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Voter fraud has been a very popular topic surfacing as a result of the recent 2020 elections. With these discussions, the question is raised – What exactly is voter fraud?
This article analyzes voter and election fraud to dispel common lies and misinformation related to these topics during the recent election.
What is Voter Fraud?
Voter fraud is defined as the interference with the results of an election. This may be due to fraudulent activities that have the ability to change the election in favor of or against a specific candidate.
For those who aren’t aware, voter fraud is illegal and has grave consequences for those who partake in this action. These consequences have included severe fines or time served. When charged with this felony, it will be the responsibility of an individual and their lawyer to prove whether the act was committed knowingly or unintentionally.
What is Election Fraud?
Election fraud is known as an action committed by election officials and others that affect the overall election process. Similar to voter fraud, these acts are illegal and have the ability to shift the results of an election during the counting and recording processes.
What are the various types of voter fraud?
Voter fraud comes in a variety of forms which may include some of the following:
- Buying Votes: As the name entails, this is the concept of purchasing opinions of others in order to solidify additional votes.
- Duplicate Votes: With this idea, a voter may register and vote twice in two different areas. As s a result, their vote is duplicated.
- Impersonation: This occurs when someone votes on behalf of another individual. This individual may have previously died or moved out of the local area.
- Improper use of Absentee Ballots: This type of fraud goes along with impersonation where an individual may falsely act as someone else or use the ballot in some form of fraudulent way.
- Ineligible Votes: An ineligible vote is a vote in which a person is not permitted to vote, and they vote anyway. This may occur when non-U.S. citizens take action and vote.
This list is only a few of the various ways voters have the ability to commit fraud.
What are some types of election fraud?
There are many ways election fraud may occur and some of these methods include:
- Gerrymandering: When lines are redistricted in a manner that can affect the overall rank of political parties and individuals.
- Interference: This includes methods deployed to interfere with an individual’s ability to vote either through deception or physical interference.
- Misrecording of votes: In this type of activity, votes may be purposefully miscounted or thrown out to shift the results of an election.
- Invalidated Ballots: This occurs when a ballot is destroyed or interfered with in a manner that doesn’t allow the ballot to be used for counting purposes.
- Rejected Qualified Ballots: As you’d guess, this occurs when legitimate ballots are illegally rejected or not counted in a way to change the election process and results.
- Intimidation: The act of scaring individuals into voting for a particular candidate or from not voting at all.
How frequent is voter fraud?
Despite how often voter fraud is mentioned, studies demonstrate low claims of voter fraud. According to the Washington Post, between the 2016 and 2018 general elections, there is believed to have been merely 0.0025% of voter fraud cases in the type of double voting. This may come as a surprise to many.
Furthermore, the Heritage Foundation’s 2020 report claims there have been only 1,285 cases of proven voter fraud in the U.S. Considering the U.S. is home to more than 328.2 million people, these numbers are very low and quite frankly negligible unless these results are within a very close election. In a close election, those last few votes could make a substantial difference.
What is the impact of the web on fraud?
As we’ve come to learn, the number of proven cases of voter fraud is relatively low. However, the key here is that these cases are proven. There may be many other cases that if investigated would be found to be true.
Especially considering that by 2020, the world has adopted various technologies and embraced their introduction into society. With so many active devices, hackers have taken the world by storm and found new ways to creatively hack and target various devices which can include election devices. It’s not very often that this can be proved or traced back considering cybercriminals are familiar with techniques that allow them to cover their tracks.
How to report these types of fraudulent activities?
If you’ve partaken in voter fraud and wish to come forward, or if you know an individual who is committing voter fraud, it is your responsibility to report this incident.
Voter Fraud can be reported to a local FBI office, local U.S. Attorney’s office, or the Public Integrity Section within the Department of Justice.
Summary
Voter fraud isn’t as prevalent as individuals may make it seem. However, it can have the ability to impact the results of a campaign and change close results when it occurs. It is the responsibility of each state to ensure that all votes are properly recorded and reported to the proper offices.
It is important that misinformation related to voter and election fraud is diminished. This false information scares individuals and makes them believe their votes aren’t counted or matter. As result, this further creates panic and hate in the community.
We are all given the right to vote, and with this right comes the responsibly to be lawful and honest. Voter fraud must be prevented in all possible manners and eliminated from our political system.
