The United States has had 143 convictions for mail voting fraud (or Array0006% of the total vote) in the more than 20 years.
The Heritage Foundation has recorded approximately 140 convictions for criminals similar to the “fraudulent use of mailed ballots” for more than 20 years.These come with cases of fraud in local and national elections, in addition to presidential contests.
Proven cases of this type of voter fraud constitute an infinitesimal number of votes relative to the total number of votes cast, but the exact percentage is difficult to determine.
In the months leading up to the US presidential election, the US presidential election was a member of the U.S. presidential election.But it’s not the first time By 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump has continually stated that mail voting, a voting approach that has become increasingly popular and mandatory due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, would lead to widespread voter fraud.Trump made those claims despite the fact that the United States has been voting by mail since the Civil War in the 1860s; that Trump himself voted by mail in several elections; and that few convictions are documented for criminals similar to mail-order voting fraud, i.e. in relation to the total number of votes cast.
On July 30, 2020, actress Mia Farrow drew attention to the latter point in a tweet stating that the United States had 143 cases of mail-order voting fraud in the more than 20 years:
This is largely correct.
Farrow referred to a voter fraud database compiled through the Heritage Foundation, an American conservative think tank founded in Washington, DC, that appears to have significant influence on the policies of the Trump administration. This database lists the types of electoral fraud, such as conversion, vote counting, vote buying and double voting, representing a total of “1,290 displayed cases of electoral fraud” (in more than 30 years), according to the site summary. Farrow’s tweet focused on a single category in the database: instances of “fraudulent use of mail-order ballots.”
This database does not include separate categories for “by mail” and “absent” votes.Some have argued that these are two separate voting methods, but there is no practical difference between those two terms.It should also be noted that while some have become voters fraud on a partisan issue, the Heritage Foundation database includes fraudulent attempts that would have benefited applicants from any party.
Farrow’s statement that the United States has had 143 convictions for “fraudulent use of mail order ballots” for more than 20 years is sometimes accurate.However, when we examined the database, we discovered only 136 ads classified in this category in this period.The discrepancy is likely due to the fact that entries in this database have been added or deleted since its initial publication.At the time of writing, the Heritage Foundation lists 145 convictions for criminals for mail voting fraud, dating back 32 years to 1988.
While the White House used this database to show that this absent voter fraud occurred, others used statistics to argue that this challenge is not widespread at all.Ellen Weintraub, commissioner of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), highlighted this statistic in a 66-tweet thread about Trump’s misleading accusations about voter fraud:
Although the Heritage Foundation has documented approximately 140 convictions for criminals for postal fraud over the more than 20 years, it is difficult to calculate this percentage as a percentage of the total number of votes for several reasons.For starters, the Heritage Foundation’s list is exhaustive.
The base writes:
This database is not an exhaustive or exhaustive list, does not capture all instances and does not capture reported instances that have not been investigated or processed, aims to demonstrate vulnerabilities in the electoral formula and the multiple tactics in which fraud is committed.
While this database would possibly not include all convictions for voter fraud, it uses a giant misleading pattern in one sense: the figures are used to argue about the prevalence of voter fraud in a presidential race, but the vast majority of examples do not.they fear fraud in presidential elections, but are similar to local and national elections.Arrangements such as careers for school board officials and positions at the local town hall.
We searched the database for lists related to the two main presidential applicants for more than 20 years (George W.Bush v. Al Gore in 2000; George W.Bush v. John Kerry in 2004; Barack Obama v. John McCain in 2008; Barack Obama v. Mitt Romney in 2012; and Donald Trump v. Hillary Clinton in 2016), and we discovered only four convictions for indexed criminals similar to mail fraud fraud fraud.One case concerned voting for the Democratic nominee (Kerry in 2004), while the other three concerned others voting for the Republican presidential nominee (Romney in 2012 and Trump twice in 2016).
Here are the Heritage Foundation lists similar to the presidential election (we highlight):
Kimberly Prude, a volunteer on the Kerry_Edwards, convicted of voting illegally by mail in the 2004 elections; she was already convicted of forgery in 2000; he was revoked on parole and lately is serving his sentence in prison.
When her husband died, Verna Roehm made the decision to comply with her last request: to vote for Mitt Romney in the 2012 election.Months after her death, Ms. Roehm completed and mailed a survey on her husband’s behalf.an audit was captured after the election through election officials; In the face of irregularity, Ms Roehm admitted that she had voted.Recognizing the rare cases in the case, the opinion ruled on Roehm as guilty of a misdemeanor rather than a felony.She wasn’t sentenced to prison.
Terri Lynn Rote tried to vote twice in the 2016 presidential election; Rote cited fears that the election was rigged to justify his attempt to vote two absentees for Donald Trump; Rote was arrested while trying to vote at the time of the vote.for electoral misconduct and sentenced to two years of probation and $750 fine.
Audrey Cook, an election ruling in Madison County, sent a marked poll for Donald Trump in the 2016 election on behalf of her recently deceased husband, and pleaded guilty to trying to violate the electoral code in exchange for reducing the perjury rate..
As illustrated in the examples above, these lists also vary in severity.All of the above lists involve an additional singles ballot, however, the database includes more serious examples, such as others who have tried to smuggle fraudulent signatures.
Since this database is not exhaustive, it includes examples involving exclusive fraudulent ballots and multiple fraudulent ballots, and includes not only presidential elections, but any local or national election, it is practically to calculate the percentage of votes represented through fraudulent ballots.However, the Array0006% cited through Farrow overestimates the non-unusual nature of voter fraud.
First, it turns out farrow has an out-of-place decimal place.Weintraub’s tweet indicates Array00006% (notArray0006%), which turns out to be taken from an article published in The Hill:
One hundred and forty-three cases of voter mail fraud over a 20-year period consisting of seven to 8 cases consistent with the year at the national level.It also means that in all 50 states, there were an average of 3 state-consistent cases in 20 years consistent with the year.It’s just a case consistent with the state every six or seven years.We are talking about an occasion that affects approximately 0.00006% of the total votes cast.
But even that can be too high.
If about 120 million others vote for the president per year (as they did in 2016), that’s about 600 million votes for the president over the more than 20 years.Primary elections get about half of the vote, so we can raise over 300 million votes to that total.We have no knowledge of the number of votes cast in municipal and state elections, so raise another hundred million votes for the sake of argument (the actual number is probably much higher if we have election in the state city in the last 20 years) for a total of one billion votes.This is a conservative estimate that does not include, for example, votes cast for a third-party candidate.and national elections over the more than 20 years are likely to exceed one billion.
With only about 140 convictions for voter fraud mailed in this period, this number accounts for about 0.000014% of the total votes cast.
Finally, it should be noted that the above statistics relate to convictions for criminals, i.e. this database highlights the good fortunes of the safeguards that have been put in place to prevent fraudulent attempts through the electorate through the mail.
Desilver, Drew.” Biggest turnout in the 2016 season, but just below the 2008 record.”Pew Research Center, June 10, 2016.
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