Vote fraud in the United States is exceedingly rare, with mailed ballots and otherwise.
It’s July 4th and Sadly Voter Suppression Is Still Alive and Well in the United States
It’s July 4th and today of all days those of us who live in the U.S. need to be aware that Trump and many Republicans want to suppress the vote during a pandemic in the hope that doing so will enable them to “win” the election. One of the most malignant ways they are doing so is by trying to stop the widespread use of vote-by-mail for the 2020 election.
Vote-by-mail is the only safe way for many Americans to vote during a pandemic. But Trump keeps lying by saying that vote-by-mail will lead to much greater voter fraud.
In the above article Amber McReynolds and Charles Stewart III put that myth to rest:
“Vote fraud in the United States is exceedingly rare, with mailed ballots and otherwise. Over the past 20 years, about 250 million votes have been cast by a mail ballot nationally. The Heritage Foundation maintains...there have been just over 1,200 cases of vote fraud of all forms, resulting in 1,100 criminal convictions, over the past 20 years. Of these, 204 involved the fraudulent use of absentee ballots; 143 resulted in criminal convictions.
“Let’s put that data in perspective.
“One hundred forty-three cases of fraud using mailed ballots over the course of 20 years comes out to seven to eight cases per year, nationally. It also means that across the 50 states, there has been an average of three cases per state over the 20-year span. That is just one case per state every six or seven years. We are talking about an occurrence that translates to about 0.00006 percent of total votes cast.”
As of Sept. 2019 (six years after the Supreme Court struck down an important part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965) Southern states had closed about 1,200 polling places. With the advent of the pandemic, even more polling stations have been closed throughout the country, especially in cities, where POC and many Democrats are more likely to live.
If Trump and other Republicans succeed in limiting mail-in voting, many people who live in cities will have to wait in long lines to vote--risking their lives in order to exercise one of the essential rights of a citizen in a democratic republic.
On this July 4th this is a reminder that the fight for the right of all U.S. citizens to vote regardless of race, ethnicity or political affiliation continues. We cannot let Trump and other Republicans disenfranchise huge numbers of our fellow citizens.
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