[Santa Clarita Gazette] When people think of "voter fraud," they probably mean "voter impersonation," in which a person not eligible to vote votes under the name of someone who is eligible, votes more than once or pretends to be another eligible voter.
It was for this kind of fraud that Donald Trump, soon after taking office, went on Twitter and called for "a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered in two states, those who are illegal and even those registered to vote who are dead." He claimed that this fraud was the reason he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton.
In fact, this kind of fraud is extremely rare and has never been proven to affect an election’s outcome.
Nor has it ever been proven to have a minor effect on elections.
But there are other worries surrounding elections, such as the reliability of accurate voter rolls.
According to Meuser, the problems have little to do with whether a person can prove their identity. Rather, he said, the state needs to do a better job at verifying citizenship (only American citizens can vote), residences, and that the address listed is actually a residence.
An area he said should be examined is jury-service summons. He said he found some 449,000 people returning jury summonses saying they’re not American citizens and, therefore, aren’t eligible to serve on juries. They’re also not eligible to vote, but Meuser wonders how many of these people ended up voting.However, these could be citizens who don't want to serve on a jury.
In fact, Padilla’s office announced this month that between April and September, 1,500 people who signed up for driver licenses at Department of Motor Vehicles offices accidentally were registered to vote because of DMV employee errors. Some of those people are non-citizens. The Los Angeles Times reported that Padilla canceled those registrations upon discovery, but he couldn’t say if any had voted in the June primary.
Meuser also found from looking at statewide databases (access the Gazette does not have and, therefore, cannot verify), 23,108 people with a birthdate older than the recognized oldest person in the state (birthdate: July 24, 1906) were registered to vote, and 16,780 voted in the 2016 election.
But that had no effect on any election, right?
"There are two explanations: Somebody has fraud going on or the county registrar is failing to uphold the law," Meuser said, adding that state law requires registration forms to include a date of birth; forms are to be returned if it’s missing.
Meuser also found that 75 people listed a fictitious address in Malibu when they registered to vote; 15 of those people actually voted. "OK, where do they really reside?" Meuser said. "What’s going on? We don’t know."
Furthermore, he said, 10 people listed a jewelry store in San Diego as their residence; six voted. Twelve listed a miniature golf course, 31 listed a check-cashing store in Gardena, and 16 listed a non-existent Long Beach hotel.
"They are diluting the vote of the people who live in that district," Meuser said.
That's the issue, girls and boys. Period. The end.
None of these numbers are very large, and many might argue that such infinitesimal numbers wouldn’t affect and election. Meuser acknowledges that a major race such as president or governor might not be affected, but down-the-ballot races could.
"Bernie Sanders won his first race (mayor of Burlington, Vt.) by 10 votes," Meuser said. "Seventy-five people in a precinct could flip a mayoral race, a city council race, a supervisor race."