In his March 25 executive order rewinding voting rights a century, the shah of maga alleged “dilution by illegal voting, discrimination, fraud, and other forms of malfeasance and error.” The order requires that all votes be counted by the end of Election Day. It also requires proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections.
The order relies on a lie: that fraud is corrupting American elections. Let’s not look far and take Flagler County’s recent elections to test the claim.
We’ve had 13 federal elections in Flagler County since 2016– presidential preferences, primaries and general. In that span, and not including this week’s special election, exactly 515,221 ballots have been cast in those races.
In those eight years, the supervisor’s office has had to remove five–five–voters from the rolls for citizenship ineligibility, Supervisor Kaiti Lenhart wrote me, or 0.3 voter per election. Notably, those registered voters were purged from the rolls; whether they had actually cast ballots is unclear.
Another 22 were denied registration when they filled out the form and supervisor staff vetted them, so they never made it into the books, and 27 didn’t check the citizenship box, so they, too, never got registered.
That’s it.
Most if not all of those can be chalked up to unawareness, not fraud. The other day I filled out a petition to legalize pot. I made two mistakes, and I’m at least semi-literate. It’s a wonder so few voter registrations have that problem, and when they do, our crack supervisor staff is there to take care of it.
That’s before we get into the canvassing board process, its own check on improper ballots. Anyone vaguely familiar with last year’s recount of the close Palm Coast City Council and Flagler County Commission races, including the candidates who lost, will tell you how amazed–how moved–they were by the integrity of the process and the canvassing board’s admirable impartiality. These board members’ aim, so at odds with the shah’s, is to make sure that every legitimate vote counts. After all that, Lenhart’s system triumphed above all, with its usual pinpoint accuracy. This was democracy at its best.
Flagler County is not the exception. It’s the rule. When Forida’s governor goonishly sicked his state police on a statewide hunt for illegal voters last year the best he could come up with were a couple of dozen schmucks who were unaware of their mistakes. They were mostly released felons who should have had their rights restored but for Florida’s continuing suppression of their votes. The governor in his kangaroo press releases portrayed them as dangerous enemies of the state before most of the charges were dropped.
Florida is not the exception, either. We have a case study of one of the supposed worst states for alleged voter fraud: Arizona. Even the Trump-friendly Cyber Ninja, that moronically motivated Florida company that conducted the audit of the 2020 vote concluded there was no fraud, while almost all its remaining claims were discredited. The company went out of business.
But as a nation of grand canyons between our exceptional ideals (all created equal, justice and liberty for all, to serve and protect, etc.) and our noxious realities (among the most unequal and the least free societies in the West, George Floyd, etc.), it’s of a piece that our record on voting rights is a continuing march against disenfranchisement. Edmund Pettus Bridge is still a bridge too far.
There are periods of great gains, like Reconstruction, Women’s suffrage and the lowering of the voting age, and periods of retreat, like Jim Crow, the gerrymandering of majority-minority districts, the post-Citizens United era of elections for sale, and voter suppression disguised as protection against voter fraud.
Lies, especially when grafted onto rampant bigotry against migrants, make suppression laws the red meat of reactionary states. It works. Despite the marginally higher turnout of the last two national elections, well over a third of Americans don’t vote. Media mask the apathy by almost always reporting turnout based on registered rather than eligible voters, creating another falsehood.
For example, 94 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the 2020 election. But only 66 percent of eligible voters did. It was still the best showing of the century, aided by a surge in mail-in voting. Then came red states’ war on drop-boxes and other methods that made mail-in voting easy. Turnout last year dropped to 64 percent. Some 90 million didn’t vote, 10 million more than in 2020. You can argue that the choices were not inspiring. Or stomach-turning. But it was no different in 2020.
For all that voters who want to vote will vote whatever the obstacles. But the election-denying shah’s order may make even that difficult for some, while invalidating millions of votes postmarked by Election Day, but not counted by then.
It’s true that nothing stops vote-counting from being as efficient as in Flagler County or the rest of Florida. But it took a scandal and the stolen election of 2000 to get us here. Many states haven’t had their hanging chad moment. Maybe the order will spur them to modernize. Meanwhile, it should not take vote-rigging and suppression to get us there.
The proof of citizenship provision is more pernicious. It requires voter registrations to be accompanied by proof of citizenship like a passport, or a government-issued ID card that indicates citizenship status. Only 48 percent of Americans have passports. That includes children. So the eligible-voter ratio is lower. Most driver’s licenses and even military ID cards don’t show citizenship status. Voters would have to acquire either a passport (cost: $165, and $135 to renew) or a specialized ID.
It is disenfranchisement on a mass scale, and it is entirely unnecessary. There is no fraud beyond a statistically meaningless level. The system is working. The fraud is the claim of fraud. But like all things democratic, Trump–the felon, the fabricator, the supreme fraud–wants to wreck it, as he has so much else.
Pierre Tristam is the editor of FlaglerLive. A version of this piece airs on WNZF.
Sue says
What’s the problem?? When I grew up there was 1 day to vote and counted.we shouldn’t have different rules for states letting it go on.That’s when fraud happens. If you want to vote you will make the effort!
Endless dark money says
The only frauds are the republicons. They cry falsely that there is fraud only if they loose after their restrictions on voting, gerrymandering, and of course dark money from unknown sources that surely wasn’t taxed, funding their campaigns. The media seems mainly complicit in the death of America and the birth of murikkka. You all feeling liberated yet hahahaha or more like Nazis2.0 stole your government to enrich themselves? I mean how much could make if you knew you were going to cause a global depression on a certain day? He more than doubled his wealth in 60 days how many of you all can say the same ? Haha
Mike P says
Sue hits the issue perfectly. There were 2 cases of voter fraud in 2024, that’s 2 too many! The numbers of voter fraud highly depend on what states care about it and actively pursue, investigate and prosecute the offenders. How many Blue states care? How many Blue states look the other way? Illegal aliens voting is a real concern, not a conspiracy theory. States like Ohio, Massachusetts, and Virginia, among others, have found illegal immigrants on the voter rolls, with many voting in major elections.