“Our elections are being swayed and stolen by non-citizens voting!”
This is something I commonly hear when discussing fraud allegations in the state of MN, as well as at the federal level. Is it real, though? Every time I’ve asked the people alleging election fraud, all I get are crickets. The silence is deafening, but is it telling? If they can’t be bothered to find evidence for their case, I’mma go ahead and find the evidence that shows their argument is bad and they should feel bad.
Let’s start at the Presidential Election level, as that’s the most widely studied academically. The 2020 election results were um, “contested” enough by Donald Trump to literally start an Insurrection. DJT felt he was the rightful winner of the election, and blamed everyone else for his defeat. This sparked a lot of conversation about election security and fraudulent voting.
Much, much research has historically been done on these and similar claims. For example, a study entitled “The Politics of Voter Fraud” by Lorraine C. Minnite, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Science,Barnard College at Columbia University found that, “At the federal level, records show that only 24 people were convicted of or pleaded guilty to illegal voting between 2002 and 2005, an average of eight people a year”. Other key findings in her research point to most allegations of fraud actually being clerical errors or voter mistakes, not fraud.
It’s not just Dr. Minnite finding this out, either. In a 2017 article, the Brennan Center for Justice found in a comprehensive study, “Across 42 jurisdictions, election officials who oversaw the tabulation of 23.5 million votes in the 2016 general election referred only an estimated 30 incidents of suspected noncitizen voting for further investigation or prosecution. In other words, improper noncitizen votes accounted for 0.0001 percent of the 2016 votes in those jurisdictions”.
The last study I read focused on the 2020 election itself, and absolutely crushes the claims of fraud in the election in the most gloriously academic way. PNAS examines the different types of claims that were used to point to a stolen election individually, finding, again, no evidence of any truth to these claims. They, like all the others, conclude: “We have closely examined what we consider the most prominent statistical claims of fraud in the 2020 election. Although the claims are diverse, our conclusion is consistent: For each claim, we find that what is purported to be an anomalous fact about the election result is either not a fact or not anomalous”. See below for a link to this study!
I could find and examine countless more studies as a part of this post, but I think the point is clear. The bottom line is, at the federal level, there’s just no evidence of fraud in elections making a damn bit of difference.
My verdict? Trump is a crybaby shitpants who lost the election fair and square.
Now, onto the Minnesota state level! Admittedly there’s not as much evidence here, as the scrutiny has not been overly necessary until now. That being said, Virgil Wiebe, a Professor of Law at St. Thomas published a very credible and well-researched paper entitled “NEEDLES IN HAYSTACKS: Noncitizen Voting Violations in Minnesota” in May 2024. His findings take down common misconceptions, like Drivers Licenses for All leading to fraud. His findings align with what was found at the federal level: “Using research methods systematically like metal detectors in a barn full of haystacks, careful study of the vote in Minnesota has uncovered a very small number of noncitizen voting needles. These cases have resulted from confusion and individual error on the part of legal permanent residents and not from systemic efforts to undermine the vote. No cases were found of undocumented immigrants voting or registering”.
In conclusion, your Uncle Steve loudly yelling about how “THEM ILLEGALS ARE VOTING AND STEALING OUR ELECTIONS!!!!!” (all caps and too much punctuation used for accuracy) is, unsurprisingly, wrong. Despite having the confidence in their convictions that my 3 year old has in her ability to fly right before she faceplants off the couch, the people alleging these issues are arguing over a problem that’s as real as the DD boobs on my 125lb frame. Read: NOT.
Further research has been done by Cambridge University and others on how damaging these allegations lodged at the highest level is to voter confidence in this country. In a 2023 paper, they conclude, “…our study provides new insight into the effects of unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. We demonstrate that these allegations can undermine confidence in elections, particularly when the claims are politically congenial, and may not beeffectively mitigated by fact-checking. In this way, the proliferation of unsubstanti-ated claims of voter fraud threatens to undermine confidence in electoral integrity and contribute to the erosion of US democracy”. It’s my hope that we can spread these facts to put out the fires that these fake claims have started.
GOBLESS.
References:
1. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4839678
2. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2103619118
3. https://electionlab.mit.edu/research/projects/learning-from-elections/effect-of-voter-misperceptions
4. https://www.projectvote.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/Politics_of_Voter_Fraud_Final.pdf?inline=1
5. https://www.brennancenter.org/media/179/download/Report_Truth-About-Voter-Fraud.pdf?inline=1
6. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/noncitizen-voting-missing-millions
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