President Trump may not have much legislation to brag about; however, he is continuing to create massive problems with his directives and Executive Orders. One of his latest actions puts into place a mechanism to capitalize on one of his outrageous lies since the November election—that there is massive voter fraud going on in the Country.
Mr. Trump has launched a commission to investigate this voter fraud. This commission will have to be creative because there is almost no such fraud occurring. I repeat. There is no voter fraud problem in the United States. All the studies of the issue agree: in-person fraud by voters rarely happens.
After reviewing elections that had been carefully considered for voter fraud, the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law found that voter fraud was so rare that a person was more likely to be struck by lightning than be found impersonating another voter at the polls.
Studies at Arizona State University found 10 cases of voter impersonation fraud nationwide between 2000 and 2012. A comprehensive study published in The Washington Post in 2014 found only 31 instances of impersonation fraud nationwide between 2000 and 2014, out of one billion votes cast. The Washington Post’s review of the 2016 election found only four documented cases of voter fraud.
Many other studies show the same results—very rare voter fraud. Even the courts agree. In 2016 the federal court that found Texas’s strict photo ID law racially discriminatory noted that there were “only two convictions for in-person voter impersonation fraud out of 20 million votes cast in the decade” before Texas passed its unconstitutional law.
Despite all of this evidence against the occurrence of voter fraud Mr. Trump keeps insisting on the outrageous lie of three million fraudulent votes against him last November. That assertion is seriously problematic, not only because it is a lie. It is problematic because he is influencing the easily misled people who form his base. With his false claims, Trump is also doing potential damage to the election process. As a result, election officials, experts, and leaders across the political spectrum—Republicans as well as Democrats–are asking him to show evidence or stop making his claim.
Mr. Trump’s claim of three million illegal votes is reprehensible; however, he is making matters worse by appointing a Presidential Commission to investigate voting fraud. Since there is no fraud, what will this Commission do? Does voting suppression ring a bell? More about that later.