Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, writing in the September 11 issue of American Thinker, detailed some alarming voter registration statistics, most involving Texas. Blackwell’s article, entitled “Houston, We Have a Problem,” noted:
According to Votistics, data provided by the Texas secretary of state indicate that 104,800 people appear to be registered more than once. That is, the list contains thousands of name/date birth pairs. Of course, some cases could reflect unusual coincidences. But most are the same person.
Additionally, according to Blackwell, Votistics found that 2,159 of these “voting pairs” appeared to have cast ballots in the same election.
While Texas may not be as bad as Chicago, the old admonition to “Vote early — and often” frequently attributed to former Chicago Mayor William Hale Thompson may be alive and well in Texas. Blackwell continued, “Moreover, 45,854 registrants appeared to have voted more than once in at least one general election according to the records provided by the Texas State Board of Elections…. Texas also has a problem of the dead, or presumed dead, voting. For instance, Votistics discovered that more than 3,000 of those who cast ballots apparently were older than the world’s oldest known person.”
If dead people can vote in Chicago, why not in Texas? Blackwell also noted, “The American Civil Rights Union (ACRU) has been reviewing the role of inaccurate registration lists across the country. In Texas, 39 counties have more people registered than the number eligible to vote.”
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The research cited in these statistics is significant because much of it includes voter history as well as voter registration information. In many states, getting the voter history information is very difficult. The New American interviewed many electoral integrity advocates at the True the Vote national summits and those volunteer workers also said they have encountered obstacles to getting voter history when they have been researching questionable voter registrations. Applying voter history to these questionable voter registrations shows them to be not just harmless excess voter registrations, but rather enough votes to change some outcomes. And this is not the only form of electoral fraud.
The nationwide problem may be much worse. These comparisons were made only within Texas. Texas currently is not part of the Interstate Crosscheck System developed by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is a current gubernatorial candidate.
Would the Federal Government Make the Situation Worse?
Earlier this year, U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia in San Antonio issued a ruling that might force Texas to implement Internet voter registration. It seems the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (aka Motor Voter) contains quite a few nasty, as well as unconstitutional, provisions:
Each State motor vehicle driver’s license application (including any renewal application) submitted to the appropriate State motor vehicle authority under State law shall serve as an application for voter registration with respect to elections for Federal office unless the applicant fails to sign the voter registration application.
Texas allows for online renewal of driver’s licenses. Hence the lawsuit saying application or renewal of a Texas driver’s license must simultaneously become an application to register to vote. The real question the courts should be asking is not the wording of this law, but rather whether or not the law is constitutional — which it is not, especially in this case.
The Texas Attorney General’s office is appealing this court decision.
This is also a good time to reflect on an August 8 statement by Senator Bill Neslon (D-Fla.): “The Russians are in the records and all they have to do if those election records are not protected is to go in and start eliminating registered voters and you can imagine the chaos that would occur on election day.”
Whether you believe “the Russians are in the [voter registration] records” or not, it’s insane to force a state against its will to implement Internet voter registration at a time when people are questioning the vulnerability of many computerized aspects of our election systems to hackers, be they foreign or domestic.
This is also a good time to reflect on the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. HR 2 was high on Democrats’ list of legislative priorities in the 103rd Congress and got the nickname Motor Voter mostly by people opposed to it. The Motor Voter bill became one of the rallying cries of Republican candidates for Congress and the U.S. Senate as they swept many Democrats from office in the 1994 congressional elections, including Speaker Tom Foley. However, once in office, the Republicans reneged on their promise to repeal Motor Voter and, under the leadership of Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and House Majority Leader Dick Armey, the 104th Congress failed to repeal Motor Voter, instead continuing with business as usual in Washington, D.C.
