00:00There are lots of claims about voting.
00:03Both Republicans and Democrats have made fraud claims after losing,
00:08claiming the election was stolen.
00:10Are elections at risk?
00:13Who can we believe?
00:15Is voter fraud even a real issue we should be concerned with?
00:20Voter fraud. Myth versus reality.
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00:50Recent elections have been plagued with charges of fraud.
00:54Trump and many Republicans claimed fraud following his loss to Biden in 2020.
01:00Hillary and many Democrats blamed Russian interference for her loss to Trump in 2016.
01:06And some claim Trump stole the 2024 election.
01:11Nor are claims of stolen elections limited to the presidency.
01:16It seems clear that there is an issue here,
01:19as charges of stolen elections have come from both sides when they lose.
01:24It's one thing to say the election was okay when you win.
01:28The real test of a system is when you can say it was okay even when you lose.
01:37In American history, while overall voting has been okay, there have been many problems,
01:44such as those caused by political machines like Tammany Hall in New York City,
01:49the Pendergast machine in Missouri, and the Daly machine in Chicago.
01:53For example, under the Daly machine in Chicago, in the 1960 presidential election,
02:01one precinct with 4,895 registered voters had 6,138 votes cast.
02:10There has also been the widespread disenfranchisement of Blacks in the South,
02:15resulting from the Jim Crow laws passed following the collapse of Reconstruction
02:20and the re-emergence of Democrats in the South following the Compromise of 1877.
02:28This, in theory, should be an easy fix.
02:32Voting is one of the most basic aspects of democracy.
02:37Yet, given the stakes, it is not.
02:41One possible ray of hope was the Carter-Baker Commission,
02:45following the contentious 2000 election,
02:49which also included its fair share of fraud allegations.
02:53A bipartisan commission, headed by Jimmy Carter and Howard Baker,
02:58was formed to reform election laws.
03:02The commission issued 87 bipartisan recommendations
03:06to make registration and voting easier and more secure.
03:12Reform is possible.
03:13Following the 2000 election, Florida,
03:17which had been the center of controversy,
03:20reformed its system.
03:22Their new systems worked so well
03:25that while the other states struggled in 2020,
03:28as one news report from Florida put it,
03:32Floridians can put their head on their pillow
03:34and know that Florida got it right this time.
03:38Why can't every state model itself on Florida's system?
03:43A key problem is that while both sides have claimed problems when they lost,
03:48Democrats also claim there is no problem with fraud.
03:52For example,
03:54one key reform of the Carter-Baker Commission
03:56was improving voter registration and voter ID
04:00to ensure that only those legally permitted to vote are voting.
04:06Yet, Democratic politicians now reject these recommendations,
04:11claiming they're not needed.
04:13Still, fraud had not been confined to the distant past.
04:18In the 1996 California congressional election,
04:23Robert Dornan, the incumbent,
04:25lost to Loretta Sanchez by 984 votes.
04:30A review by the Secretary of State
04:32showed that 2,474 non-citizens
04:37had voted in that election.
04:40Still, the election was allowed to stand.
04:42You can say they voted,
04:45but not for whom they voted,
04:48and thus could not say it changed the outcome.
04:51Since then,
04:53California had passed a series of laws
04:55that made fraud both easier to commit
04:58and harder to prove.
05:01In California,
05:02it is illegal to ask a voter for ID.
05:06So, if you can't check at the time they vote,
05:09how do you prove someone was not who they claimed to be?
05:13How do we know fraud is rare?
05:16Are we just supposed to trust that everyone followed the rules?
05:21Similar arguments apply to mail-in voting.
05:25In one test of mail-in ballots,
05:27100 simulated ballots were mailed to a P.O. box.
05:31After a week,
05:33three were missing.
05:34However,
05:35they did receive other misdelivered mail,
05:37such as a birthday card.
05:40This was a 3% error rate,
05:42which is greater than the winning margin in some elections.
05:47Then,
05:48there are the rejection rates.
05:50In the spring 2020 election in California,
05:53which is used to handling mail-in ballots,
05:57102,000 ballots were rejected for various issues.
06:01These issues would not occur within person voting,
06:04using voter ID.
06:06If these 102,000 ballots were fraudulent,
06:10then it was good they were rejected.
06:13But that would argue against the idea
06:15that fraud,
06:17or at least attempts at fraud,
06:19are rare.
06:20On the other hand,
06:22if they were not the result of fraud,
06:24but from voter errors,
06:27their votes were not counted
06:29because they voted by mail.
06:31In short,
06:32voting by mail does not mean your vote was counted.
06:37When elections are won by wide margins,
06:40the issues of fraud and mail-in ballots are negligible.
06:44When the country is split,
06:46and elections are won by narrow margins,
06:49they can undermine the system.
06:52The polls are pretty clear.
06:55Very strong majorities support measures like voter ID.
06:59Elections cannot be governed by trust,
07:02but by rules that make fraud difficult to commit
07:05and easy to catch.
07:09So what do you think?
07:11Do you think fraud is a real issue?
07:14Should voters have to show ID?
07:17Tell us why in the comments.
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07:20and we reply to many of them.
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