Constitutional Law

Reality of 'Voter Fraud' Questioned in Ohio

Republican Party officials are lodging numerous lawsuits against the Ohio Secretary of State aiming to curtail early voting and mandate the way voters check in at the polls, reports The Associated Press. State Republican officials are claiming that without more restrictions, voter fraud will be rampant on Election Day. The AP notes that the majority of those who have studied voter fraud say that incidents of it are hard to find. “There’s a lot more rhetoric than reality when it comes to actual voter fraud,” Dan Tokaji, an elections expert at Ohio State University told, the news service. “There’s this public perception that voter fraud is common when the reality is that it’s quite rare.”

During a recent panel discussion hosted by ACS and the American University Washington College of Law, Kristen Clark, assistant counsel in the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Political Participation Group, said voter fraud was typically used by groups seeking greater restrictions on voters. Clark and others on the panel instead pointed to numerous instances in past elections of voter intimidation and suppression. The Brennan Center’s Wendy Weiser noted that many students this election cycle have faced illegal action to suppress their votes. In Virginia and Colorado, election officials have sent out misleading information about the voting rights of students. 

Full post as published by ACS Blog on October 14, 2008 (boomark / email).