The ‘Dems do it’ rationale for GOP voter fraud
Republicans routinely cite the phantom menace of voter fraud as justification for imposing restrictions on voting, so it was only a matter of time before someone would use it to justify retaliating in kind.
A software developer who proposed an illegal voting scheme to help out-of-staters vote in New Hampshire elections defended it by claiming Democrats do it “all the time.” (The original message has been removed, but the ensuing debate remains.)
Writing on Reddit, in the Anarcho-Capitalism subreddit, starrychloe described her plan to create a website that would match out-of-state visitors with New Hampshire “hosts” who would facilitate the illegal voting.
“The visitors will register to vote in NH (no residency length requirements), and the host will provide them with all documentation necessary for residency purposes, possibly even a roommate lease or utility bill,” she explained. “When the new resident goes on ‘extended vacation’ to another state, they request an absentee ballot from the host and send it back through the host.”
Starrychloe said the goal of her scheme, first reported by Susan Bruce, is to “tip the scale” in favor of Free State Project libertarians. “I can match up people who don’t care about voting where they live now with a place in NH that needs more libertarian voters,” she wrote.
“In case you think this is shady, it’s not,” she wrote. “Democrats bus people from Massachusetts all the time on election day, and professors organize their out-of-state students to vote. … Also, a Philadelphia lawyer votes in two districts as well, one being in NH,” she added.
In an extensive analysis, the Brennan Center determined voter fraud is “more rare than death by lightning.” The study concluded, “There have been a handful of substantiated cases of individual ineligible voters attempting to defraud the election system. But by any measure, voter fraud is extraordinarily rare.”
In New Hampshire, the most recent allegations of voter fraud, promoted primarily by Ed Naile and the Coalition of New Hampshire Taxpayers, have proven to be a witch hunt in search of a crime.
Wilton town officials easily debunked the group’s claim of double voting that involved the “Philadelphia lawyer” mentioned by starrychloe. And in Dover, city officials determined the group’s letters to same-day registrants were returned by the post office as undeliverable, not because of registration irregularities, but due to “obvious clerical errors.”