Prosecutions are the Wrong Way to Measure Vote Fraud

In his op-ed in The Daily Caller, Michael Thielen explains how Democrats claim vote fraud is rare by gaming the system. 

Repeat ad nauseum that vote fraud is rare because of the lack of convictions.  Make convictions impossible to obtain by inaccurate voter lists.  Attack all efforts to clean up voter lists.  Call all who try to stop this racists, only interested in disenfranchising minorities.

The Palm Beach Post has an editorial building on a specific example of the difficulty of obtaining vote fraud convictions.

“The criminal activity generally surrounded the absentee ballot request forms. There was not enough evidence to name a suspect and sustain a lawful arrest and criminal prosecution.”

That was the conclusion of an 10-month investigation by the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office into alleged voter fraud involving absentee ballots during last year’s August primary. 

In other words, the police were saying vote fraud happened, but they can’t prosecute because of insufficient evidence to prove individual suspects guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  We agree with the Post’s conclusion:

The candidates deserve better than the taint of “we know something was wrong, we just don’t know who did it.” And voters deserve a conclusion that doesn’t further undermine confidence in the electoral system.

Hopefully, the unsatisfying finish of this investigation will spur efforts to draw up clearer rules for a absurdly lax laws governing absentee ballots.

As Thielen concludes:

Call all who try to stop this [vote fraud] racists, only interested in disenfranchising minorities. 

All this ignores that no one is disenfranchised by accurate voting lists but all, including African Americans, are disenfranchised by vote fraud.  Just ask African-American Democrat politician Priscilla Taylor who won on election day only to lose after fraudulent absentee ballots were counted: “We all felt that there was fraud going on.”  Taylor was the victim of the fraudulent absentee ballots cast and ballot requests in Palm Beach County.  Yet because there is no suspect, the prosecution is being dropped despite evidence of fraud and Taylor—and all citizens who honestly voted for her—is left without a remedy.