The Truth About Voter Fraud

Levitt, Justin

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1647224

Cited by 50 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…For 2012, a total of 680 articles were found, with 74% of coverage coming before Election Day. This concurs with scholars who argue that voter fraud and voter suppression allegations are made by party and campaign elites to mobilize key voting constituencies in each party to participate in major elections (Hasen, 2012;Levitt, 2007). Consistent with this hypothesis, the vast majority of news coverage of voter fraud in this sample came before Election Day, even though the most common types of election fraud -committed by election or campaign officials, or involving absentee ballots (Kahn and Carson, 2012) -are typically discovered and reported after an election.…”

Section: Expectations and Data For Press Attention To Voter Fraudsupporting

confidence: 82%

News attention to voter fraud in the 2008 and 2012 US elections

Fogarty

Curtis

Gouzien

et al. 2015

Research & Politics

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The nature and frequency of voter fraud figure prominently in many ongoing policy debates about election laws in the United States. Policy makers frequently cite allegations of voter fraud reported in the press during these debates. While recent studies find that voter fraud is a rare event, a substantial segment of the public believes that voter fraud is a rampant problem in the United States. It stands to reason that public beliefs are shaped by news coverage of voter fraud. However, there is very little extant academic research on how the news media, at any level, covers allegations or documented cases of voter fraud. This paper examines local newspaper attention to voter fraud in each of the 50 states during the 2008 and 2012 US elections. The results show that local coverage of voter fraud during the 2012 elections was greatest in presidential swing states and states that passed restrictive voting laws prior to the 2012 election. No evidence that newspaper attention is related to the rate of actual voter fraud cases in each state was found. The findings are consistent with other studies indicating that parties and campaigns sought to place voter fraud on the political agenda in strategically important states to motivate their voting base ahead of the election.

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Section: Expectations and Data For Press Attention To Voter Fraudsupporting

confidence: 82%

News attention to voter fraud in the 2008 and 2012 US elections

Fogarty

Curtis

Gouzien

et al. 2015

Research & Politics

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“…When claims of voter fraud are alleged, advocates seek to prove the claims through comparisons of voter registration records, including home addresses (Levitt, 2007). After claims of voter fraud in the 2016 presidential election, and 2018 midterm elections (Wines, 2016;Graham, 2016;Farley & Robertson, 2018), then, it stands to reason that this record type is valued as open to provide a measure for checking voter rolls after contentious elections.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tracing Home Address Exemptions in State FOI Laws

Gil

2019

JOCI

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Privacy concerns have prompted many states to close off once-public information from release through the freedom of information process. This study looks at the personal privacy exemptions for home addresses in 50 states and Washington, D.C., in both 2011 and 2019. There were 16 instances of a change in state law during that time -only three toward more transparency. Voter registration records were the most open of the three categories reviewed, with more than half the states requiring disclosure of home addresses in 2019. This study can help guide journalists, policy makers and records holders as they navigate proposed changes to FOI laws.

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“…The allegations of fraud through pervasive voter impersonation and multiple voting in American elections have been widely discredited; an examination by the Brennan Center for Justice concluded that these problems were exaggerated and largely mythical: "Voter fraud is very rare, voter impersonation is nearly non-existent, and much of the problems associated with alleged fraud in elections relates to unintentional mistakes by voters or election administrators." 20 The Brennan Center study found 241 potentially fraudulent ballots out of 1 billion ballots cast over a 14 year period. Another investigation by News21 for The Washington Post found only 2,068 cases of alleged voter fraud had been reported from 2000 to 2012, including only ten cases of voter impersonation.…”

Section: Lack Of Public Confidence In the Electoral Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why American Elections are Flawed (And How to Fix Them)

Norris

2016

SSRN Journal

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Synopsis: Concern about how American elections work has risen since 2000 and has been exacerbated by events during the 2016 campaign. To understand these issues, the first section examines several major challenges facing U.S. elections, including deepening party polarization over electoral procedures, the vulnerability of electronic records to hacking, and the impact of deregulating campaign spending, compounding the lack of professional standards of electoral management. For a broader perspective, section 2 clarifies the core concept and measure of 'electoral integrity', the key yardstick used in this report to evaluate the performance of American contests. Section 3 compares cross-national evidence from expert surveys, finding that recent US elections have the worst performance among two-dozen Western democracies. Section 4 considers pragmatic reforms designed to strengthen U.S. electoral laws and procedures, recommending expanding secure and convenient registration and balloting facilities, improving the independence and professional standards of electoral management, monitoring performance, and strengthening impartial dispute resolution mechanisms. The conclusion summarizes the core argument and the reforms.

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The Truth About Voter Fraud

Cited by 50 publications

References 61 publications

News attention to voter fraud in the 2008 and 2012 US elections

News attention to voter fraud in the 2008 and 2012 US elections

Tracing Home Address Exemptions in State FOI Laws

Why American Elections are Flawed (And How to Fix Them)

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