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February 27, 2017
Ohio Secretary of State reports that 82 non-citizens have recently cast votes in Ohio
Because I continue to be intrigued by Prez Trump's claim that millions of persons committed a crime by voting illegally in our last election, I find interesting this new story about illegal voting in Ohio headlined "82 non-citizens voted in Ohio, Husted says." Here are the details:
Nearly 400 non-citizens are registered to vote in Ohio — 82 of whom have managed to cast ballots in at least one election since 2015, Secretary of State Jon Husted said Monday. Husted, a Republican and likely candidate for Ohio governor, said his office discovered the 385 registrations from non-citizens on a biennial review of the state's voter database. In total, 7.9 million people were registered to vote in Ohio as of the November election, so the non-citizens make up fewer than 1 in every 20,000 registered voters — far from the widespread voter fraud President Donald Trump has claimed.
Husted is sending law enforcement the names of the 82 non-citizens who voted, so officials can investigate and decide whether to prosecute. His office will send letters to the non-citizens who registered but never voted, requesting they cancel their registration. If they fail to do so, they could ultimately face prosecution. Election fraud can carry a fifth-degree felony charge in Ohio.
As Trump has alleged voter fraud in last year's election, Husted has countered that election fraud isn't a common problem. Still, his office has boasted of its three reviews of the voter rolls to look for non-citizens, the first such reviews conducted by an Ohio secretary of state. “In light of the national discussion about illegal voting it is important to inform our discussions with facts. The fact is voter fraud happens, it is rare and when it happens, we hold people accountable,” Husted said Monday in a statement.
Husted didn't say how which elections the 82 non-citizens had voted in, but even if they all voted in November 2016, they couldn't have swayed Ohio's presidential result, for instance. Eighty-two votes would have amounted to 0.0015 percent of the state's November voters. None of the non-citizens cast a vote in a race that was tied or decided by one vote, Husted said....
The secretary of state's office began the biennial review in 2013. Reviews that year and in 2015 uncovered a total of 44 non-citizens who voted in an election. Of those, eight people have been convicted of breaking the law and two other cases still are pending, spokesman Josh Eck said.
Trump continues to claim — without any evidence — that massive voter fraud marred the 2016 presidential election. On Jan. 23, the new president told congressional leaders between 3 million and 5 million illegal votes caused him to lose the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump won the election with a convincing victory in the Electoral College, even as Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 2.9 million votes.
If the Ohio story is reasonably representative of the national story (as is often the case with bellwether Ohio), then we might reasonably suspect that there may have been between 3 thousand and 5 thousand illegal votes case in the 2016 election. Whether or not Ohio is representative of other states in this particular context, I am quite pleased to learn that the crime of voter fraud is not rampant in the great state of Ohio.
February 27, 2017 at 04:22 PM | Permalink
Comments
Video recording rebuts this cover up of Democratic Party voter fraud. This is an accepted campaign strategy. It is likely how Obama won the 2012 election.
http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/18/second-okeefe-video-shows-dem-operative-boasting-about-voter-fraud-video/
Posted by: David Behar | Feb 27, 2017 11:09:11 PM
"If the Ohio story is reasonably representative of the national story (as is often the case with bellwether Ohio), then we might reasonably suspect that there may have been between 3 thousand and 5 thousand illegal votes case in the 2016 election."
That's a big if, given the differences in voting laws around the country.
"In total, 7.9 million people were registered to vote in Ohio as of the November election, so the non-citizens make up fewer than 1 in every 20,000 registered voters — far from the widespread voter fraud President Donald Trump has claimed."
This is fake news. Did Trump claim that the fraud happened in Ohio? No. Did Husted catch all the non-citizens registering? We have no way of knowing. Is Ohio indicative of the rest of the country? The AP article assumes it without proof.
Doug, to quote the execrable Bill O'Reilly, "What say you?"
Posted by: federalist | Feb 28, 2017 9:50:56 AM
federalist, let's see if we can avoid "fake news" labeling. And let's be precise, as the issue raised by Prez Trump is not "non-citizens registering," it is illegal voting.
I agree that quite possible that many other states, due not only to different voting laws but also different voting populations, have experienced a much higher level of "illegal voting." In particular, because states with broad felon disenfranchisement laws have many US citizens barred from voting, I suspect (for pure statistical reasons) that "illegal voting" may be more common in those states. And I suspect, though Prez Trump has never said so, that he believe California (and other coastal states?) are the big problem here.
That all said, I continue to want to see some --- any --- sound basis for believing that there were millions of illegal votes cast in 2016 or any other years. It is very significant and discouraging for a sitting Prez to assert that our democratic process is so very badly corrupted, and I sincerely want there to be a serious examination of these realities if illegal voting is anything close to the problem that Prez Trump suggests. But these new Ohio data seem to provide addition reason to believe that illegal voting is NOT anything close to the problem that Prez Trump suggests.
Can you provide, federalist, some --- any --- sound basis for believing that there were millions of illegal votes cast in 2016 or any other years? Do you think that investigating voter fraud should be a top priority for the DOJ based on the President's assertions of such widespread voting corruption?
And, in case you care, I think a much bigger problem for our democracy is the many millions who do not vote when eligible (I think 90 million fit this reality in 2016). I generally favor an extremely broad approach to the franchise in a democracy as I view voting to be more of a responsibility than a right: e.g., I favor mandatory voting schemes as in Australia, and I think the voting age should be lowered and that there should be almost no voting disqualifications for citizens. I also favor much greater use of direct democracy and having many more votes on many more issues/candidates throughout the year.
Posted by: Doug B. | Feb 28, 2017 11:04:27 AM
Election Law Blog had a reference to coverage of this story and cited one analysis that warns that even this number might be too high.
http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91365
I'm wary of more direct democracy but appreciate DB's remarks.
Posted by: Joe | Feb 28, 2017 1:28:45 PM
I imagine that federalist and his fellow travelers are heartily in favor of any type of investigation / remediation effort which might keep "those" people from voting. By the way, requesting that someone prove a negative is sloppy counterargument.
Posted by: MarK M. | Feb 28, 2017 2:48:29 PM
Prof. Berman. Bin Laden admitted to and praised God for the results of his 9/11 attack. Is that not sufficient evidence of his complicity in the attack?
I provided a confession of a top Democratic party operative that massive voting fraud is a tactic of the Democratic party. Are you calling Bin Laden and this Democratic party operative liars? Is a confession by each of these two not enough evidence?
Posted by: David Behar | Feb 28, 2017 5:28:09 PM
You are getting off topic with Bin Laden references, David, and you tendency to that end is rarely appreciated in this space. At issue is whether there is any evidence of millions of illegal votes cast in 2016, and the O'Keefe video is not evidence of millions of illegal votes cast in 2016. Do you have any actual evidence of millions of illegal votes cast in 2016?
Posted by: Doug B. | Feb 28, 2017 6:42:46 PM
Prof. B. After the election, this organization analyzed 180 million registration records, and estimated 3 million illegal votes. Reviewed here by Milo.
https://milo.yiannopoulos.net/2016/11/illegal-immigrants-3-million-votes/
Posted by: David Behar | Feb 28, 2017 7:38:10 PM
David, there is no evidence at that link, just an assertion that there were 3 million illegal votes AND a reference to a person and website that cannot be verified. That is not evidence of any sort. If that is the best you have, I continue to wonder if you or federalist can provide some --- any --- sound basis for believing that there were millions of illegal votes cast in 2016 or any other years.
Posted by: Doug B. | Feb 28, 2017 9:46:06 PM
A great man and scholar once said, "...let's see if we can avoid "fake news" labeling."
Here is another unrelated survey of Hispanics, by a different academic group.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/15/nearly-2-million-non-citizen-hispanics-illegally-r/
Here is a study meeting Daubert standards from before the Trump nomination, so without electoral partisan interest. It has up to 2.8% of voters being non-citizens.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Do-Non-Citizens-Vote-in-US-Elections-Richman-et-al.pdf
This theory may also explain how Obama confounded the surveys and won the election of 2012, despite an abysmal economic performance.
Posted by: David Behar | Feb 28, 2017 10:43:13 PM
Doug, my beef was with the AP article, and I was curious whether you agree with the AP article's tendentious reporting. Instead, you launch into an attempt to get me to criticize Trump---but that stuff was asked and answered on another thread.
The AP article is fake news.
Posted by: federalist | Mar 1, 2017 9:59:06 AM
These links are closer to evidence, David, though based on a lot of extrapolation from self-reporting surveys, and seemingly undermined by the latest Ohio data. I have seen estimates that Ohio has well over 100,000 non-citizen, and thus the Husted report suggests that less than 0.1% of that population voted recently.
As I have said repeatedly, I sincerely want there to be a serious examination of voting realities if illegal voting is anything close to the problem that Prez Trump suggests. But these new Husted/Ohio data suggests that illegal voting is NOT anything close to the problem that Prez Trump suggests.
Posted by: Doug B. | Mar 1, 2017 10:03:18 AM
federalist, I do not see anything "tendentious" or "fake" in noting that, in Ohio, "non-citizens make up fewer than 1 in every 20,000 registered voters — far from the widespread voter fraud President Donald Trump has claimed." Trump has repeatedly claimed that there was widespread voter fraud, and he has not (to my knowledge) refined that claim by saying he thinks fraud was minimal in some states like Ohio.
Perhaps more to the point, Husted's office is making much of these new numbers in part because Trump has repeatedly claimed that there was widespread voter fraud in 2016. So to note in this article that Husted's data is inconsistent with Trump's claims is itself a way of reporting the context of Husted's recent work. This paragraph continues the accurate reporting of these realities:
"As Trump has alleged voter fraud in last year's election, Husted has countered that election fraud isn't a common problem. Still, his office has boasted of its three reviews of the voter rolls to look for non-citizens, the first such reviews conducted by an Ohio secretary of state. “In light of the national discussion about illegal voting it is important to inform our discussions with facts. The fact is voter fraud happens, it is rare and when it happens, we hold people accountable,” Husted said Monday in a statement."
As you should know as a regular reader, federalist, I generally try to avoid criticizing the press on the left or the right for whatever spin they consciously or unconsciously incorporate into their reporting. I think everyone in the media and elsewhere is "biased" in various ways, and media (or others) claims to be especially "objective" or "nuetral" always strike me as wishful thinking.
Meanwhile, I was not asking you, federalist, to criticize Trump. Rather, based on your criticism of the AP story, I simply asked whether you could provide some --- any --- sound basis for believing that there were millions of illegal votes cast in 2016 and whether you think that investigating voter fraud should be a top priority for the DOJ based on the President's assertions of such widespread voting corruption. I surmise that your answer to these questions are still no and no, but I thought perhaps you views might have changed based on new information.
Posted by: Doug B | Mar 1, 2017 10:51:56 AM
"...whether you could provide some --- any --- sound basis for believing that there were millions of illegal votes cast in 2016..."
That narrow and specific question requires an investigation which has not yet taken place. The Ohio review you posted is not adequate to answer your question.
Posted by: David Behar | Mar 1, 2017 11:42:23 AM
Doug, my criticism of the AP story is that it takes a fake news shot at Trump. Trump is almost certainly wrong about the millions voting, and there is no defense to his comment. My point is that the AP is linking the Ohio findings which (a) may undercount the number of aliens voting and (b) may reflect a voting system that makes it hard for an alien to vote to Trump's statement is just ridiculous.
In other words, Ohio isn't what refutes Trump, as the AP said. However, common sense refutes Trump.
Posted by: federalist | Mar 2, 2017 12:17:55 AM
How does the AP take a "fake news shot" at Trump? I just do not get this accusation at all, federalist. The AP story does not say anything fake, and the line you seem to object to simply notes that the small number of illegal votes now documented in Ohio is "far" from the kind of widespread fraud asserted by Trump.
I do not think the AP article is fairly read to be asserting that the Ohio data conclusively refute what Trump claims. More to the point, there is nothing "fake" --- a hoax or sham --- in this reporting. You might complain that more context might be provided as to the purported basis for Trump's claims, but Trump himself has failed to do that.
Words should have meaning, federalist, but calling something fake which is not fake seems to me to be just a bush league slur. If you want to contend the AP is not being wholly objective, use that terminology rather than distort the meaning of words.
Posted by: Doug B | Mar 2, 2017 1:13:17 AM
Prof. B. You should understand what is going on with the news media. The AP article is worthless. Did they cite the studies I provided, as they had to to provide the other side of the story? They are biased against Trump.
To understand, visit the David Duke web site. Head of the Klan, he hates Jews and blacks. He does not lie or tell wild stories. He selects stories that make them look bad, to prove his hatred point.
The American public finds this self evident, and has an approval score of the press that shows that understanding. These data are from the polling organization web site, not from a news article.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx
All news media now do that. They are propaganda by selection. All fail to give the other side, as required by their Code of Ethics. All violate the exception fallacy. Both also easily fall for false news stories, when they fit their bias. NPR has an anti-corporation message in every show, even those about food or gardens. Fox is a Republican establishment outlet. The NY Times is controlled by Mexican Carlos Slim and reflects his economic interest. He is angry at losing $16 billion since the pronouncements of Trump dropped the value of the peso. The Washington Post reflects to feelings of Jeff Bezos in every news story.
So anyone citing a mainstream media source is citing a story with the quality and reliability of the David Duke site.
The sole potential exception I can think of is C-SPAN. In response to repeated accusations they are controlled by the Jews, Brian Lamb explained their method. They meticulously count the stories on each side to provide good balance.
Posted by: David Behar | Mar 2, 2017 8:19:40 AM
Doug:
I get it that Trump's millions comment is wrong. But the idea that Ohio's experience shows it to be wrong, as the AP's article implies, is just garbage. Trump was talking about millions of votes nationally, not in one particular state.
I'll turn it around--what does Ohio's experience say about Trump's charge? Next to nothing, but the AP article is calculated to make it seem like it does--that's fake news. Let's take another example--let's say that a Dem candidate says, "There are millions of people in the US who are prison for simple marijuana possession." And then, let's say, the NY AG does a survey and shows that .5% of state prisoners are simple possession prisoners--does that disprove what the Dem said? No.
Posted by: federalist | Mar 2, 2017 10:07:46 AM
David: I strongly disagree strongly that the AP and David Duke are comparable news/media sources. I suspect federalist would also disagree, but maybe he shares your views that biases run so deeply that AP and David Duke are equally "fake" as he uses this term.
federalist: let's play out your hypo, imagining a news article reporting on an NY AG report saying very few are in prison for MJ possession, and then the article says this is "far from the widespread imprisonment of MJ offenders Bernie Sanders has claimed." That would not be, in my view, "fake" in any way. And this strikes me as especially appropriate reporting if the NY AG conducted a review of MJ offenders in prison specifically in response to what Bernie was saying about MJ folks in prison.
Do you dispute that Ohio AG Husted himself did this review and published the results in large part because of "the widespread voter fraud President Donald Trump has claimed"? Given that reality as I see it, the AP report is providing context, not "fake" anything.
Again, you can fairly complain that it would be helpful/useful for the AP report to highlight all the anti-fraud measures in place in Ohio that are not in place in other states (though it is not clear that the Ohio AG himself mentioned this). But the call this "fake" strike me as widely off base and confirms my fear that your partisan lens leads you here to slurs that are just not justified here.
But maybe you are in the same camp as David Behar and think the AP and others in the mainstream media cannot be distinguished in any way from the likes of David Duke.
Posted by: Doug B. | Mar 2, 2017 10:33:16 AM
Duke is used for illustration. Yet, most people understand the violation of the Code of Ethics of journalism. They have very low approval ratings for journalism. NPR and the NY Times are in the same category as Duke. Less certain about the AP.
Posted by: David Behar | Mar 2, 2017 11:02:57 AM
Sorry Doug, that's foolish. Trump was talking about nationally--Ohio ain't national.
Trump: There are millions of alien votes.
AP: Trump is wrong since there only a handful of alien votes in Ohio.
Sanders: There are millions of MJ simple users in prison in USA.
FED: Sanders is wrong because the NY AG showed that there were very few in NY.
Fake news.
Posted by: federalist | Mar 2, 2017 12:55:24 PM
federalist, what is foolish --- and shows your partisanship because you are now quick to embrace the talking points or certain partisans --- is using the term "fake news" to describe an accurate news story. The AP did not say "Trump is wrong" -- they said the new data on non-citizen voting is Ohio shows a rate of non-citizen voting that is "far from the widespread voter fraud President Donald Trump has claimed."
That you dislike the implications of this accurate statement does not make the story "fake news." Partisans often want to distort the meaning of words to suit their interests, and you again are showing your partisan nature with the repeated assertion that this AP story "takes a fake news shot at Trump." I find it disconcerting that partisans like you now seem so eager to say every statement with implications they dislike is "fake," in large part because I think it serves everyone's interest to save the word "fake" for what is actually made up, a sham, fraudulent. But when you get your partisan juices flowing, federalist, I know it is hard to shake you off your aggressive rhetoric. So I will just close by suggesting that calling this AP story "fake news" dilutes the force of such a accusation when there truly is fake news that needs to be condemned.
If you are eager to continue, federalist, I continue to wonder (1) if you think that investigating voter fraud should be a top priority for the DOJ based on the President's assertions of such widespread voting corruption, and (2) if you agree with David Behar "that NPR and the NY Times are in the same category as [David] Duke" when it comes to legitimacy and accuracy as a news/media outlet.
Posted by: Doug B. | Mar 2, 2017 2:50:36 PM
Here's the quote:
"In total, 7.9 million people were registered to vote in Ohio as of the November election, so the non-citizens make up fewer than 1 in every 20,000 registered voters — far from the widespread voter fraud President Donald Trump has claimed."
The problem with your parsing is that Trump didn't make his claims specific to Ohio. So this write-up, which uses the Ohio findings to falsify Trump's claims, is wrong, and AP doesn't get the benefit of the doubt for an honest mistake. This is fake news.
Posted by: federalist | Mar 2, 2017 5:38:47 PM
Trump has repeatedly alleged "widespread voter fraud," which prompted Husted's review and report of fraud in Ohio, and that review and report showed something "far" from widespread fraud in Ohio. Nothing here is fake or a mistake --- but as a partisan you do not like how these accurate facts are being packaged. Ergo, you reach for the partisan label "fake" and in so doing continue to burnish your partisan reputation.
Meanwhile, you avoid my follow-up questions, which I will ask again hoping honestly to learn of your views: (1) do you think that investigating voter fraud should be a top priority for the DOJ based on the President's assertions of such widespread voting corruption, and (2) do you agree with David Behar "that NPR and the NY Times are in the same category as [David] Duke" when it comes to legitimacy and accuracy as a news/media outlet?
Posted by: Doug B. | Mar 2, 2017 6:12:16 PM
David Duke is obsessed with Jews and Blacks. His entire website is about their perfidy.
The NY Times is obsessed with Donald Trump. NPR is obsessed with capitalist corporations. The content of both is about their perfidy.
David Duke posts less false news than either the NY Times or NPR. All are highly selective of stories that make their obsession look bad. All repeatedly violate the Exception Fallacy.
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/argument/fallacies/exception.htm
Posted by: David Behar | Mar 3, 2017 1:14:11 AM
Prof. B. Do not even think of accusing me of the same.
My speech about the lawyer profession is love speech.
Posted by: David Behar | Mar 3, 2017 1:16:37 AM
Doug, I can explain it to you--I cannot understand it for you. Using Ohio, which doesn't prove/disprove Trump, to take a shot at Trump is nonsense. What AP should have said: "Ohio, a state with X electoral votes, provides no support to Trump's claims that millions of illegal votes were cast in the 2016 election." But that's not what AP did, and I don't give the AP the benefit of the doubt.
The NYTimes is a purveyor of partisanship--but David Duke, um no. The DoJ should make assisting states with cleaning up the voter rolls, a statutory duty of it, a priority. Kinda like USERRA that the Holder DoJ blew off.
Posted by: federalist | Mar 3, 2017 9:18:02 AM
The NY Times is controlled by Carlos Slim, a Mexican. The reporters need to disclose that fact in every article about Trump, or else they are worse than Duke. Duke is honest about his hatred. NY Times reporters put on a false front of piety. Slim lost $16 billion as a result of the tweets of Trump, and the devaluation of the peso. The reporters must disclose their economic conflict of interest or else they are less honest than Duke about their biases. If they were pro-Trump, they would be fired. The reader needs to know that before judging credibility.
Posted by: David Behar | Mar 3, 2017 3:27:47 PM
