Editorials: Iowa voter fraud hunt seems much more buck than bang | Iowa City Press Citizen

Voting experts say that — because the penalties are so high and the payoff is so low — instances of real, intentional voter fraud are exceedingly rare. We agree that, when those few instances occur, the penalty should be severe enough to serve as a future deterrent against others taking such actions. But we don’t think the results of Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schulz’s nearly 18-month and $150,000 investigation have proven that such cases are widespread enough to warrant his near obsession with ferreting out voter fraud. The Des Moines Register reports that, so far, the secretary of state’s partnership with the Division of Criminal Investigation has led to criminal charges in 16 cases. And of those 16 cases, five have resulted in guilty pleas, five have been dismissed and none have yet to go to trial.

Iowa: Controversy surrounds Iowa voter fraud investigations | Associated Press

An 18-month investigation into voter fraud that has cost nearly $150,000 has led to charges against 16 people in Iowa, many of whom said they mistakenly registered or believed they were eligible to vote. Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz, who launched the investigation and has made ballot security a key issue, said the results show that voter fraud is a problem. But his critics scoff at that argument, saying the investigation confirmed that misconduct is insignificant in Iowa, where about 2.1 million people are registered to vote. Schultz, a Republican, signed a two-year deal with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation in July 2012 to assign an agent to investigating voter fraud cases fulltime. The contract allowed him to pay as much as $280,000 for the investigations. Five cases have been dismissed, while five others were resolved in guilty pleas. As part of the plea deals, three people paid fines, one received a suspended sentence and probation, and one is serving five years in prison for perjury and identity theft. So far no cases have gone to trial, though two cases’ trials are pending.

Iowa: Voter fraud probe nets few cases, no trials since July 2012 | Gannett

Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz has little to show for a voter fraud investigation that has gone on for nearly 18 months and cost the state almost $150,000. Schultz, a Republican who has made ballot security his signature issue since taking office in 2011, struck a two-year deal with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation in July 2012 to assign an agent full time to investigating voter fraud cases. Since then, according to figures provided by the secretary’s office, the effort has yielded criminal charges in 16 cases, of which five have resulted in guilty pleas and five have been dismissed. None of the cases has, as yet, gone to trial.The DCI has been paid $149,200 for its efforts so far and could receive up to $280,000 out of the secretary of state’s budget.

Iowa: Voting crackdown finally yields arrests | Quad City Times

Iowa’s highly touted crackdown on improper voting finally has resulted in some arrests that appear to justify Secretary of State Matt Schultz’ concerns. We’ll leave it to voters to decide if Schultz’ concerns merit the breadth of his two-year, $280,000 investigation. Schultz drew headlines – and some catcalls – when he cross referenced federal immigration records with Iowa voting records. Then he paid an Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation agent to follow leads. Schultz, speaking Oct. 23 at a Scott County Republican Party fundraiser in Davenport, reported 20 active cases and five convictions. He said he expects “a lot” more. The investigation yielded two arrests in Muscatine County. Both are documented immigrants charged for misrepresenting their citizenship status in an attempt to vote. Syliva Rada, 49, is alleged to have done it on an absentee ballot she filled out in 2012. Prosecutors say Mayra Lopez-Morales, 21, didn’t divulge her immigrant status on a voter registration form in 2012. Both face Class D felonies.

Honduras: Left seeks annulment of presidential vote results | AFP

The leftist Libre party in Honduras late Friday formally asked election officials to overturn the results of the November 24 presidential election, which their candidate claims to have won. A document formally requesting the annulment was delivered by ex-president Manuel Zelaya, accompanied by his wife, Libre candidate Xiomara Castro. Officials earlier declared conservative Juan Orlando Hernandez the election winner. Zelaya told AFP that the document he submitted included proof of “clear” voter fraud. “It was a well-done fraud,” said Zelaya, who claimed that officials at 2,800 voting stations conspired to throw the election for Hernandez. He insisted that votes were also bought, “because at the other voting stations, all 12,000 of them … Xiomara won.”

Arizona: Illegal immigrant vote-fraud cases rare in Arizona | Arizona Republic

Arizona has spent enormous amounts of time and money waging war against voter fraud, citing the specter of illegal immigrants’ casting ballots. State officials from Gov. Jan Brewer to Attorney General Tom Horne to Secretary of State Ken Bennett swear it’s a problem. At an August news conference, Horne and Bennett cited voter-fraud concerns as justification for continuing a federal-court fight over state voter-ID requirements. And some Republican lawmakers have used the same argument to defend a package of controversial new election laws slated to go before voters in November 2014. But when state officials are pushed for details, the numbers of actual cases and convictions vary and the descriptions of the alleged fraud become foggy or based on third-hand accounts.

Editorials: The Voting Fraud Bust that Proves Texas’ Voter ID Law Is Useless | Philip Bump/The Atlantic

A 55-year-old woman in Texas plead guilty to voter fraud on Monday for forging ballots in the 2012 primary election. The case will certainly become fodder in the defense of the state’s new, restrictive voter ID law. But it shows, above all else, how completely unnecessary that law actually is. According to an alert from the FBI (which we saw via Ryan Reilly), Sonia Leticia Solis faces up to five years in prison after her sentencing next February. She admitted that she obtained “multiple mail-in ballots by forging applications on behalf of individuals she represented to be disabled.” How many votes she actually completed isn’t clear, nor is the race which she was hoping to influence. The FBI notes that the race at issue “included candidates running for the U.S. House of Representatives,” and that Solis was a resident of Brownsville. That puts her in Texas’ new congressional district, the 34th, and means that she committed the fraud while voting in either the primary or run-off elections in that district for either party. Solis could have had the most effect if she’d been voting in the Republican primary in the heavily-Democratic district. That race was settled by only 223 votes. So Solis would “only” have had to come up with 223 different people that were eligible to vote that didn’t plan to, forge their applications and votes, and return each to the state.

Editorials: Voters deserve answers on voter fraud allegations | New Haven Register

If there’s any office for which a candidate should be disqualified for engaging in absentee ballot fraud, it’s city clerk, which, among other responsibilities, is in charge of handling absentee ballots. Yet in an astounding claim made just days before Tuesday’s election, City Clerk Ron Smith said late last week that he planned to file a complaint with the state Elections Enforcement Commission concerning complaints about absentee ballot fraud. At issues are affidavits from 11 residents of Ward 8 — the ward represented by Smith’s opponent Alderman Michael Smart — claiming their absentee ballots were illegally picked up. One resident told the Register’s Mary O’Leary on Thursday that Smart himself picked up her ballot. The woman, Cynthia Britt, issued a statement Friday walking back her original comments and saying that Smart had merely handled her application for an absentee ballot, and not the ballot himself.

Connecticut: Voter fraud scandal in New Haven | WTNH

Election Day is less than a week away and city leaders in New Haven have concerns over a suspicious amount of absentee ballots submitted for the race. “I’ve gotten a complaint from an individual that the person has been receiving these ballots in their hands and taking them to the mailbox, to the post office, you can’t do that. That’s against the law,” said Ron Smith, City Clerk, New Haven. New Haven’s City Clerk Ron Smith says there’s been a drastic increase in the number of absentee ballot requests and returns for Ward 8, more than ever before. He says that number is alarming and the common denominators are the ballots were mailed out the same day in blocks from the same address. “We know ballots when they come in, and sometimes they come in a little late but they don’t come in all at one time from one street,” said Smith.

Indiana: Ex-elections chief questions lawyer’s health at 2012 trial, wants convictions tossed | Associated Press

Indiana’s former elections chief raised questions about his attorney’s health during his 2012 voter fraud trial and said he thought it was “a joke” that his defense strategy was to call no witnesses. Charlie White testified Monday in a Hamilton County court that attorney Carl Brizzi appeared exhausted and “worn down” and was taking medication during the trial. “Every night he complained he couldn’t sleep,” White said. White was ousted as secretary of state in February 2012 after being convicted of voter fraud and other felonies. The charges stemmed from his use of his ex-wife’s home in Fishers as his voting address in 2010 while serving on the Fishers Town Council and running for secretary of state. Prosecutors said White lived in a townhouse outside his council district with his then-fiancee but continued to receive his council salary and vote in his old precinct.

Nebraska: Voter ID plan by Secretary of State Gale would apply to narrow group of citizens | Omaha.com

Nebraska Secretary of State John Gale thinks he has a less expensive, less intrusive “Nebraska” solution to the politically charged issue of requiring voters to present identification before casting a ballot. But it was hard to find anyone who liked his compromise plan on Wednesday. Gale said he plans to seek legislation that will require only a portion of registered voters — about 75,000 — to present ID before voting. Everyone else, about 94 percent of the 1.2 million registered voters in Nebraska, would not have to present ID. The secretary of state said his “voter integrity” proposal resolves his concerns about previous voter ID legislation, which he felt would cost too much money to implement and would place a burden on too many people.

Indiana: Carl Brizzi tells court that if Charlie White testified, it would have been a ‘disaster’ | Indianapolis Star

Defense attorney Carl Brizzi testified this morning that allowing former Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White to take the stand in his 2012 theft and voter fraud trial “would have been a disaster.” Brizzi had represented White in that case. White is now trying to erase his felony convictions for theft and voter fraud as he faces a one-year, home-detention sentence. White’s new attorney, Andrea Ciobanu, is trying to show that Brizzi provided incompetent counsel. This morning, she hammered Brizzi over why he didn’t allow anyone to testify in White’s defense. Brizzi, a former Marion County prosecutor, said White was tough to control during the proceedings in early 2012 and he believed White’s testimony would work against him. “It was all I could do to just keep him … to just maintain composure,” Brizzi said. As an example of White’s behavior, Brizzi described a newspaper interview he let White do as a “disaster.” Brizzi said if White had testified, deliberations would have been 30 minutes.

Indiana: Ex-elections chief wants convictions tossed | Associated Press

Indiana’s former elections chief was difficult to control and not allowed to take the stand at his 2012 voter fraud trial because he was a loose cannon, the attorney who defended him testified Tuesday. Carl Brizzi explained his defense strategy during a Hamilton County court hearing on ex-Secretary of State Charlie White’s petition to have his convictions overturned. White was sentenced to a year of home detention and was removed from office in February 2012 after a jury convicted him of voter fraud and other felony charges. The case stemmed from his use of his ex-wife’s home in Fishers as his voting address in 2010 while serving on the Indianapolis suburb’s town council and running for secretary of state. Prosecutors said White lived in a townhouse outside his council district with his then-fiancee but continued to receive his council salary and vote in his old precinct.

Wisconsin: Milwaukee man pleads guilty to five counts of voter fraud | Journal Sentinel

A Milwaukee man pleaded guilty Monday to illegally voting five times last year in West Milwaukee, when in fact he did not have residency there. Leonard K. Brown, 56, still faces a charge of voting twice in the November presidential election and making a false statement to an election official on election day. Those cases have been rescheduled for trial in January. His sentencing on the five convictions resulting from Monday’s pleas will be scheduled sometime after that trial. Brown was among 10 people charged in March with a variety of charges related to voter fraud. He is charged with voting twice in the Nov. 6 election — in person in Milwaukee on that date and by absentee ballot in West Milwaukee four days earlier.

Virginia: Thousands stricken from voter rolls ahead of vote | HamptonRoads.com

Ebony Wright, a 37-year-old paralegal from Suffolk, has voted in the past three Virginia general elections and in two Democratic primaries. Yet on Sept. 27, Suffolk Registrar Susan Saunders sent Wright a letter saying her name had been stricken from the voting rolls because she’d moved to another state. Wright’s was one of 57,293 names on a list sent by the state Board of Elections to voter registrars across Virginia 10 weeks before the Nov. 5 election for governor, House of Delegates and city offices. State officials told registrars that simply being on the list was sufficient grounds for removal from the voting rolls. But they added that as a safeguard, registrars should carefully examine voting history and other information to make sure that the voter in question hadn’t returned to Virginia. In a lawsuit filed last week, the Virginia Democratic Party claims that the list is riddled with errors – that thousands of people on it live in Virginia and are legally entitled to vote here. The party also claims that the state failed to set uniform standards for how to handle people on the list, so local election officials are using widely different practices in deciding who to remove and what to do if they show up at the polls in November. The party holds up Wright as a prime example of the problem.

Alabama: Secret Society Dips Toe in City Politics, Prompting Lawsuit | New York Times

The college students began arriving a little before lunch at Calvary Baptist Church, far more than usual for a local election. The poll workers knew immediately: the Machine was here. The school year at the University of Alabama has barely gotten started, and already the campus has found itself in a charged self-examination on issues of politics, power and race, with the exposure of tenacious segregation among fraternities and sororities drawing national attention. But the turmoil began some weeks earlier. It raised the specter of the Machine, a secret society representing a league of select and almost exclusively white fraternities and sororities, which has been around for a century or more. Once a breeding ground for state political leaders, the Machine (it has long been known by that nickname) today maintains a solid hold on student government through an effective, and critics say coercive, brand of old-fashioned organization politics. But the Machine’s apparent involvement in an August school board election, a rare appearance in municipal politics, has prompted a lawsuit, accusations of voter fraud and an outcry that in many ways primed the campus for the larger storm over inclusion and tradition that is now taking place.

Colorado: Officials reviewing voter fraud allegations | Colorado Springs Gazette

About 268 voters registered to vote or changed their address through election day to vote in the Senate District 11 successful recall of Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs. The historic recall elections Tuesday in El Paso and Pueblo counties were the first under a new law that allows election day address changes and voter registration. Christy Le Lait, who ran Morse’s campaign to stay in office, said a stunt illustrating how to abuse that law that was covered widely by the media has cast a pall of doubt over those votes. “What is real, what isn’t, what’s fraud?” Le Lait asked. “I don’t even know how you start to look at that.” Morse, the sitting Senate president, was removed from office by 343 votes in the special election taken to the ballot by citizens angered by stricter gun laws who signed a recall petition. Le Lait said there are no plans to challenge the election results, which could be certified any day.

Editorials: Florida leaders wasted time on phantom voter fraud | Orlando Sentinel

It’s time to face reality: There’s no significant problem with voter fraud in Florida. If it did exist, highly trained investigators with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement would’ve been able to find it. Late last month, the law-enforcement agency quietly closed two high-profile cases, having found no fraud of any significance. Only one arrest was made. While other cases are pending, there’s nothing to suggest the epidemic of voter fraud hyped by Gov. Rick Scott and Republican lawmakers in advance of the 2012 presidential election. They played on fears at the time to pass a law that reduced early voting days from 14 to eight and restricted voter-registration drives. Both changes made voting harder — especially on groups likely to back Democrats. After Florida was embarrassed by hours-long lines on Election Day, some of those “reforms” were undone in last spring’s legislative session.

Editorials: What voting fraud problem? | South Florida Sun Sentinel

It’s time to face reality: there’s no significant problem with voter fraud in Florida. If it does exist, highly trained investigators with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have been unable to find it. Late last month, the law enforcement agency quietly closed two high-profile cases, having found no fraud of any significance. The first case involved a group called Florida New Majority Education Fund, which sought to sign up voters in under-represented groups that tend to vote for Democrats. In this case, no arrests were made. The second case involved Strategic Allied Consulting, a vendor for the Republican Party of Florida. In this case, one arrest was made. A man admitted to stealing the identify of a former girlfriend’s ex-husband and filling out two false registration forms. While other cases are pending, there’s nothing to suggest the epidemic of voter fraud trumpeted by Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Legislature in advance of the 2012 presidential election.

Colorado: County clerk discounts voter fraud allegations | The Gazette

As voters continued to cast ballots early in the recall election Saturday, questions swirled about voter fraud and ballot box stuffing. The fears are, so far, unfounded. Although Jon Caldara, president of the think tank Independence Institute, cast a blank ballot in the election Saturday to prove a point that ‘gypsy voting’ is very real. Caldara lives in Boulder but attested a Colorado Springs address was his permanent residence in a sworn affidavit. “It is easy to move voters around,” Caldara said Saturday morning after casting a ballot he left blank at the Garden of the Gods voting center. “The whole purpose of this was to finally show what I think and I speculate happens often, that people come and use this same-day voter registration to move voters around.”

Colorado: New El Paso County resident Jon Caldara turns in blank recall ballot | The Denver Post

Republican Jon Caldara changed his voter registration Saturday morning from Boulder to El Paso County, saying a flawed election law Democrats passed earlier this year allows him to claim residency in another jurisdiction. But Caldara didn’t mark a ballot in the recall of Senate President John Morse of Colorado Springs, a Democrat who faces ouster for pushing through stricter gun laws in the 2013 session. Caldara is president of the Independence Institute, a think tank that fought the gun legislation and would like to see Morse lose his seat. Critics of Caldara’s plan claimed he could be charged with vote fraud, but he said that’s not why he left his ballot blank when he submitted it. “The point was not to be that last vote for Morse — as delicious as that might be — the purpose is to show how easy it is under the new law to move voters from district to district,” he said. Caldara originally marked his ballot “VOID,” which resulted in the elections machine not taking it, so he received another ballot, which had to be specially entered into the voting machine because it was not filled out.

Texas: Few voter-fraud cases would have been prevented by photo ID law, review shows | Dallas Morning News

Attorney General Greg Abbott champions a requirement for voters to show photo identification to prevent ballot fraud. But such a rule would have deterred just a few of the cases his office has prosecuted in the last eight years. Abbott, who’s making his defense of the state’s voter ID law a centerpiece of his campaign for governor, has pursued 66 people on charges of voting irregularities since 2004. Only four cases involved someone illegally casting a ballot at a polling place where a picture ID would have prevented it. In most cases, voter-fraud violations in Texas have involved mail-in ballots. A few involved felons who aren’t allowed to vote. Some involved an election official engaged in illegal behavior. But none of those would have been stopped by the photo ID requirement. Nevertheless, Abbott defends voter ID and says the fact that he hasn’t found many cases of in-person voter fraud doesn’t mean there aren’t any.

Florida: Miami-Dade aims at absentee-voter fraud | Florida Today

The Miami-Dade elections department is working with its software vendor to make it easier for staff members to flag suspicious requests for absentee ballots. The change will take effect next year. It won’t cost the county any additional money. A grand jury had recommended that the elections department should beef up security on its website by requiring user logins and passwords after the office uncovered thousands of fraudulent requests for absentee ballots in the August 2012 primary election. Elections Supervisor Penelope Townsley said the grand jury’s recommendation would have required an initial investment of $843,000, with possible costs of $743,000 in every major election. And, she told The Miami Herald, legitimate voters may have been dissuaded to request ballots if the system were made more challenging. “It would have also deterred voters,” Townsley said.

Colorado: District Attorney Bruce Brown: Non-citizen voter fraud suspicions unfounded | Summit Daily

Suspicions of voter fraud in the 5th Judicial District of Colorado are unfounded, according to a news release issued last week by the district attorney’s office. In July, at the request of Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, 5th Judicial District Attorney Bruce Brown and his staff launched an investigation into three people suspected of being non-citizens who may have illegally cast an electoral ballot as far back as the year 2000. Statewide, the Secretary of State’s Office identified 157 voters as being potential non-citizens. By law, when the secretary of state requests a district attorney to investigate voter fraud, the office has a duty to comply and then prosecute persons who have committed a crime, the release stated. On Aug. 30, the 5th Judicial District Attorney’s Office announced it had concluded its investigation and determined the three voters in question were either United States citizens — legally eligible to participate in the electoral process — or their alleged ineligibility took place outside of the statute of limitations. Local findings are consistent with those statewide, the release stated. Few if any of the 157 suspected non-citizens could have been accused of voter fraud in recent elections.

Indiana: Brizzi’s competence on trial as former secretary of state Charlie White seeks relief from conviction | Indianapolis Star

Former Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White’s appeal hinges on the following question: Was his attorney, Carl Brizzi, incompetent or did the decision not to present much of a defense boil down to an agreed-upon “legal strategy” that went wrong? Despite a long day of legal arguments Thursday, mixed in with some testimony from two witnesses — one expert and White’s wife, Michelle — little progress was made in answering that question. Hamilton Superior Court Judge Daniel Pfleging instead said he wanted to hear from White and Brizzi. White, who is trying to erase his felony convictions for theft and voter fraud, spent the day beside his new attorney, Andrea Ciobanu, who struggled to put on her case after the judge dismissed several of the arguments she had prepared.

Editorials: Fair elections and double standards | Cincinnati Enquirer

The decision not to prosecute Hamilton County voters who had registered using addresses that weren’t their residences seems on its face like a reasonable one. But in light of the recent five-year sentence handed down to a poll worker convicted of voter fraud, it’s imperative that officials strive to treat all cases of voter impropriety with the same standards. The 85 voters who registered using ineligible addresses may or may not have known that doing so is a felony. They include more than a dozen police officers who registered using the police stations where they work, apparently in an attempt to keep their home addresses from becoming public knowledge.

Indiana: Charlie White claims Carl Brizzi is at fault for voter fraud conviction | Fox 59

Former Secretary of State Charlie White’s case of voter fraud has always been fraught with contradictions and irony. Elected as the man to enforce Indiana’s election laws, he was convicted of voter fraud for casting a ballot in a part of Fishers where he didn’t live. His attorney was a high profile former prosecutor who was known for taking on the tough cases personally, but White claims he surrendered his case without putting up a fight. White will appear before a judge in Hamilton County Thursday, seeking post conviction relief for the jury verdict that booted him from office. Behind his appeal is White’s contention that former Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi practiced legal malpractice in failing to mount a defense during his trial in the winter of 2012. “Absolutely I got convicted because of ineffective counsel,” White told Fox59 News in his first interview since he filed a lawsuit against Brizzi last month. “My appeals attorney, after he read it, asked me if Carl Brizzi had ever done a trial on his own before.”

Massachusetts: Jack Villamaino, Former GOP Candidate, Gets 4 Months In Jail For Felony Voter Fraud | Huffington Post

In the midst of his 2012 GOP primary campaign for a Massachusetts state House seat, Jack Villamaino changed the party affiliation of nearly 300 people in his town of East Longmeadow. Days later, the same number of absentee ballot requests were dropped off at the town clerk’s office, a list that was almost a “name-for-name match” for those whose registration information Villamaino had altered. Earlier this week, Villamaino pleaded guilty to felony charges of stealing ballots and changing the party affiliation of 280 Democrats during his campaign for state representative. A judge sentenced him to a year in jail, only four months of which he’ll be forced to serve behind bars. The remainder of that sentence will be suspended, and Villamaino will also be required to serve a year of probation. Villamaino’s defense attorney had hoped the judge would throw out the felony conviction, while Hampden District Attorney Mark Mastroianni had sought additional felony charges for forgery and perjury.

Iowa: Secretary of State expects results of fraud probe soon | Quad City Times

After a couple of “hiccups” getting started, a state investigation into voter fraud is “moving in the right direction” and Iowans will begin seeing results soon, Secretary of State Matt Schultz said. “We had a couple of setbacks, but we’re doing the best we can,” the first-term Republican said Wednesday while in Coralville. Shortly after the investigation began, a Division of Criminal Investigation agent assigned to look into voter fraud allegations was called to active duty in the National Guard, and a second agent had to be assigned to the cases. “It’s been like trying to use a shovel to move a mountain,” Schultz said. “Quite frankly, we could use more resources, but I anticipate having answers soon.” The investigation has not been without detractors. Chief among them is Democrat Brad Anderson, who wants Schultz’s job. Anderson, who worked for former Gov. Chet Culver and was state director of President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, has called the investigation a waste. “Look,” Anderson said Thursday, “any secretary of state should be diligent about going after voter fraud. But he should go about it without disenfranchising voters.”

Iowa: A year later, still no names in alleged voter fraud | Quad City Times

A year after county auditors in Iowa were told an investigation had been launched into allegations of voter fraud, the top election official in Scott County said she has waited long enough to find out who might be suspected here. Scott County Auditor Roxanna Moritz said that the anniversary of the disclosure is quickly approaching — as are city and school board elections — and that it’s time authorities release the names of people suspected. “This has been a year. They could have given this information to the auditors. We could have found those people,” Moritz said. The auditor said she repeatedly has been told it wouldn’t be long before the names of people at issue would be sent to the local level. Moritz said she realizes the investigation is in the hands of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, but she said it is the secretary of state who “started us down this road. It’s all quieted down because we’re not in the middle of a huge election,” she said.