Voter fraud: We've got proof it's easy « Watchdog.org

Voter fraud: We've got proof it's easy « Watchdog.org

"New York City's watchdog Department of Investigations has just provided the latest evidence of how easy it is to commit voter fraud that is almost undetectable.

"DOI undercover agents showed up at 63 polling places last fall and pretended to be voters who should have been turned away by election officials; the agents assumed the names of individuals who had died or moved out of town, or who were sitting in jail. In 61 instances, or 97 percent of the time, the testers were allowed to vote. Those who did vote cast only a write-in vote for a 'John Test' so as to not affect the outcome of any contest. DOI published its findings two weeks ago in a searing 70-page report accusing the city's Board of Elections of incompetence, waste, nepotism, and lax procedures.

[Here is a direct link to the New York City Department of Investigations report on the city's election bureau (72 pages, PDF).]

"The Board of Elections, which has a $750 million annual budget and a workforce of 350 people, reacted in classic bureaucratic fashion, which prompted one city paper to deride it as 'a 21st-century survivor of Boss Tweed-style politics.' The Board approved a resolution referring the DOI's investigators for prosecution. It also asked the state's attorney general to determine whether DOI had violated the civil rights of voters who had moved or are felons, and it sent a letter of complaint to Mayor Bill de Blasio."

MORE: WNYC's news story on the report.

MORE: A list of recent voter fraud stories, collected by the Republican National Lawyers Association.