Voter fraud is rare — but it's often Republicans trying to get away with it

Donald Trump and his Republican enablers have been pushing baseless allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election, claiming it was so rampant that President-elect Joe Biden’s victory should be overturned.

Of course, even Trump’s Attorney General William Barr — who has intervened in Department of Justice matters to protect Trump’s legal exposure — said there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 elections.

Judges have laughed the Trump campaign out of court, saying they provided no proof of their claims, and Biden’s victory has been certified in key states across the country over Trump’s objections.

Yet there have been an infinitesimally small number of isolated cases of voter fraud in the United States over the years. A 2007 study by the Brennan Center for Justice found rates of voter fraud were between 0.0003% and 0.0025% — a minuscule fraction of one percentage point.

And in 2020, reported cases or attempts of fraud have been committed by Republicans.

For example, the one cited case of voter fraud in Pennsylvania was from a Republican voter who allegedly attempted to procure an absentee ballot for his dead mother. Robert Richard Lynn was charged with forgery and interfering with a primary or election, according to court documents.

Meanwhile, a group of Trump supporters in Wisconsin attempted to get voters in Pennsylvania to send in their absentee ballots after Election Day, the Daily Beast reported.

Election experts told the Daily Beast they suspected it was an effort by the Trump campaign to try to taint entire pools of valid absentee ballots to give the Trump campaign ammunition to throw out large swaths of votes.

In Georgia, elections officials are investigating an incident in which a Republican attorney from Florida said he was going to move to Georgia solely to vote in the upcoming Senate runoff elections, and urged other Republicans to do the same.

“We have to win that election in Georgia. And so I’m moving to my brother’s house in Hiram, Georgia, and I’m registering to vote,” the attorney, Bill Price, said in a video obtained by Fox News.

“I’m changing my voter registration right now, and I’m inviting two million people to be my roommate,” Price added.

Moving just to vote in an election is a crime in Georgia, Fox News reported.

“Registering without the intention of permanent residency is a felony,” a spokesperson for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told Fox News. “Only permanent residents are eligible to vote in Georgia. Secretary Raffensperger has made it clear he has no tolerance for election wrongdoing and will investigate any credible evidence of it.”

Meanwhile, Trump himself asked Republicans to commit fraud this year when he told North Carolina voters to cast two ballots.

That is a clear violation of state law, which states that it is a felony “for any person with intent to commit a fraud to register or vote at more than one precinct or more than one time, or to induce another to do so, in the same primary or election, or to vote illegally at any primary or election.”

Republicans have used the specter of voter fraud to try to pass laws restricting access to the ballot box.

However, over the past few years, the few isolated instances of fraud were also committed by Republican voters.

In 2018, an entire House election was invalidated after a Republican operative was found to have committed election fraud.

In 2016, the few cases of fraud were also committed by registered Republicans.

For example, in Arizona, former registered Republican Randy Allen Jumper was sentenced to three years of probation for voting twice.

In Iowa, a registered Republican and Trump supporter was charged with fraud after trying to vote for Trump twice.

And registered Republican Richard John Greenfield was sentenced to two years of probation after he voted twice in the 2016 election — once in Arizona and again in Nevada, according to a local media outlet.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.