Sorry, Republicans, Your Own Investigation Proves No Dead People Voted In South Carolina

By Rebecca Leber/Think Progress

South Carolina never found a single dead voter in recent elections. At least, that is thefinal word from the State Election Commission investigation into whether 900 people voted using a dead person’s name, according to the Columbia Free Times.

The report found that whatever issues existed were usually due to human error, like a clerical mistake or scanning problem, and not because anyone intentionally impersonated a deceased person. For example, hundreds of errors were due to mistakes like confusing a father and son who share the same name.

When Attorney General Alan Wilson demanded the original investigation, he cited “an alarming number” of cases reported by the DMV that “clearly necessitates an investigation into criminal activity.” The initial report surveyed 200 “suspicious” names and found nothing, but Wilson insisted “no one in this state should issue any kind of clean bill of health in this matter” until officials “finished with their work.” Republicans, including Wilson, held up the initial claim that the voting rolls were packed with dead voters to argue for a voter ID law. Rep. Alan Clemmons (R) wrote at one point, “It is an unspoken truth in South Carolina that election fraud exists.”

Even though South Carolina has never found any election fraud, that will not prevent state Republicans from redoubling strict voter ID efforts, invigorated by the recent Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act. In fact, Wilson celebrated the decision, calling the Voting Rights Act an “extraordinary intrusion” and pledging to implement voter ID “without some having to ask for permission or being required to jump through the extraordinary hoops demanded by federal bureaucracy.”

More voter fraud found on the right

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Rep. Cummings probes RNC consulting firm over voter fraud allegations

By Eric W. Dolan/Raw Story

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) on Monday requested GOP consultant Nathan Sproul provide documents regarding his relationship with the RNC, which recently fired his firm over allegations of voter registration fraud.

The RNC hired Strategic Allied Consulting to run a voter registration drives in Florida, Virginia, Colorado, North Carolina and Nevada. The RNC severed ties with Strategic Allied Consulting last week after Florida officials traced more than 100 possibly fake registration forms back to the company.

Cummings, a ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, questioned Sproul in a letter over his relationship with the RNC. Sproul’s previous consulting firm, Sproul & Associates, was accused of destroying Democratic voter registration forms in 2004 during a RNC-funded voter registration drive.

“Instead of the RNC having ‘zero tolerance’ for voter registration fraud, you claimed that RNC officials asked you to form your new company, Strategic Allied Consulting, in June for the specific purpose of concealing your connections to these previous allegations,” Cummings wrote, referencing Sproul’s comments to the Los Angeles Times.

“In a blunt concession, you reportedly stated that you ‘created Strategic Allied Consulting at the request of the Republican National Committee because of the bad publicity stemming from past allegations.’”

Sproul has insisted the fake voter registration forms were merely the product of “bad actors.” In a statement, the company said it had fired the individual responsible.

GOP-HIRED FIRM UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR VOTER FRAUD IN NORTH CAROLINA

By Rebecca Leber/Think progress

 The North Carolina board of elections is determining whether a GOP-allied firm, Strategic Allied Consulting, submitted fraudulent voter registration forms in the state, following reports the group submitted 106 “questionable” forms in Florida. In the midst of Republican efforts to uncover extremely rare in-person voter fraud, the likeliest source comes from their own firm. North Carolina officials are contacting local boards of elections to determine if wider investigation is necessary. The Republican National Committee has paid Strategic Allied $3.1 million to run voter registration drives in multiple swing states, but the ongoing criminal investigation has caused the RNC and state Republican parties to cut all ties.

Republican Party Paid $3.1 Million To Firm Under Investigation For Voter Registration Fraud

By Aviva Shen/Think Progress

The Republican National Committee is cutting ties to Strategic Allied Consulting, a voter registration firm under investigation for turning in fraudulent voter registration forms in Florida. The RNC hired the firm to do voter registration drives for $3.1 million this year.

The firm’s founder, Nathan Sproul, is a longtime Republican strategist whose reputation was tarred by widespread accusations of voter registration fraud and attempts to suppress Democratic voter turnout. George W. Bush’s campaign reportedly paid Sproul over $8 million for his work in the 2004 election. Sproul, now under new scrutiny, claims he started Strategic Allied Consulting because the RNC wanted to hide his past:

Sproul said he created Strategic Allied Consulting at the RNC’s request because the party wanted to avoid being publicly linked to the past allegations. The firm was set up at a Virginia address, and Sproul does not show up on the corporate paperwork.

“In order to be able to do the job that the state parties were hiring us to do, the [RNC] asked us to do it with a different company’s name, so as to not be a distraction from the false information put out in the Internet,” Sproul said.

The committee is now scrambling to distance itself from Sproul after Florida launched acriminal investigation into the company. Strategic Allied Consulting submitted 106 “questionable” voter registration forms to the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections, and several other counties have discovered fraudulent forms as well. The Florida GOP fired the firm on Tuesday night.

Republicans have launched relentless efforts to prevent in-person voter fraud, which isexceptionally rare, yet seem to have ignored the real threat of voter registration fraud by their own consultant. In a twist one Florida Supervisor of Elections called “ironic,” Sproul’s organization was in fact registering dead voters as Republicans, even as Republican lawmakers all over the country justified discriminatory voter purges with the threat of dead votersshowing up to the polls.

Will the Bolgergate Grand Jury Call Attorney General Bill Schuette?

From Michigan Democratic Party:

What Did Romney’s Michigan Campaign Chairman Discuss with Rep. Roy Schmidt? Did Schuette Obstruct Justice?

LANSING – Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette should be called in the Bolgergate grand jury investigation because of a text message he sent to state Rep. Roy Schmidt the morning after the filing deadline.

Schuette, Mitt Romney’s Michigan Campaign Chairman, rejected calls to reopen the investigation, despite the fact that a Michigan State Police detective believed there was probable cause to look into whether Schmidt and Bolger had committed crimes in recruiting fake candidate Matt Mojzak to run against Schmidt, helping Mojzak to file a fraudulent candidate affidavit and then covering up their involvement in the scheme.

“In the Bolgergate case, it looks like Attorney General Bill Schuette neglected his duty and may have obstructed justice,” Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer said. “What did Schmidt and Schuette discuss after Schuette’s text message? When Schuette and Schmidt spoke on May 16, there already was widespread news coverage about the fake Democrat. Did they discuss it? Did they discuss the calls for an investigation? People deserve to know.

“This highly inappropriate communication should be investigated fully. At a minimum, this communication casts a cloud over Schuette’s decision not to continue the Bolgergate investigation when the local prosecutor brought it to a close prematurely. It is unprecedented to have a Michigan Attorney General communicating privately with one of the targets of a criminal investigation.”

Schuette sent the following text message to Schmidt on the morning of May 16:

“Roy. Bill Schuette here. Call when you can (phone number redacted). Thanks.”

Text messages obtained by the Michigan State Police reveal that in the days leading up to the deadline for Mojzak to withdraw his fraudulent candidacy, Schmidt and his son, Ryan, repeatedly assured a nervous Mojzak that there was no investigation. Did Schmidt know that because Schuette told him?

When asked if Schuette would reopen the investigation, a Schuette spokesperson told theDetroit Free Press,”It’s not our practice to second-guess prosecutors once they have concluded an investigation.”

Voters can view all of the publicly available documents and media reports on the scandal atBolgergate.com.

Schuette: 'Criminal acts were committed' by McCotter aides forging election petitions

By Joe Swickard andKathleen Gray/Detroit Free Press

Four staffers of former U.S. Rep. Thad McCotter, R-Livonia were charged today in connection with the false nominating petitions that led to McCotter's departure from Congress.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette described the four as "not simply Keystone Kops running amok ... criminal acts were committed."

PDF: Read the investigator's report on McCotter staffers

He said the petition forgeries and cut-and-paste jobs on the petitions "would make an elementary art teacher cringe."

Schuette said the McCotter staffers also likely did the same thing in the 2008 elections, using 2006 petition signatures.

• Don Yowchuang 33, of Farmington Hills, the deputy district director, was charged with 10 counts of election law forgery, a five-year felony; one count of conspiracy to commit a legal act in an illegal manner, a 5-year felony, and six counts of falsely signing a nominating petition, all misdemeanors.

• Paul Seewald, 47, of Livonia, the district director, was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit a legal act in an illegal manner, nine counts of falsely signing a nominating petition.

• Mary Melissa Turnbull, 58, of Howell, district representative, was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit a legal act in an illegal manner and one count of falsely signing a nominating petition.

• Lorianne O'Brady, former scheduler, 52, of Livonia was charged with five counts of falsely signing a nominating petition.

"Let me tell you this, we find any other evidence, we'll review it in the same painstaking ... thorough fashion," Schuette said at a late-morning news conference.

Schuette blasted McCotter for being "asleep at the switch," and providing no guidance to his staffers.

"They acted above the law as if it didn't apply to them," Schuette said.

But there is no specific evidence that McCotter was involved in the petition fraud, so the former congressman, who resigned in July, was not charged.

"Their motive is immaterial," Schuette said. "They set a standard of conduct that is disgraceful."

McCotter this afternoon released a statement saying, "I thank the Attorney General and his office for their earnest, thorough work on this investigation, which I requested, and their subsequent report."

“For my family and I, this closure commences our embrace of the enduring blessings of private life,” McCotter said, adding that he would not make himself available to answer any questions from the media at this point.

According to the investigator's report obtained by the Free Press, the four were a “dysfunctional congressional staff that had completely lost its moral compass” and were “indifferent to the requirements of the law.”

All four worked in McCotter’s Livonia office. They are Yowchuang, district deputy director, Seewald, the district director, O’Brady, a scheduler, and Turnbull, a district representative. The investigation revealed that they forged petitions, cut and pasted signatures from other petitions, and had individuals falsely signed as petition circulators.

Most of the illegal acts occurred at McCotter’s district office the day before the deadline for turning in petitions. They needed at least 1,000 valid signatures and turned in more than 1,800. All but a few hundred were found invalid by the Secretary of State’s office.

Yowchuang was the most deeply involved of the four staffers and was linked in the report to 17 separate counts of wrongdoing.

The investigators interviewed 75 people and seized 725 documents for their probe involving 136 nominating petitions.

An unprecedented bungle for incumbent congressman
McCotter – briefly presidential candidate in a long shot, hard-to-explain bid a year ago -- was considered a shoo-in to win his sixth two-year term in the 11th Congressional District this year, especially since it was redrawn as more friendly territory for a Republican candidate.

But then, in May, news broke that McCotter’s campaign had submitted false and fraudulent petition signatures to the Secretary of State’s Office in support of his re-election. Officials said the vast majority of the 1,830 signatures delivered were duplicated, some with the dates changed.

An investigation was launched by the Attorney General’s Office, with McCotter pledging his cooperation.

It was a campaign mistake that might be committed by an untested candidate, but no one in Washington or Lansing could remember it happening to an incumbent congressman, so routine is the collection of petition signatures.

McCotter’s name was left off the ballot, and, as local Republican leaders fumed, in June he dropped the idea of even running a write-in campaign in the Republican primary.

At first resolving to leave Congress at the end of term, McCotter last month abruptly announced his resignation from office, saying he and his family had suffered a “nightmarish month and a half.”

It forced the governor to call a special primary on Sept. 5 that is expected to cost $650,000 and two elections in November – one to fill out what by then will be no more than several weeks remaining in McCotter’s unfinished term.

McCotter often cut a strange figure on Capitol Hill. Lanky, sardonic and sometimes standoffish in comparison to more gregarious, backslapping politicians, he spoke in a deep voice and played guitar in rock bands. Once a rising star in the party who chaired the House Republican Policy Committee, he was at ease quoting conservative economic thinkers and Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones alike.

FACT CHECK: ‘Non-Citizen’ Voter In James O’Keefe’s Voter Fraud Video Is Actually A Citizen

By Scott Keyes/Think Progress


Conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe released a new video today supposedly exposing voter fraud in North Carolina by highlighting non-citizens like Zbigniew Gorzkowski who have voted in recent elections.

The problem: Gorzkowski is an American citizen.

In fact, if O’Keefe had done a simple Nexis search for “Zbigniew Gorzkowski”, he would have found a single article from the News & Observer in 2008 noting that Gorzkowski and his wife are naturalized citizens:

Customers flock through the red door of Zbigniew “Ziggy” and wife Halina Gorzkowski’s European grocery and flower shop to buy one of the 12 varieties they sell. The pierogis and 400 eastern European food items and flowers are also punching the naturalized citizen couple’s ticket for their version of the American Dream.

ThinkProgress spoke with Gorzkowski this morning. He verified that this information was indeed correct and he had been an American citizen since the late 1980s. Therefore, his votes in the 2008 and 2010 elections were not only perfectly legal, but encouraged as a civic duty.

In other words, the one instance in the video where O’Keefe purports to show that a non-citizen had actually voted, in fact shows that a citizen voted.

The episode does speak to a larger underlying problem with most accusations of voter fraud. It’s what I call the “Scooby Doo routine”. People like O’Keefe make wild voter fraud accusations like non-citizens voting, only to discover a much simpler explanation for the situation.

In this case, O’Keefe is using “evidence” of foreigners voting in American elections to supposedly demonstrate the need for draconian security measures like voter ID, which could disenfranchise 20 million citizens across the country. However, his evidence actually shows nothing more than an American citizen exercising his civic duty. Earlier this year, South Carolina went through the same Scooby Doo routine after Attorney General Alan Wilson claimed to have unearthed evidence of 953 dead voters, only for his state investigation to ultimately find no dead voters — and zero voter fraud — but rather a handful of clerical errors.

O’Keefe has a responsibility as a journalist to ensure the veracity of his facts before he makes wild charges like these. A simple phone call or Nexis search would have sufficed, yet doing so would have undercut his spurious argument that voter fraud is a widespread problem in the United States.

A reality check for voter fraud claims

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James O’Keefe has another run-in with the law

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James O’Keefe’s Group Appears To Commit Voter Fraud In Order To Gin Up Hysteria Over Non-Existent Fraud Problem

By Scott Keyes/Think Progress

James O’Keefe’s latest video features surrogates appearing to commit voter fraud in yesterday’s New Hampshire primary election, all in an attempt to highlight voter fraud, a problem which is by-and-large nonexistent in the Granite State.

The undercover video shows unnamed individuals working at O’Keefe’s behest approaching polling stations throughout New Hampshire. After poll workers asked for the person’s name, O’Keefe’s agents gave the name of a voter who died within the past few weeks, before then receiving a ballot to vote. The individuals asked the poll workers if they needed ID to prove their identity, and when poll workers confirmed that they did not, O’Keefe’s men insisted on returning to their car to retrieve their ID and returned the ballot.

However, in highlighting the non-problem of voter fraud in New Hampshire and elsewhere, O’Keefe’s agents appear to have committed voter fraud themselves. Section 659:34 of the New Hampshire code defines voter fraud as when a person (highlights are ours):

(a) When registering to vote; when obtaining an official ballot; or when casting a vote by official ballot, makes a false material statement regarding his or her qualifications as a voter to an election officer or submits a voter registration form, and election day registration affidavit, a qualified voter affidavit, a domicile affidavit, or an absentee registration affidavit containing false material information regarding his or her qualifications as a voter;

(b) Votes more than once for any office or measure;
(c) Applies for a ballot in a name other than his or her own;
(d) Applies for a ballot in his or her own name after he or she has voted once;
(e) Votes for any office or measure at an election if such person is not qualified to vote as provided in RSA 654; or
(f) Gives a false name or answer if under examination as to his or her qualifications as a voter before the supervisors of the checklist or moderator.

In the raw footage released by O’Keefe (reproduced below), at 12:32, the poll worker asks the unnamed individual, “what’s your name again?” The man replies with the name of a dead New Hampshire voter, “Thomas McCarron.” She then asks if he lives at “179 Harrison Street?” The man affirms, “yes.”

In another instance, at 5:00, the poll worker checks off the individual’s fake name and says, “that’s you.” He does not correct her, but implicitly affirms the false identity by taking the ballot she hands him.

In addition, O’Keefe’s group may have run afoul of New Hampshire’s law against hidden recording devices. Granite State law requires both parties to consent when recording devices are used, a fact that even O’Keefe’s own website notes. However, the video gives no indication that poll workers were aware they were being filmed.

One section of footage not released by O’Keefe, however, was when a surrogate was caught at the polls trying to impersonate a dead voter. The Boston Herald notes that the man “disappeared before police could corral him.”

Setting aside the legality of O’Keefe’s stunt, it is important to note that virtually no one – outside of O’Keefe’s agents – actually commits voter fraud. A seminal Brennan Center study on the matter, entitled “The Truth About Voter Fraud“, found that people were far more likely to be stuck by lightning than ever impersonate another voter at the polls. The study examined possible voter fraud in New Hampshire during the 2004 election, but was unable to find evidence for anything close to widespread fraud. Even if four questionable incidences proved true – one involved a “domestic violence victim, who voted from an old address in order to avoid disclosing her current domicile – it would amount to an overall fraud rate of 0.0006%.

Is the GOP committing voter fraud?

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Despite A 0.0002 Percent Rate Of Voter Fraud, Reince Priebus Claims Wisconsin Is ‘Riddled With Voter Fraud’

By Scott Keyes/Think Progress

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus made a curious claim on MSNBC today, alleging that Wisconsin is a state “that was absolutely riddled with voter fraud.”

The problem? A recent study by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice found just seven cases of voter fraud out of three million votes cast in Wisconsin during the 2004 election, a fraud rate of 0.0002percent. All seven of these cases involved persons with felony convictions who weren’t eligible to vote after being released from prison.

Unfazed by the minuscule incidence of actual voter fraud – comedian Stephen Colbert jokedthat “our democracy is under siege from an enemy so small it could be hiding anywhere” – Priebus went on MSNBC to defend Wisconsin’s new photo ID requirement and yesterday’s anti-voting rights measure passed by the House GOP. When host Martin Bashir pushed the RNC Chair about his party’s motivations for restricting voting rights, Priebus pointed to his home state of Wisconsin and declared, “I come from a state in Wisconsin that was absolutely riddled with voter fraud, okay?”

BASHIR: Just last night Republicans in the House voted to dismantle the Election Assistance Commission, the sole purpose of which is to make sure states meet voting standards that prevent fraud. Why would Republicans do that if they’re honestly concerned about preventing fraud? [...]

PRIEBUS: Well listen, I don’t want to get into the specifics here, but let me tell you something. I come from a state in Wisconsin that was absolutely riddled with voter fraud, okay? They had the smokes-for-votes exchange in Milwaukee. This is something that has nothing to do with constitutional rights of the people who are committing the fraud, it has to do with the constitutional rights of people under our Constitution that one person gets one vote, not two or three or four or five, by not having reasonable voting standards in this country to make sure that fraud doesn’t occur.

Watch it:

Research has found that voters are 39 times more likely to be struck by lightning than commit voter fraud at the polls, and 3,500 times more likely to report a UFO encounter.

Voter fraud certainly ought to be prosecuted in the extremely rare instances when it occurs. But Republicans like Priebus are using the false specter of fraud as a cudgel to disenfranchise millions.

Maddow questions whether Mitt Romney has committed ‘voter fraud’

By Stephen C. Webster

Did former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney commit voter fraud by registering his address as his son’s home in Massachusetts and then casting a ballot?

Well, at least one expert thinks he did — but that’s not the only Massachusetts-related problem for Romney.

And as it turns out, all his fellow Republican 2012 hopefuls have issues lingering in their home states too. MSNBC’s liberal host Rachel Maddow explains…

This video is from MSNBC, broadcast Monday, June 13, 2011.

Baseless right-wing accusations of voter fraud? Must mean an election is near

From media matters In the final days before the midterm elections, following a very familiar pattern, conservative media have yet again turned to hyping baseless and misleading claims of voter fraud.

Right-wing media baselessly claim SEIU rigged machines to cast votes for Reid

Conservative media hype claims of voter fraud in Nevada to baselessly suggest SEIU is stealing votes for Reid. Several conservative media figures, including the co-hosts of Fox & Friends, The Washington Examiner, the Fox Nation, HotAir, Jim Hoft, and Michelle Malkin all promoted a Fox5 Las Vegas story highlighting claims from early voters that when they went to vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's name had already been checked on the electronic ballot. They cited this story to baselessly suggest that because the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) represents the technicians to repair the voting machines, SEIU is engaged in a conspiracy to fraudulently cast votes for Reid.

However, Fox5 Las Vegas also reported Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax called claims of fraud "patently false." Fox5 also reported that although "some voters complained that Sen. Harry Reid's name had been pre-selected" in Clark County voting locations, "election officials insisted on Tuesday that electronic voting machines were not malfunctioning." The article quoted Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax as saying "those claims were 'patently false' " and "at no time did any of those voters report the incident to staff at their polling location." From the article:

Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said those claims were "patently false" and said at no time did any of those voters report the incident to staff at their polling location.

"In fact, although over 160,000 people have voted early in Clark County, those allegations that have been made have gone directly to the media as opposed to election board officers," he said.

Lomax advised voters to be aware that touch-screens on the screens are sensitive. For that reason, a person may not want to have their fingers linger too long on the screen after they make a selection at any time.

"Especially in a community with elderly citizens (they have) difficulty in (casting their) ballot," Lomax said. "Team leaders said there were complaints (and the) race filled in."

Lomax previously called for an investigation into allegations that ACORN engaged in voter fraud. In 2009, The New York Times reported that Lomax called for an investigation into allegations that ACORN had engaged in voter registration fraud, noting that Nevada's Secretary of State "investigated Acorn at the behest of the Clark County registrar of voters, Larry Lomax, who noted a high number of forms turned in featuring the names of famous football players and cartoon characters."

Right-wing media hype Angle's fabricated claim that Reid is stealing election with bribes of free food

Angle campaign attorney: Reid "intends to steal this election" by offering free food in exchange for votes. The Las Vegas Sun reported that Nevada GOP senatorial candidate Sharron Angle's campaign attorney, Cleta Mitchell, wrote a fundraising letter to supporters in which she asserted that "Harry Reid intends to steal this election if he can't win it outright" and that "Harry Reid has been offering free food" at "voter turnout events." Mitchell went on to say: "What Harry Reid is doing is clearly illegal. Nevada law (NRS 293.700) provides that, 'A person who bribes, offers to bribe, or use and other corrupt means, directly or indirectly, to influence any elector in giving his or her vote or to deter the elector from giving it is guilty of a category D felony and shall be punished as provided in NRS 193.130.' "

Conservative media picked up and ran with the Angle campaign claim. Several conservative media figures advanced Mitchell's claim. For example, Sweetness & Light blogger Steve Gilbert linked to the Sun article and added: "If Democrats didn't buy their votes, you have to wonder if they would win any elections anywhere." Similarly, the Fox Nation linked to the Sun article with the headline, "Reid 'Intends to steal this election.' "

NV Secretary of State: Angle's campaign "fails to cite any evidence of 'vote buying' "; offering voters free food regardless of who they voted for does not violate election law. In a statement responding to the Angle campaign's allegations, Nevada's Secretary of State Ross Miller wrote that the campaign "fails to cite any evidence of 'vote buying.' " Miller added that activities such as offering free food to voters "irrespective of how and for whom they voted" does not violate state law so long as "it is not connected to any specific candidate and does not compromise the will of the elector." Miller also wrote that actions which "promote the act of voting," such as offering food to voters, "support the democratic process." Additionally, a spokeswoman for the Secretary of State reportedly noted that despite Mitchell's allegations, the office "has not received a single report of voter fraud from someone who experienced it personally."

Right-wing media distort Arizona court ruling to suggest it will influence election

Scarborough falsely claimed "a judge ... overturned an Arizona law that would actually require people to have a photo ID to vote." From the October 27 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:

JOE SCARBOROUGH (co-host): By the way, I just -- a judge, I understand, overturned an Arizona law that would actually require people to have a photo ID to vote. I mean, seriously, how low does the bar have to go? Seriously? That is such a joke.

HAROLD FORD JR. (former Democratic congressman): We do have a history in the country where people were denied the right to vote because they had [inaudible] --

SCARBOROUGH: Well, yeah, sure we do. So you let -- so you let people steal votes now? A photo ID, Harold, a photo ID.

FORD: Right, but you don't actually have to have one. If you show up and you have proof of ID and you sign something saying it's yourself -- these are just federal rules that we have, so, I don't disagree with you, having someone there at the polling booth or polling place -- should not intimidate voters, but to suggest that we don't have an ugly -- which I know you know -- and pernicious history in this country of people, particularly blacks and minorities and even women --

SCARBOROUGH: Well, but why are you bringing that up when all I want to do is make sure that whoever goes and votes is who they say they are, and they have a photo ID. What is so wrong with that?

In fact, a three-judge panel overturned an AZ state law that required proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote and upheld the portion of the law requiring voters show ID. As reported by Reuters and The Associated Press, the panel of the 9th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals found that a portion of the Arizona law, which required residents to provide proof of citizenship in order to register to vote, is inconsistent with the National Voter Registration Act, which, according to the AP, "allows voters to fill out a mail-in voter registration card and swear they are citizens under penalty of perjury, but doesn't require them to show proof as Arizona's law does." In addition, as the AP reported, "The ruling left in place a requirement that voters provide proof of identity when casting ballots."

Conservative bloggers linked court ruling to other examples of alleged voter fraud, suggest ruling will affect 2010 elections. In an October 27 post on her blog updating a previous "voter fraud round-up," Malkin wrote: "[T]he 9th Circuit Court of Appeals just undermined Arizona's citizenship proof rules for voting -- sabotaging efforts to ensure that only legal U.S. citizens vote in U.S. elections." An October 27 post on RedState on its "recap" of "some of the 'coincidences' leading up to next week's mid-term elections" includes the Arizona ruling. In fact, the ruling will not take effect until the next election. According to Reuters, "The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' invalidation of requirements for proof of citizenship comes too late for any prospective new voters who were barred from registering before the deadline for the November 2 U.S. mid-term elections."

North Carolina voting machine problems exaggerated by conservative bloggers

Right-wing blogs promoted reports of irregularities with voting machines in North Carolina. An October 23 article in the New Bern (NC) Sun Journal reported that a Craven County voter "pushed the button to vote Republican in all races, but the voting machine screen displayed a ballot with all Democrats checked." An October 25 report from local station WITN noted that the State Board of Elections said at the time that "only 2 counties have reported early voting problems with the touch-screen Ivotronic machines." On October 26 and 27, right-wing blogs Gateway Pundit, the Jawa Report, Ace of Spades, and BigGovernment all included links to the reports of irregularities with voting machines in North Carolina. Indeed, BigGovernment highlighted several accusations of voter fraud:

But, according to the county's Board of Elections chairman, "in each case the voter was able to cast his or her ballot as desired." According to the Sun Journal article, M. Ray Wood, Craven County Board of Elections chairman, "issued a written statement saying that the elections board is aware of isolated issues and that in each case the voter was able to cast his or her ballot as desired." WITN noted that in the two counties where problems were reported, the deputy director of the state Board of Elections said that "the machines were recalibrated when voters reported the problem, and everyone was able to cast votes of their choice."

Like clockwork, conservatives cry voter fraud in advance of elections

Conservative media have repeatedly issued baseless claims of voter fraud in previous elections As Media Matters has noted, conservative media have consistently made baseless claims of voter fraud during the past six years.