President Donald Trump has “voter fraud” on the brain. Bizarrely, after winning the 2016 presidential election, Trump has raised questions about the legitimacy of his own victory by claiming that the election was tainted by widespread voter fraud. Indeed, the president recently suggested that as many as 3,000,000 people voted illegally in the election. Reports suggest that Trump’s obsession with voter fraud is due to his outrage at losing the popular vote to Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. As Trump himself alleged in a recent interview, “of those [illegal] votes cast, none of ‘em come to me. None of ‘em come to me. They would all be for the other side.” … Trump’s comments are extraordinary – and, at best, profoundly misinformed. I’ve studied voting rights politics for years and have recently finished writing a book on the political erosion of the Voting Rights Act. My book – and the research of many other social scientists outlined below – flatly contradicts Trump’s claims about the prevalence of fraud in American elections. Put bluntly, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud by impersonation in the United States. “Impersonation” is what we call the deliberate misrepresentation of identity by individuals in order to manipulate election outcomes.
Research suggests allegations of voter fraud and the calls for stringent election rules are motivated by the desire to suppress voting by citizens of color.
Because stringent election rules suppress minority voting, Trump’s call for an attack on nonexistent voter fraud should be met with serious concern by all Americans. The last thing the United States needs is more measures that make it harder to vote.
The claim that American elections are systematically tainted by widespread fraud by impersonation is a myth. Study after study – including a comprehensive 2007 investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice undertaken during the George W. Bush presidency – showed that there is virtually no voter fraud by impersonation anywhere in the United States.
Full Article: How ‘voter fraud’ crusades undermine voting rights.