October 5, 2004

Voter Fraud Roundup

John Fund in today's Political Diary from OpinionJournal.com:

Voter registration deadlines have passed this week in most states. In Ohio, Americans Coming Together, a George Soros-funded group, and other liberal entities have turned in 300,000 new registrations. But some county election officials believe a large number of those aren't real and thus increase the potential for fraud. Four counties in Ohio now have more registered voters than the number of voting-age people the U.S. Census Bureau estimated to have lived in the counties in 2003. Several other counties may find themselves in the same situation as they finish processing stacks of applications.

In Franklin County, which includes the state capitol of Columbus, the registration rolls have hit 817,000 voters, with the Census estimating there are only 815,000 adults over the age of 18 in the county. The rolls have not been purged in years and already include 250,000 inactive voters, meaning voters who have not cast a ballot in the past four federal election cycles. Having that much deadwood on the rolls is an open invitation for fraud, since county officials do not check for photo identification if someone shows up to vote.

Meanwhile, some county election officials in Florida are openly defying Republican Secretary of State Glenda Hood's instructions to disqualify voters who fail to check a box on their voter registration form affirming that they are U.S. citizens. "The law clearly states that form has to be filled out in its entirety," says Hood. "You cannot go in and pick and choose which boxes to fill out."

But officials in counties that include Miami, Tallahassee and Orlando say they will process registrations from people who skipped over the box and allow them to cast ballots. They believe the signature of a newly registered voter at the bottom of a registration form constitutes affirmation that they are legal citizens. Other counties, such as Broward (Fort Lauderdale) are throwing out registration forms that did not check the citizenship box.

If either Florida or Ohio is close on Election Night, you can bet there will be litigation teams in court by the next morning. Just the procedures in handling registration forms look to be a lawsuit-rich environment.