2012 and 2014.

According to Fox 4 News, Ortega’s identity came into question after she tried to register to vote twice in Tarrant County. Both applications were denied.

She had voted in five elections in Dallas before her registration was canceled in April 2015.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton -– for whom Ortega voted in 2014 –- assisted in the prosecution.

“This case shows how serious Texas is about keeping its elections secure, and the outcome sends a message that violators of the state’s election law will be prosecuted to the fullest,” he said.

According to the New York Times, Ortega was born in Monterrey, Mexico and brought to the U.S. by her mother as an infant. More than a decade later, her mother was deported and Ortega became a permanent resident alien.

Ortega testified she didn’t understand the differences between the rights granted to citizens and the rights granted to legal residents.

“All my life since I worked, I always on my knowledge thought I was a U.S. citizen because I never knew the difference of U.S. citizen and U.S. resident,” the felon told Fox 4. “And the point is if I knew, everything would’ve been the correct way.”

But the Dallas News reported that prosecutors showed that Ortega has checked a box on her driver’s license form indicating she was not a citizen.

Yet the Dallas County election administrator said in 2015 Ortega filled out a voter application and checked that she WAS a citizen.

In addition to the long prison sentence, Ortega is likely to be deported, according to her lawyer, Clark Birdsall.

“She’ll do eight years in a Texas prison,” he told the Times. “And then she’ll be deported, and wake up blinking and scratching in a country she doesn’t know.”

MIGUEL VALENCIA-SANDOVAL

More?

Victor Skinner of The Illinois Review reported Feb. 11 at http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2017/02/illinois-illegal-alien-charged-after-voting-in-multiple-elections.html :

“Federal officials seem to be taking President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration as seriously as he is.

“As U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was worn into his new post Thursday, U.S. District Court Magistrate Eric Long was arraigning an illegal immigrant in Urbana, Illinois for several counts of voter fraud, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

“The 33-year-old Mexican national, Miguel Valencia-Sandoval, allegedly used a fake identity for years to vote in the 2012, 2014, and 2016 elections, and to open bank accounts, take out car loans, and open restaurants.

The scheme seemed to be working well until a trip to Mexico last month, when Valencia-Sandoval was detained as he attempted to cross back into the U.S. with a Texas birth certificate and Illinois ID card with the name Ramiro Guerrora Vaszuez.”

Wow! But Michael Grunwald of Politico says voter fraud is “virtually nonexistent in the U.S.” And Jonathan Lemire and the rest of the gang at The Associated Press insists “There is no evidence to support Trump’s claim” that 3 million to 5 million immigrants” — many HERE illegally — “voted illegally” last November. What’s going on?

MARGARITA DEL PILAR FITZPATRICK

We even know HOW millions of illegals get registered to vote. It’s thanks to Bill Clinton’s 1993 “Auto Fraudo” bill, which lying Democrats prefer to call “Motor Voter”:

Logan Churchwell of Breitbart News reported Feb. 14 at http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/02/14/noncitizen-faces-deportation-illegal-voting-getting-drivers-license/ :

“A Peruvian woman originally hoping to become a naturalized citizen in Illinois now faces deportation after her record of illegal voter registration and casting ballots for federal candidates has come to light.

“Margarita Del Pilar Fitzpatrick, a Peruvian woman married to an American citizen in Illinois, became registered to vote at a driver’s license issuing office in 2005, according to court records.

“She presented a valid green card and passport from her home country to satisfy the identification requirements to obtain a license. Because of guidelines under the National Voter Registration Act (a.k.a. Motor Voter), the DMV employee reflexively offered Fitzpatrick the opportunity to register to vote, despite her documented alien status.

“Having studied English in college and working as a translator in the medical field, Fitzpatrick reportedly questioned the state employee if she was ‘supposed to’ register. The DMV agent responded, ‘It’s up to you.’ The woman would later sign a document attesting to U.S. citizenship, allowing her to become a fully registered voter, reportedly casting ballots for federal candidates in 2006.

“Federal law currently bars noncitizens from voting in federal or state elections, potentially leading to deportation.

“Fitzpatrick’s voting record would likely have remained unnoticed had she not pursued citizenship and self-reported her registration experience.

“In the waning days of the Obama Administration, Fitzpatrick appealed her deportation order to the U.S. 7th Circuit in Chicago, arguing that the DMV employee essentially entrapped her for not counseling against registering to vote. The appellate court placed little stock in her defense, noting that she was fully literate in English and the conversation was likely scripted from the state officer’s perspective.

“DMV employees and other state agents that are required to offer voter registration opportunities are barred from saying ‘anything that will discourage an applicant . . . from registering to vote,’ the court noted.”

Which would indicate they offer an opportunity to register -– and are then FORBIDDEN BY LAW from pointing out it’s illegal for a non-citizen to do so -– to MILLIONS OF PERSONS INELIGIBLE TO VOTE, EVERY YEAR . . . wouldn’t it?

We already detailed, back on Jan. 24 ( https://vinsuprynowicz.com/?p=4562 ) how the Culinary Union in Las Vegas pressures its tens of thousands of member busboys and hotel maids and other hotel/casino employees to register and then to vote (which can be done in Las Vegas with a casino employee card along with a water or power bill to show place of residence, no proof of citizenship required), irrespective of whether they’re in this country legally or can even speak English — even busing them to “early voting” locations and handing them a free box lunch to “encourage” them to vote en masse for the union’s chosen Democratic slate.

The Culinary Union “represents over 55,000 hospitality workers in Las Vegas and Reno” — most in Las Vegas/Clark County, and brags those workers “come from 167 countries and speak over 40 languages.”

Yet in none of their self-congratulatory announcements about registering 34,000 members to vote do union officials mention any difficulties or frustrations growing out of the fact many of their members aren’t citizens, or express any curiosity as to why (assuming all those they registered WERE citizens — wink wink, nudge nudge) those union members weren’t ALREADY registered to vote.

Vox reported Clinton won Nevada last November “thanks to her ability to mobilize Latinos and encourage early voting. . . . As many as two-thirds of Nevada voters voted early in 2016,” and “by the end of early voting, Democrats had a 65,000 to 70,000-vote advantage in Clark County,” thanks in part to a last-minute decision by election officials to “keep voting open at a Mexican supermarket in Las Vegas so hundreds of would-be voters could make it through a two-hour line.”

I have no problem with holding the polls open to allow everyone in line to vote — presuming they’re legal voters. But those early votes being “already in the bag” dulled the effect of Trump’s final-week surge in Nevada opinion polls, finally allowing Clinton to hang on and beat Trump in Nevada by 27,000 votes, 539,260 to 512,058 . . . though the Democrat carried ONLY the two counties where the Culinary membership is concentrated, Clark (Las Vegas) and Washoe (Reno.)

Is there any reason to believe Democrat unions behave any differently in other states with high populations of illegal aliens? Is there any reason to believe Nevada wouldn’t have gone for Trump if tens of thousands of illegal aliens had been rounded up and deported — or at least asked for proof of citizenship before being allowed to register and vote?

Does any of this help convince you voter fraud must be “virtually nonexistent in the U.S.,” as asserted by Michael Grunwald of Politico, or that “There is no evidence to support Trump’s claim” that 3 million to 5 million immigrants – many illegal – voted illegally, as The Associated Press insists?

Election law expert J. Christian Adams said in a statement shortly after the 7th Circuit ruling that the case “demonstrates how difficult it is to pursue noncitizen voting crimes without verification measures in voter registration.”

States including Texas and Virginia are currently considering legislation that would require documented proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote, similar to current law in Kansas.

The 7th Circuit panel inquired if individuals like Ms. Fitzpatrick were priorities for removal by the Department of Homeland Security. Government attorneys told the court on Jan. 17 that “the answer was yes.”

Which, in the end, may be the only way we’re going to solve this problem: by DEPORTING the Democratic party’s 3-million popular vote majority, given that it’s . . . illegal.

AN UNHAPPY CONCLUSION

Sunday Feb. 12 on ABC’s “This Week,” Trump senior advisor Stephen Miller said the White House had provided “enormous evidence” to make a case there was a “serious problem” of voter fraud in American elections.

Miller said “I actually, having worked on a campaign before in New Hampshire, I can tell you that this issue of busing voters into New Hampshire is widely known by anyone working in New Hampshire politics. It’s very real, very serious. This morning, on this show, is not the venue for me to lay out all the evidence. I can tell you this — voter fraud is a serious problem in the country. You have millions of people who are registered in two states, who are dead who are registered to vote. You have 14 percent of noncitizens, according to academic research, at a minimum, are registered to vote, an astonishing statistic.”

He added, “The White House has provided enormous evidence with respect to voter fraud, with respect to people being registered in more than one state. Dead people voting, non-citizens being registered to vote. . . . There are massive numbers of non-citizens in this country who are registered to vote.”

But how can that be, when Michael Grunwald of Politico says voter fraud is “virtually nonexistent in the U.S.,” and Jill Colvin and the rest of the gang at The Associated Press insists “There is no evidence to support Trump’s claim” that 3 million to 5 million immigrants voted illegally last fall?

Not merely that “the number may not be quite that high,” mind you. No, no. That “There is no evidence” — AT ALL — to support his “falsehood.”

Unless of course –- and I’ll admit I myself never would have believed this, as little as eight or 10 years ago -– unless it turns out that Politico and The Associated Press and most of the rest of the “Legacy” Mainstream Media are exactly what Donald Trump and his spokesmen have called them, no longer reporters striving to purvey accurate information, at all, but rather “The Opposition Party,” devoted agents of the Far-Left wing of the Democratic Party, a gang that sees itself melting away like the Wicked Witch of the West, with nothing left but to shriek that it’s all some kind of “Russian plot — Impeach him! He spoke to a Russian!” so desperate are they not to lose the 3-million-vote edge given them by all these illegals voting, which would mean that such media outlets, much as we may hate to face it, turn out to be . . . a bunch of liars, knowingly, smilingly “peddling falsehoods.”

11 Comments to “No, let’s not ‘let it go.’ How much research did the Mainstream Media do before assuring us there’s ‘no vote fraud’ in America?”

  1. K. Bill Hodges Says:

    It’s not just illegals. I live near a big university that has a lot of out-of-state students. I went to the university website and selected, at random, one student with a unique name and checked her voter status online. She registered to vote in my state in 2016 and she voted in the November election. I checked out her home state (which had been listed on the university website) and found that she registered there in 2016, and she voted in the November election there, too.

    The VERY FIRST STUDENT I checked committed voter fraud. Registered as a Democrat, big surprise.

    But Hillary won the popular vote.

  2. jak Says:

    Great column Vin. I don’t know how you could do it but you need to reach more people.

  3. Brandon Says:

    Any idea about how much would it have cost Ohio taxpayers to prevent those 126 voters, over the course of those 5 years, from voting?

    Knowing government though it would have been in the millions of dollars, and to me, spending that amount, to prevent 126 people from voting over the course of 5 years, doesn’t seem like a good expenditure of our money.

  4. v ardis Says:

    Brandon Says:
    March 3rd, 2017 at 7:19 pm

    Any idea about how much would it have cost Ohio taxpayers to prevent those 126 voters, over the course of those 5 years, from voting?

    Knowing government though it would have been in the millions of dollars, and to me, spending that amount, to prevent 126 people from voting over the course of 5 years, doesn’t seem like a good expenditure of our money.

    Its shouldn’t cost you anymore then it costs you now,when you show the clerk at a 7-11 your ID when you buy a can of beer today. and how much extra does that ID check cost ??

    the only point where it could potentially “cost” more money is in YOUR time
    See it really only matters that a birth certificate/passport/naturalization cert. be shown once at the county election office – which is usually in the same county building as the county vital records office,,,,, where the birth certificates records are stored.
    And for everyone i know who has become a naturalized citizen, they get a wallet sized US citizenship card that they carry in their wallet or purse all the time issued by the INS
    And they carry it PROUDLY as it shows that they became a legally naturalized US citizen and are usually not hesitant about showing it to anyone who asks.
    just to point out/ my father 1 uncle and 3 aunts immigrated to this country Legally .
    on my moms side, greatgrand father immigrated to calif in 1849 legally from Italy and became a citizen in 1873.
    and they have had no problem showing off one of their proudest possessions that they all EARNED Their US CITIZENSHIP CERTIFICATES .

    Someone who knows no one who has immigrated LEGALLY to this country can understand the frustration that Legal immigrants have about the illegal aliens illegally squatting in this country,
    And can have the gall to ask “how much its gonna cost” to enforce our laws ?
    and seems to think its to much to pay to enforce them.
    when in fact it NOW costs the citizens and legal immigrants of this country 10s if not 100s of Billions “YES BILLIONS” in Tax Dollars to NOT enforce our immigration and voting laws.
    consider where we would be if we had enforced our immigration and voting laws, there would not be millions of illegal aliens flooding our hospitals/schools/prisons – collecting welfare WIC – SSI – medicaid- medicare – obamacare AFDC, the list goes on and on, there are too many programs to list here and all are abused by illegals thanks to the help provided by the apparapniks in the bureaucracy and the just plain ignorant people who “just wanta be nice” to the poor “undocumented immigrants” as the tv news puts the label the law breaking illegal aliens.

    we really need to require them to teach civics again in school, seems too many people got all the way thru the schools here and know absolutely nothing about the responsibilities and duties of being a citizen

    thanks for laying out the truth of the situation Vin

  5. Brandon Says:

    V ardis: I say “well done”! To you and the members of your family that have complied with the laws and are proud to be legal citizens of the US; everyone ought to do it this way. And we ought to make sure that the ones that don’t, get gone as quickly an inexpensively as is possible.

    But I have to disagree a bit about government and the costs involved in keeping those 126 people from voting in Ohio over the course of those five years; the cost of even trying to prevent it, is going to be in the millions of dollars, and here’s why;

    It costs the government money to do everything, and this law would require the government hire people to make sure that everyone who votes has an ID. In a state like Ohio, where there are at least hundreds, if not a thousand or more polling places, this means having someone at each place (and because it’s the government probably more like 3 people) to check every ID. It’s also going to mean that more people, who don’t have IDs today, but need to get them, are going to be going most often, to a state agency, which means hiring more people, to issue the additional licenses. And this is just the start. There will need to be supervisors to supervise the new people, and new departments to put those supervisors in, and then still more people hired, to combat the likely fraudulent IDs that will be issued, and on, and on.

    Now remember, my comment was about ONLY the costs to is taxpayers for making sure people don’t vote who aren’t supposed to be voting. Nothing more. And according to this study in Ohio, all this money, taxpayer money, would have been spent to POSSIBLY stop 126 voters from voting over 5 years.

    Doesn’t seem worth it to me.

  6. vardis Says:

    Brandon, I hate to seen like i’m being unfairly critical – but did you read the whole report your referring to ? about the 126 illegally registered voters found in Ohio ?
    the reason i ask – is – that the report by the Ohio SOS and what he said in it, BTW He is supposed to, as a part of the job, make sure No one illegally votes, and he spends $ doing it – its part of the job,. He stated that they find people illegally registered to vote Every year,(Since 2013, Husted’s office has reviewed election data and Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicle records to check against fraud: 291 non-citizens were found on the rolls in 2013, 145 in 2015 and 385 in 2017.
    The 82 found this year to have cast improper ballots(out of the 126 they found) will be referred to prosecutors for possible criminal charges)(Husted said the review is standard and not in response to President Trump’s statements that there was widespread voter fraud in the 2016 presidential election.)(Husted also argues that his office should have wider access to federal data, including records of non-citizens who have valid Social Security numbers. “This would enable me and my counterparts in other states to prevent illegal registrations, and more importantly, reassure the public that steps have been take to ensure only eligible voters are participating in federal, state and local elections,” Husted said in testimony before Congress in 2015)(False voter registration is a fifth-degree felony and a conviction can affect their ability to remain in the United States and become citizens – for legal immigrants,- seems no illegals have been prosecuted as of yet in Ohio. This year’s analysis found non-citizens registered to vote in Montgomery, Clark, Miami, Darke, Shelby and Auglaize counties. Of those, two in Montgomery County voted, and one each in Auglaize, Darke and Shelby counties, according to Husted’s study.) After reading that report and others i come to the conclusion – that we are NOT doing Enough to stop illegal voting , So your conclusion that any money spent to stop just 126 people from potentially casting illegal votes is Way too Much !! seems a bit over the top, Especially since the Ohio SOS as a Specific part of his job IS supposed to do this by law.
    I started voting in California in 1980, and I had to show my voter id which was then checked off on a registered voters list, i had to prove i was eligible to vote at the county elections office by showing both my Birth Cert and my drivers license, as i would turn 18 just days before the election, Why was it Not to difficult for a not quite 18yo to get registered to vote? and yet you posit that 40 year olds cant seem to do it ? And the folks who checked my id against the list were – Volunteers – the same way it is in Ohio, as you use as an example – thats the way our elections were always done – with volunteers from both parties and a few elections officials – you seem to think/purpose that we need full time Paid government workers just to check ID’s for voting, Even thou we already have people checking IDs – the problem is that they have to accept “just about anything” as an ID – (Ohio law requires that every voter, upon appearing at the polling place to vote on Election Day, must announce his or her full name and current address and provide proof of identity.
    The forms of identification that may be used by a voter who appears at a polling place to vote on Election Day include
    1 An unexpired Ohio driver’s license or state identification card with present or former address so long as the voter’s present residential address is printed in the official list of registered voters for that precinct;
    2 A military identification;
    3 A photo identification that was issued by the United States government or the State of Ohio, that contains the voter’s name and current address and that has an expiration date that has not passed; – Ohio State prison IDs will be accepted as proof of ID – which Ohio issues to illegals in prison and allows then to retain when released for use as ID
    4 An original or copy of a current utility bill with the voter’s name and present address;
    5 An original or copy of a current bank statement with the voter’s name and present address;
    6 An original or copy of a current government check with the voter’s name and present address;
    7 An original or copy of a current paycheck with the voter’s name and present address; or
    8 An original or copy of a current other government document (other than a notice of voter registration mailed by a board of elections) that shows the voter’s name and present address.)

    To say that these are LOOSE regulations regarding ID is being generous – these lax almost non-existent rules regarding proving eligibility to vote are laughable, using the criteria above most anyone CAN register to vote , So I have to ask – were you aware that it appears to be so easy to register to vote that i could register my cat,
    after learning what ive learned about Ohios voting system i advocate MORE money being spent cleaning up the voter rolls, And if your worried about money – the easiest way to save money for US taxpayers is to get rid of all the illegals and their kids/anchor babies they clog our schools, hospitals and prisons, costing us Billions of dollars every year, monies NOT being spent on Citizens and LEGAL immigrants and their kids – I would like to ask anyone who’s a lawyer , why cant i as a citizen of a state prefer charges against the governor of my state for using taxpayer monies to aid and abet Illegal aliens, by providing them services paid for with taxpayer monies I.E. aiding and abetting, which IS against US immigration law now and has been for years , as the debtocrats constantly scream – ITS SETTLED LAW ! now follow it .
    i hope trump starts putting governors and mayors in jail for immigration law violations,, and come to think of it – interstate RICO charges – If multiple governors/mayors consult/conspire/contrive to violate US immigration laws by protecting illegal aliens in defiance of notice by the Executive office or Justice Dept I dont see why they cant be prosecuted and removed from office and then jailed ?
    if anyone has any input on this – please let me know ?
    anyway brandon i still think we dont do enough to stop it
    and i think your worrying about only the cost of this (a burn in the carpet while ignoring the elephant holding the torch in its trunk while standing on the carpet) I.E. ignoring everything else that causes this problem with illegals in our voting system in the first place is, shortsighted/foolish at best and dangerous at worst. and about the neverending line of people who YOU think will need to be hired for all the new depts that you seem to think will need to be created for all the people Who you think Dont have IDs now, is quite frankly ludicrous – your first comment about wasting money was at best un-informed – your longer second soliloquy about some never ending line of ID issuers and checkers and their supervisors is NUTS.
    all the states ALREADY have people to do this
    again not trying to insult or denigrate
    but i try to call it as i see it
    and i think you would be better served by reexamining the issue and doing a little more research into this,
    there seems to be more to it then your aware of.

  7. Brandon Says:

    Vardis:

    To each his own, but according to some estimates from Ohio, the costs to taxpayers, to enact a voter photo identification law, would range from 7 million dollars per year, to over 43 million dollars per year.

    That’s in addition to the amount currently spent on elections by the state, and the amount used by the Secretary of State in Ohio to prevent voter fraud.

    Divide 7 million dollars (the lowest cost estimate) by 126, AND assume that this expenditure would have prevented those votes entirely (which seems unreasonable) and that means the citizens of Ohio would have paid a little more than $60,000.00, per vote, to stop EVERY illegal vote in the state.

    To me, that’s too much.

    Oh and one more thing, there wasn’t any mention in anything I read about the number of votes cast by illegal aliens in Ohio. It’s more likely that the votes were cast by students with visas, or people registered to vote in another state, did you notice that? Let’s pretend that all those 126 votes were cast by actual American citizens who were just registered to vote, and did vote, in a state other than Ohio, would you still think paying $60,000.00 per vote, to determine that the voter made this error?

    If so, my question is, how much, on a per vote basis, would be too much money for you to force taxpayers to spend to stop a single illegal vote?

  8. Vardis Says:

    So Brandon ,, you ignored the report issued by the Ohio sos on the numbers of illegals registered to vote Every Year ! You ignore Everything Vin has detailed in this article. And you use the number 126 as a straw man argument to say we don’t need to secure our voting process.
    OK I got it . you willfully ignore facts you don’t like.
    There are none so blind as those who will not see .

  9. Brandon Says:

    Vardis:

    I did not ignore either Vin’s piece, or the Ohio secretary of states report. The use of the word “non-citizen” from the report is however misleading because it implies the voter was an illegal alien but that is not what it means. In fact, according to the Ohio report, there is no way to know if even ONE “illegal allen” cast a vote.

    In fact, the Ohio Secretary of State himself said that the voters that cast the votes identified themselves as “non-citizens” who “probably registered because they thought it would help them become citizens.

    In the last election, according to the report, there were actually 82 votes cast by “non-citizens” (mostly naturalized citizens or those seeking naturalization according to the report) and again Vardis, there was no evidence that a single vote cast, was cast by what we would call “an illegal alien”.

    And all I’m saying is that forcing taxpayers to pay, on the low end 7 million dollars, or more than $60,000.00 per vote cast by “non-citizens” is way too much.

    Opinions differ and maybe it would be worth it to you which is why I asked the question about how much you would be willing to force taxpayers to pay to stop this completely (if it were possible).

    http://www.cleveland.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/02/82_non-us_citizens_illegally_c.html

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