“Vote early and vote often” is a laugh line politicians often invoke as they make a pitch for people’s support. But it’s no laughing matter to a half-dozen former Arizonans, who have been prosecuted for voting twice in past elections. Thanks to a data-sharing agreement among 20 states, Arizona can cross-reference its voter data with other states and ferret out people who vote more than once in the same election cycle.
In 2008, the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program snared four cases involving six people who voted for president in both Arizona and in another state. Earlier this year, Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett said the program had found 10 people who appeared to have voted twice in the 2010 election. Those cases are still under investigation, and the voters face possible prosecution. Work has not begun on cross-referencing voting information from the 2012 elections.
Records from the 2008 cases show the offending parties entered plea deals that left them with misdemeanor charges on their records.
Under the crosscheck program, started in Kansas, states agree to share voter information, including name, address, birth date, whether the individual voted in a given year and the voter’s identification number, Bennett said. The data is sent to a secure server located in Arkansas. The Kansas secretary of state then runs a program to cross-reference the information, identifies any duplicate voting, and, if appropriate, shares that with the states where the multiple voting occurred.
So far, the program has resulted in few prosecutions compared with the millions of votes cast. Kansas reported three cases in 2008 referred to prosecution; four others were successfully prosecuted in Arizona.
Full Article: Arizona makes example out of few caught voting twice.