Former President Donald Trump’s post-election temper tantrum made a mockery of an unavoidable reality of elections: voter fraud. As ludicrous as his claims were, it shouldn’t prevent us from confronting the reality that fraud does happen.
The latest in voter fraud comes from California, where Compton City Councilman Isaac Galvan and five others were charged with conspiracy to commit election fraud. Galvan allegedly worked with former city council candidate Jace Dawson to secure votes for his reelection, with the other four defendants registering to vote using Dawson’s address in Compton even though they didn’t live there. Galvan also allegedly tried to bribe an employee who was counting ballots.
Galvan won his runoff election by a single vote, defeating challenger Andre Spicer 855-854.
Trump and his allies have claimed voter fraud was responsible for his 12,000-vote loss in Georgia, 11,000-vote loss in Arizona, 20,000-vote loss in Wisconsin, 71,000-vote loss in Pennsylvania, and 154,000-vote loss in Michigan. These claims were always absurd. But voter fraud does happen, and it makes a difference in close races like the runoff between Galvan and Spicer.
And yes, voter fraud can affect races with national consequences — consider the questionable circumstances around Democrat Al Franken’s victory in Minnesota’s 2008 Senate race.
Just because Trump tried to use a real issue to excuse his loss doesn’t mean it isn’t a real issue. And just because GOP state legislatures are passing new voting laws in the aftermath of that loss doesn’t mean that those laws have no utility.
