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Recent bickering over who should require what to vote where have suggested that requiring a person bring some form of ID to the poll might help alleviate fraud. This makes important assumptions:

  1. Requiring ID's from voters will make a difference in the rate of fraudulent votes.
  2. The difference in the rate of fraudulence is significant enough to matter in elections.

My guess is that both make a difference, but I am only guessing, I don't have any statistics to back this up.

matt_black
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Ignatius Theophorus
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    Are you already aware that the rate of in-person voter fraud is so low as to be insignificant? – DJClayworth Aug 10 '12 at 02:52
  • @DJClayworth That is part of the question. It has been maintained that even .006% fraud rate is enough to sway a close election. Is the fraud rate below that? – Ignatius Theophorus Aug 10 '12 at 13:15
  • @DJClayworth But, because it was only implied in the question, I've added it more specifically. – Ignatius Theophorus Aug 10 '12 at 13:16
  • @DJClayworth - There are localized areas of relatively high fraud... That is not to say that the id law will fix them since usually it is the officials that would be responsible for checking the ID found at fault. – Chad Aug 10 '12 at 13:25
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    @Chad Would you like to give details on these "areas of relatively high fraud"? – DJClayworth Aug 13 '12 at 13:36
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    @IgnatiusTheophorus Yes, the number of voter impersonation frauds is much, much less than .006%. It's around [one in a million](http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/08/13/10662/election-fraud-not-common-recent-voter-id-laws-suggest?utm_source=iwatchnews&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=rss). In some states the courts have [shown](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/24/1113252/-Pennsylvania-admits-there-has-been-no-voter-fraud) it to be [zero](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/pennsylvania-admits-it-no-voter-fraud-problem/2012/07/24/gJQAHNVt6W_blog.html) – DJClayworth Aug 13 '12 at 13:49
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    @DJClayworth - There were Chicago Precincts that had over 100% voter turn out. And the courts never get it wrong right? – Chad Aug 13 '12 at 18:49
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    @Chad Can you post a reference to back up that allegation, please. This is a Skeptics site. And if you could show that this '>100% turnout' was due to voter ID fraud that would be good too. – DJClayworth Aug 13 '12 at 18:56
  • How can you have greater than 100% turnout unless there was fraud? – Chad Aug 13 '12 at 18:59
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    @Chad So I'm assuming you don't have any references then? And the answer to your question is that you can have electoral errors, such as [computer error](http://www.examiner.com/article/fulton-county-reports-23-300-turnout-one-precinct), or [assigning voters to the wrong](http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100020422&docId=l:1720505109&Em=7&start=4) district, or you can have many voters registering on the day, or you can have fraud that doesn't involve impersonation. – DJClayworth Aug 13 '12 at 19:10
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    @DJClayworth - No ID is required to vote in IL so there would be no way to commit voter id fraud. There are areas where it is suspected that it(people casting votes for someone other than themselves) is happening. The absence of proof of the crime is not proof of the absence of the crime. I am not saying these laws would be effective anyway just that the problem is greater than some are trying to make it seem. – Chad Aug 14 '12 at 13:05
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    @Chad So...you don't have any evidence then? – DJClayworth Aug 14 '12 at 13:07
  • >100% voter turnout consistently in the same precincts seems to speak on its own. – Chad Aug 14 '12 at 13:09
  • let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/4490/discussion-between-djclayworth-and-chad) – DJClayworth Aug 14 '12 at 13:10
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    @DJClayworth: What was stipulated was that that the party defending the new voter ID law had no particular evidence of fraud having taken place. That is not the same thing as saying that no fraud occurred. If elected officials are going to be be given power over the someone, I do not think it unreasonable that the person be entitled to evidence that fraud *could not have been committed* without a high likelihood of detection and without the perpetrators facing significant personal risk. – supercat Sep 28 '14 at 18:46
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    @DJClayworth: If just about anyone could fill in a voter registration card for Snowball Simpson II at 742 Evergreen Terrace [the cat on a popular sitcom] and then cast a vote on Snowball's behalf, and if no attempt is made to intercept such people in the act of voting, the lack of investigations wouldn't show much. Even if it's discovered after the fact that Snowball II was a cat, it wouldn't be worth opening an "investigation" since it would be impossible to prove who committed the crime. – supercat Sep 28 '14 at 18:55
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    Is this question referring specifically to the USA? If so, that should be specified. – TRiG Nov 07 '16 at 11:10

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Suggested reading: The Truth About Voter Fraud by Justin Levitt (2007, PDF, 303 KB) at the Brennan Center for Justice, New York University School of Law. He cites numerous cases of alleged voter fraud that were too insignificant to make a difference in the elections or could not have been prevented by screening voters based on their photo ID (e.g. vote-buying, which rigs the election with the help of valid, eligible voters).

L2G
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