Voter Fraud on the Increase

Thomas Jackson, American Renaissance, December 2004

John Fund, Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy, Encounter Books, 2004 173 pp.

Despite much self-congratulation about the quality of American democracy, our elections are surprisingly vulnerable to fraud. As Wall Street Journal writer John Fund explains in Stealing Elections, we may have some of the worst-protected balloting systems of any country that holds regular elections.

There is great variation from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but our elections are easy to jimmy because they are based on the honor system. In the past, election boards have assumed only eligible citizens would register and vote, and there has been only cursory protection against fraud. Now, as Mr. Fund boldly explains, blacks and Hispanics often take advantage of lax enforcement — sometimes in the most brazen way — and then call their critics “racists.”

Despite persistent charges that Republicans kept blacks away from the polls during the 2000 election and would do the same this year, vote fraud is largely Democratic. There are several reasons for this. First, it is easier to buy votes from poor people. Second, Democratic candidates are often life-long politicians desperate to keep their jobs, whereas Republicans who lose elections often have private sector professions to which they can return............To Read More.....