Does Election Fraud Happen?

            The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is the right to vote. Every citizen of the United States age 18 years and older have the right to vote unless they have forfeited that right by becoming a felon. However, the right to vote is threatened by voter fraud. For every fraudulent vote, one legal vote is forfeited.

            The 2020 presidential election left millions of Americans with concerns over the integrity of the election. The Heritage Foundation maintains an Election Fraud Database with proven instances of voter fraud added on a regular basis, which catalogs 1,311 cases of voter fraud. The most recent entry came from the 2020 election. Kaitlynn Samalis-Aldrich and Hans von Spakovsky gave some details about this case as well as others. 

[First] … Michigan resident Paul Parana pleaded guilty to one count of impersonating someone else to vote in an election. Authorities said Parana filled out and signed an absentee ballot on behalf of his daughter. He was sentenced to 90 days of probation and ordered to pay $1,100 in fines and court cases.

[Second] Another case arose out of the May special election in Paterson, New Jersey, for the Ward 3 seat on the City Council. A superior court judge overturned the election results due to serious questions about the validity of “mail-in votes.”

The special election had been conducted completely by mail, and allegations of an absentee ballot trafficking scheme and fraud began to surface shortly after the results were tabulated.

Judge Ernest Caposela concluded that the election was “not the fair, free, and full expression of the intent of the voters.”

Shockingly, officials rejected 24.3% of all ballots, compared with the county’s average rejection rate of around 9% in past elections.

The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office has been investigating the origins of the voter fraud in Paterson. Police have made four arrests in connection with the alleged scheme….

            These are only two of the cases discussed by the authors. Other cases came from New Jersey, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Texas. They involved voting by a noncitizen, a convicted felon, candidate for city council forging signatures to get on the ballot, widespread fraud that eliminated 600 ballots, and a group of voters giving a hotel address to register to vote in a district where they did not live.

            The problems with the election process should be addressed as quickly as possible.  Americans have the right to free and fair elections, and this right should be protected to maintain the right to self-government. Under the Constitution, state legislatures are responsible for election integrity. There should be no interference with the voters’ right to vote for the candidates of their choice, and state legislatures should ensure that every legal vote will count, and every illegal vote will not count.