Presidential candidate Donald Trump in a FOX News interview said, “People are going to walk in and vote ten times maybe — who knows?”
Trump couldn’t be more right. Without safeguards in our election process, “who knows?” That’s the point: Without rules and laws to protect our vote, our elections are left wide-open to any kind of fraud and even worse it becomes harder or impossible to detect fraud.
What’s left is chaos.
Trump was also right to point the finger at the federal courts, which seem to be on a mission to override many states’ voting laws. Though Trump didn’t mention North Carolina, the uber-liberal 4th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned VIVA (Voter Information Verification Act), North Carolina’s 2013 law that updated North Carolina’s election code for the first time in decades and included a voter identification requirement. The old election laws, written by Democrats, who were in control of the legislature for over 100 years, favored Democrats and led to confusion both by voters and in the administration of the law. VIVA evened the playing field, in many ways not favoring either party.
Trump said he was very concerned and hoped the people and the authorities are going to be very watchful.
This is a new low for NCCivitas …. Quoting Donald Trump! “Trump couldn’t be more right…who knows”
How low can this organization go?
The Truth hurts George – run to your safe space.
Not near as low as a troll like you ,George.Stay out of those girls bathrooms.
Guess it’s time to fight fire with fire, if they can vote 10 times, so can we. It apparently isn’t against the law anymore.
George, if NC Civitas is a low organization, why are you posting on here?
George won’t answer you,he is a drive by troll.
It actually is illegal to vote 10 times in one election. The Voter ID law was designed to prevent ID impersonation. I don’t think any elections volunteer/employee would just hand 10 ballots to anyone.
There are very few reported cases of voter impersonation. The NC Voting ID law was written to combat a problem that didn’t exist. Ask yourself why was it enacted then?
Yes, it is illegal to vote multiple times in one election, in fact that would be called voter fraud. Not sure where you are from Kyle, but you evidently don’t understand NC’s old voting laws,
Seventeen days ahead of election day, one-stop voting begins (one-stop voting is in-person, early voting). During that period voters can vote at any early voting site in the county they are registered in. (we won’t even mention same-day registration in this explanation) So, to vote more than once using other people’s information (voter impersonation) all you need is a list of names and addresses of voters. Once you have that information, all you have to do is go into early voting places and state a name and the corresponding address and the officials will hand you a ballot. Vote, leave and repeat. Seventeen days X 100 counties X hundreds of one-stop sites and you could do some real damage.
And Kyle, of course voter impersonation is hard to detect, it is impersonation after all. How would an election worker know you from any other voter unless you offered a picture ID?
Hi Susan — actually it is very easy to detect. If you go to the poll and are told that you have already voted (someone impersonated you), you can file a claim and a report with the police for voter fraud (and a provisional ballot). This almost never happens, most likely because actual voter impersonation is rare.
So your hypothetical while I begrugingly will admit is possible, it is also very detectable by the people that actually vote. If this occurred, there would be many claims of voter impersonation, instead it is very rare. This wasn’t really a problem, and even some of the legislators in NC (where I live) have admitted that the Voter ID law was in part designed to suppress Democratic voters.
Good discussion though.
Kyle,
You’re right it is very seldom that people go to the police and claim voter fraud, perhaps that’s because the board of elections always blames it on administrative error and then counts their vote and the first vote. Administrative error is usually a guess on their part and an easy-out meant to pacify everyone involved. As to how often it happens that a voter goes to vote and finds out that they’ve “already voted” it happens too often. When I worked at the Wake County Board of Elections it happened in every election.
But, I ask you, if a voter goes to the police and reports that someone voted in their place – what would happen? And, if the board of elections allows that person to vote a provisional ballot and then counts it after counting the first vote too – how fair and secure do you consider that election?
And then there’s those voters who have moved or died and are still on the voter rolls. They are usually coded “inactive” and stay that way at least through two general elections before they are removed – that’s if they don’t vote first. (There are usually over 1/2 million inactive voters on the official voter rolls in North Carolina at any given time).
Anyone can get that list and start voting on the first day of one-stop and vote until the last day – no one will ever notice. The only reason voter impersonation is rare is because you can’t see it.
I can’t speak for the legislators you reference, but I can tell you, among voters, statewide and nationwide, in all demographics (political and personal), polling shows that the majority believe voter ID is a commonsense requirement and is needed to protect all our votes and the democratic process.
Here’s a quote for you from the Gov. of a navy blue state – Rhode Island. Rhode Island enacted voter ID in 2012 and 2014.
Lincoln Chafee said, “Having reflected a great deal on the issue, I believe that requiring identification at the polling place is a reasonable request to ensure the accuracy and integrity of our elections,” Chafee, an Independent, said in a statement.
“Notably, I spoke with representatives of our state’s minority communities, and I found their concerns about voter fraud and their support for this bill particularly compelling,” he added.
I wrote about Rhode Island in 2011 – here is a link to the blog:
http://civitasreview.com/politicians/democratic-rhode-island-legislature-enacts-voter-id-so-why-cant-nc/