Where, in Pennsylvania, the state GOP admitted that they are not aware of so much as a single instance in which an ordinary citizen has been charged with, let alone convicted of in-person voter impersonation — the only form of voter fraud that can be prevented by disenfranchising polling place Photo ID restriction laws — there have been a growing number of claims that political elites have used a false residence to vote, often to insure their own elections in a district where they do not reside.
On October 2, a Los Angeles Superior Court Judge ordered that “Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon [D] and his wife will face trial on 23 felony counts of perjury and voter fraud” when the couple allegedly used a false address to both vote and qualify for elective office within LA’s 7th district, according to Los Angeles Times. The Alarcons claim they were simply using a second home outside the district while their other home was being renovated.
The issue of false residency voter fraud is neither novel nor limited to Democrats like Alarcon. Indeed, as Brad Friedman has tirelessly documented, the issue of false residency voter fraud amongst high-profile Republicans — including the GOP’s 2012 nominee for President of the United States — has approached epidemic proportions.
Class, as well as party, may explain the disparity between the ability of the elites to commit false residency voter fraud with near impunity as compared to the harsh impact of Photo ID laws that address a phantom menace as applied to the most vulnerable segments of our society.
Here are just a few recent cases of false residency voter fraud by some faces you will be very familiar with. Only one of them, to date, has faced any sort of actual accountability for their election crimes…
False residence and high level Republicans
• MITT ROMNEY: Last Summer, long-shot GOP candidate Fred Karger filed a complaint with Massachusetts officials charging that the now presumptive GOP nominee for President of the United was illegally registered to vote in his son’s unfinished basement in Belmont, MA, despite having moved out of the state several years earlier. The release of Romney’s 2010 federal tax returns did little to dispel the concern. Romney failed to include his state returns in his release (or those from 2009) which would likely show, as Karger detailed, Romney was not a resident of Massachusetts at the time he voted for Scott Brown in the January 2010 U.S. Senate special election to fill the seat of the late Ted Kennedy. Romney, who had houses in CA and NH, did not, in fact, own a house in MA until July of 2010 (in anticipation of another Presidential run), despite the fact that state law defines residency as “where a person dwells and which is the center of his domestic, social, and civil life.” Residents in Belmont, MA, told Karger that neither he nor his wife had been seen in the town since selling their mansion and moving out of state years earlier.
• INDIANA SEC. OF STATE CHARLIE WHITE: In February, White was tossed out of office after being declared guilty of three voter fraud felonies, having been found by a jury to have registered and voted from a residence where he did not actually live. (The same thing that Romney appears to have done, as noted above.) Although White was convicted on a total of six felonies, he did not have to serve even one day in jail. Instead he received one year of home detention. Prior to that, in a separate civil case, White was ordered immediately removed from office by a circuit court judge who found that his fraudulent registration made him ineligible to be on the ballot when he was elected in 2010 in the first place. Ironically enough, Indiana was the very first state in the nation, in 2008, to institute polling place Photo ID restrictions, despite being unable to cite a single instance of in-person voter fraud in state history. Those restrictions, however, failed to keep White himself, the state’s top election official, from committing voter fraud.
• SEN. RICHARD LUGAR: Last February, the long-serving Senator from Indiana was accused of doing exactly what his state’s Sec. of State Charlie White was tossed out of office for — not living at the address where he was registered to vote. In this case, the allegations came from Tea Party supporters of Richard Mourdock who defeated the popular Lugar to become this year’s U.S. Senate nominee. They charged that Lugar had been registered at a house where he had not lived since 1977. As in White’s case, Indiana’s First-in-the-Nation polling place Photo ID law failed deter any fraudulent voting by the erstwhile Senator.
• REP. TODD AKIN: Speaking of U.S. Senate candidates, the one nominated earlier this week by the Missouri Republican Party to face Claire McCaskill this November has, as reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch last year, been voting for years from a property outside of his own Congressional district where he does not live. The charges echoes those against Romney, Lugar and White. Akin’s house, as the paper found at the time, was vacant and long-scheduled for suburban re-development. Still, the Congressman has continued to use it as his voting address for some seven elections, ever since the time that he and his family moved to their new house in a different town some 18 miles away.
• JON HUNTSMAN: In March of 2011, the then GOP Presidential hopeful was also identified as possibly having committed voter fraud. In his case, the former Governor remained registered to vote at the Executive Mansion in Utah well over a year after he had become the U.S. ambassador to China. As the Salt Lake Tribune noted at the time: “Huntsman voted by absentee ballot for last year’s general election using the state-owned mansion on South Temple as his Utah residence — months after Gov. Gary Herbert settled into the historic building and Huntsman purchased a home in Washington, D.C.”
•ANN COULTER: Among many other recent cases of high-profile GOP voter fraud taking place prior to the past year, please remember (since the media didn’t much tell you about them in the first place): GOP superstar ANN COULTER’S multiple cases of demonstrated voter fraud (in both FL and CT). Coulter evaded prosecution in CT only after the state’s Election Commission ignored key evidence revealing that she resided in NY but used her parent’s house to vote in CT.
Hypocrisy and the two-tiered system of justice
In reviewing the transgressions of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, The BRAD BLOG pointed to Law Professor Paul Campos’ observation that it “is very unlikely [that Thomas would] be prosecuted or otherwise sanctioned for the simple reason that, in the United States in 2011, we have a two-tiered system of laws” where, for the vast majority of citizens, “an unusually harsh criminal code” has given rise to “by far the biggest prison population in the world.”
Nonetheless, he added, “our political and financial elites operate with something approaching complete impunity.”
The two-tiered system of laws suggests that class as well as party helps to explain the inconsistency between the application of disenfranchising Photo ID laws against the phantom menace of in-person voter fraud and near impunity with respect false residency voter fraud — a form of voter fraud available to wealthy elites who can afford to purchase multiple homes.
As the PA Supreme Court recognized in its recent Photo ID decision, Photo ID laws most harshly impact “the most vulnerable segments of our society (the elderly, disabled…and the financially disadvantaged).”
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Ernest A. Canning has been an active member of the California state bar since 1977. Mr. Canning has received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science as well as a juris doctor. He is also a Vietnam vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968). Follow him on Twitter: @Cann4ing.
Do only Republicans commit voter fraud??
Davey Crocket –
Do only Republican apologists fail to actually read the articles they are leaving comment on?
Had you actually read the article, Mr. Crocket, you would see that it began with an Oct. 2 order by an L.A. County Superior Court judge that Richard Alarcon, a Democrat, together with his wife, will have to stand trial on 23 felony charges as a result of alleged, false residence voter fraud.
Had you actually read the article, you would have taken into account my observation: “Class, as well as party, may explain the disparity between the ability of the elites to commit false residency voter fraud with near impunity as compared to the harsh impact of Photo ID laws that address a phantom menace as applied to the most vulnerable segments of our society.”
Perhaps you would therefore do well to digest a large helping of humble pie.
OK, then why don’t you add a big picture of Wendy Rosen?
Lacking the courage (and intellectual integrity) to acknowledge that there was no justification in his initial question @1 — “Do only Republicans commit voter fraud?” — given that that this article began with a discussion of false residency voter fraud charges leveled against L.A. City Councilman Richard Alarcon, a Democrat, Davey Crocket @4 feigns outrage that this article did not include another Democrat who may have committed false residency voter fraud, Wendy Rosen.
Setting aside the fact that this article never purported to be an exhaustive list of elites who have alleged to have committed false residency voter fraud, I do find it of interest that Mr. Crocket chose to overlook the fact that Ms. Rosen’s alleged transgressions came to light after “Maryland Democratic Party Chairwoman Yvette Lewis wrote a letter…alerting the state attorney general and a state prosecutor to the issue.”
Rosen simply provides another instance of false residency voter fraud that underscores the central thesis of this article.
Rosen’s alleged transgression entails the type of voter fraud that cannot be eliminated by polling place Photo ID restrictions. It is an elite form of voter fraud that is made possible where one has sufficient assets to purchase residences in multiple jurisdictions.
Finally, Mr. Crocket ignores an important point: That it is almost exclusively the Republicans, not Democrats, who have been behind the imposition of ALEC model polling place Photo ID restrictions. Thus, it is the Republican Party, and not the Democratic Party, whose hypocrisy is at issue.
Another to add to the list…
“Bruce J. Fleming, a Sugar Land resident running for Precinct 1 commissioner, voted in person in Sugar Land in 2006, 2008 and 2010 and by mail in each of those years in Yardley, Pa., according to election records in both states.
His wife, Nancy Fleming, who is listed as a resident of Yardley, voted by mail in both places in the 2010 general election, records show.”
http://www.chron.com/news/houst...me-3937458.php
Ernest @5: Besides which, it would be necessary to add both Rosen and, say, Alarcon to avoid an odd number of (alleged) rapscallions and hence an unsightly gap in the photo grid.
Thanks, GWN. One might add that Flemming is a Republican precinct chairman even though accurately reporting that fact will grate upon our resident, right wing gadfly, Davey Crocket.
to predict where this is likely to happen in 2012, try identifying vacation home meccas in states near other states with large metropolitan areas. Then examine the stringency of the residency requirement. The state of New Hampshire, for example, is commutable from Boston and also has some lakeside and mountain vacation areas where poeple own cottages and second homes. How plausible that those with two or more homes might either vote early and often, or simply in whichever state needs their help more t hat year may be determined by who gets to create the definition of residency (local vs. state?) and what constitutes acceptable proof of residency (locally or state defined? credible or…not so much?)
Because this sort of voting probably has little impact in high turnout elections, it makes sense that if ther were any organized attempt to use this method of vote turnout, it would make the biggest difference in 1) primaries, 2) local races, and potentially 3) extremely close elections.
If issues could be selected and fanned up that would divide the voters nearly at 50/50, then such tactics would have a much greater chance of swinging the election one way or the other.
Oh, wait a minute — a nation divided on issues that are ittelevant to the challenges of the time, or not appropriate for political decisions? Rings a bell…
I now regard elections as a series of maneuvers not unlike watching a guy shake up the pinball machine in order to win at pin ball. A diverse eeries of maneuvers, perhaps each one in and of itself seemingly insignificant to the uninformed and inattentive public, can change an outcome.
That rich people cheat more often and feel entitled to do so has already been demonstrated by University of California research, so this would be no surprise. I would simply like to know whether it is by personal whim or party orchestratrion, by convenience or collusion, that such “I will vote where I please” behavior occurs.
That was really pathetic, Crockett. You sure sound like one of those it’s-all-about-taking-responsibility-Republicans who takes absolutely none himself.
Beware the ideologue who does not have the integrity to admit a mistake. Even when called out in broad daylight.
Tell me, Davey, what do you think the appropriate group response should be to someone who seems incapable of admitting error, yet returns time and again with more of them?
How about doing some goddamn work and reading a goddamn article before opening your yapper for a change?
Florida has no state income tax so many retired people buy a house here and claim residency while maintaining a house back north. I have often wondered how many vote both places. Is there a way to detect and prevent this?
I was disappointed to read that Michelle Obama voted absentee.
Sigh.
Just another case of the 1% knowiing what is best for the 99%? Perhaps. But also a stark truth.
Voter registration data, like all other “consumer” data can increasingly be bought. Now recall that Karl Rove is a data guy. Or actually a mailing list guy. He knows how to data mine. He built companies around it for fundraising and voter outreach. All the while being subsidized by the US Postal Service. But I’ll save that for another day.
Romney has brought the Buxton data mining empire into his campaign. Undoubtedly, they have capacity that you can only dream with. Say, cross referencing Democratic voters with last name “Washington” and foreclosures and incarcerations in Lucas County, OH. Presto! An instant breakdown of voters that the True The Vote people should “challenge.”
Karl has run a variation of this play for years. But each year it keeps getting closer and closer. Lets hope this is not the year.
But while on the subject of Karl, he should also be on your voter fraud list. During the 2004 election, he was living in DC, full time and owned a house in the “prestigious” and expensive “Kent” neighborhood. And when he bought the house, he applied for and received the DC Homestead tax deduction. He also had a low-end Jaguar (which he would argue was a Ford) registed in DC, with DC plaes. So where did Karl vote? Texas.
How could Karl claim Texas residency? Well, he really couldn’t because the 600 square foot vacation cabin really didn’t qualify as a home. Particularly since he didn’t live there. But Texas turns on some b/s voter regulation of “intent to return.” If you intent to return to Texas, you can vote in Texas.
Naturally Karl beat the rap. At first he wasn’t charged because in order to challenge votes in Kerr County, the challenge had to come from a County resident, not a national good government group, for example like Citizens For Ethics in Washington. They tried but no dice. Then a Kerr County resident stepped forward, said they had never seen Karl around town. That forced the local Sheriff (yep, sheriff, not election official) to investigate. Naturally, Karl was found “innocent.” And naturally, many of his buddies intervened, starting at the top of the food chain, Texas heavyweight (I think he was secretary of stae) Roger Williams.
A sad tale.
Like everything else, Karl seeks to make a mockery of another institution.
The Bruce Fleming story out of Texas also provides another interesting tidbit. Even though the article indicates Fleming is a Texas Republican, he must have registered as a Democrat in Pennsylvania, since he purportedly voted for Hillary Clinton in PA’s closed primary.