Election forecast: Windy with a chance of fraud

A lawsuit in Maryland, an undercover video, and a new academic study suggest some of Tuesday’s votes in the midterm election will be cast by noncitizens, and therefore illegal. The scope of the problem is difficult to estimate with accuracy, but it could be enough to tip an election victory toward a Republican or—perhaps more likely—a Democratic candidate.

Democrats often downplay the existence of election fraud, but the problem does exist: Election officials discovered an instance of fraud in New Mexico on Saturday when an early voter discovered someone else had already voted in his name. (Officials there said they had no way of separating the fraudulent vote or verifying the identities of voters.)

According to a lawsuit filed Oct. 24, noncitizens appear to have voted in Maryland in the past and could do so again on Tuesday. Virginia Voters Alliance, an election integrity organization, filed the suit in a U.S. District Court against two Maryland state and county election boards after finding apparent noncitizens on voter registration lists.

Virginia Voters Alliance found self-identified noncitizens by checking jury duty forms. In Maryland, people are exempted from serving on jury duty if they have a severe disability, cannot read English, or if they are a noncitizen. Using a freedom of information request, activists obtained from the Frederick County Jury Commissioner’s office the names and addresses of people who had indicated on jury duty forms that they were noncitizens, and thus exempt.

Comparing those names with current voter registration lists, the activists found hundreds of jury duty candidates who had claimed noncitizen exemptions in 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011 were nevertheless registered to vote in Frederick County. Indeed, many have voted: The complaint gives an example of a registered voter who claimed a noncitizen jury duty exemption yet voted in 2004, 2006, and 2008. Maryland Del. Patrick McDonough said in announcing the lawsuit the documents showed around 100 self-identified noncitizens had voted since 2006.

It’s possible some of the registered voters simply lied about their citizenship on the jury duty forms—but that is also illegal.

“If they were lying to get out of jury duty, that’s perjury, and if they were lying to get on voter rolls, that’s perjury,” said Reagan George, president of the Virginia Voters Alliance.

George said some of the people on the lists could have died, moved, or become citizens since first claiming a jury duty exemption. And under the freedom of information request, officials only provided jury duty exemption lists from 2004 to 2011. More recent data could turn up other noncitizen voters.

Some of those noncitizens also could be voting in Tuesday’s election in Maryland, which includes a governor’s race. The lawsuit argues the fraudulent votes dilute the legitimate votes of Frederick County residents, violating state law and the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

George thinks the judge will find the evidence—the jury duty and voter registration lists—clear and convincing. “It’s almost like catching the guy robbing the convenience store with the gun in one hand and the money in the other.” He believes it is too easy for noncitizens to get on voter rolls fraudulently: “The only way that we’re going to stop this is [by requiring] proof of citizenship to be registered to vote.”

The lawsuit’s claims seem to be buttressed by a study published in the December edition of the journal Electoral Studies. The authors, political science professors at Old Dominion University, estimated that 6.4 percent of noncitizens voted in 2008, and 2.2 percent voted in 2010.

The professors admit their estimate is a “best guess,” based on surveys in which self-identified noncitizens claimed to have voted. They used a very small sample size of noncitizen voters but say the data, while imperfect, is relevant: A small number of votes could swing an election in close races.

For example, the professors point out that during Minnesota’s 2008 election, Sen. Al Franken won by just 312 votes. And in 2008 Barack Obama won the state of North Carolina by just 14,177 votes. In both of those cases, it’s theoretically possible a turnout of less than 6 percent of noncitizens at the polls could have accounted for the difference.

Of the study’s small sample, 80 percent of the 2008 noncitizen voters supported Barack Obama, suggesting such voters may prefer Democrats.

It’s important to distinguish between illegal immigrants and noncitizens: While illegal immigrants are noncitizens, some noncitizens could be green card holders, for example, and thus legal U.S. residents. But it is illegal for any noncitizen to vote in federal elections (or Maryland elections).

If noncitizens are interested in getting their fingers on a ballot, some campaign workers may be more than willing to help. A new undercover video from James O’Keefe at Project Veritas shows North Carolina campaign workers telling an illegal Brazilian immigrant she is free to vote. The immigrant was actually an actress working for Project Veritas.

“As long as you’re registered to vote, you’ll be fine,” Greg Amick, a campaign manager in North Carolina’s Mecklenburg County, tells the actress in the video, even after she explained she had illegal status. Amick, who worked for Democratic county sheriff candidate Irwin Carmichael, stepped down on Friday. He complained the video was edited to be “misleading.” The North Carolina Board of Elections is investigating whether Amick broke the law.

George believes voter fraud is a “big, big problem” in America right now. Earlier this year, his organization found 44,000 voters registered in Maryland and Virginia, 164 of which appeared to have voted in both states in 2012.

“We really don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican,” George told me. “If you’ve committed voter fraud, you should be in jail.”