A new analysis is throwing cold water on the idea that voter fraud is widespread and will affect the results of the 2016 election.
Analysis by News 21 — a project part of a Carnegie-Knight News21 initiative headquartered at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism — finds that there is little evidence to prove that voter fraud is as widespread as some politicians and activists claim.
News 21 reviewed cases in Arizona, Ohio, Georgia, Texas and Kansas and found little evidence of voter fraud in the cases that were prosecuted.
And while politicians pushed hundreds of allegations in those states, only 38 were prosecuted successfully by the state’s attorney general’s office.
Furthermore, none of the cases prosecuted was for voter impersonation, the type of fraud that would have been prevented by voter ID laws.
“Voter fraud is not a significant problem in the country,” Jennifer Clark of the Brennan Center told News21. “As the evidence that has come out in some recent court cases and reports and basically every analysis that has ever been done has concluded: It is not a significant concern.”
States currently embroiled over such voter ID laws include Wisconsin, Texas and North Carolina.
A U.S. District Judge in July struck down parts of Wisconsin’s law by saying there is “utterly no evidence” that in-person voter impersonation fraud is an issue in Wisconsin or anywhere in the country.
A federal appeals court said the same for North Carolina’s law in July, and said that law intentionally discriminated against minority voters. That court said voter impersonation is a problem “that did not exist.”
The News 21 analysis was originally published in the Washington Post on Thursday.
