Voter fraud still exists

Voter fraud still exists

An article titled “Voter List Accuracy Without Bias” appeared on the Opinion Page of the Times News on Feb. 4 (reprinted from the Scranton Times) in an apparent effort to assure the public that no voter fraud exists in Pennsylvania or the U.S.

Let me tell you that the opportunity for it certainly does exist, and the only way to help prevent it is with picture ID via driver’s license or passport taken by official county or state governments. The real fraud is believing that a computer system, ERIC, can prevent it by simply matching postal and Social Security records. If no birth and death certificate records are involved, how can it even hope to be accurate? Anyone can make up a name and address and apply for Social Security and get a number.

The only true evidence that a person exists is a birth certificate matched to a photo ID obtained and certified by the county of his/her birth. Even that could be forged.

“Dead people” have voted for years, especially in big cities. People who move around a lot into different voting districts can easily have opportunities to vote multiple times.

I personally know of a senior citizen who had three absentee ballots sent to her from different voting districts in which she had lived in the Philadelphia area to the senior home she lived in. I’m sure there are many other ways to “beat the system.” Since both political parties have complete access to district voter registration lists, it is easy to “keep alive” dead people, and create new fictitious ones by simple bookkeeping, especially if you know what the computer checks for.

I found it especially disturbing that the article stated that “none of the 14 states that used the (ERIC) system through November 2015 have reported any data errors. Logic alone would tell you that this is impossible to have no data entry (human entry) errors among millions or more entries that a system is cross-checking.

Either the system is programmed poorly or someone is either untrained or corrupt.

Another form of voter fraud is simply “stuffing the ballot box.” Some investigations into cities (specifically in Illinois) have shown that “total votes” exceeded the number of registered voters in some districts and zero or almost zero in others.

Voting systems without official birth certificates and matching photo IDs will always be extremely corrupt, especially now that computer voting is being allowed in certain places, further complicating verification.

David C. Heffelfinger

East Penn Township