The number of instances they are finding is tiny. To put it into perspective I’d like to know what proportion of elections are decided by fewer than 50 or 100 votes. My feeling is that races that close are pretty rare but I’d like to see the data.
Secretaries of state (in this case, mainly of CA) should have the right to sue Trump for slander regarding unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.
Another claim in von Spakovsky’s report was that 3 percent of people called to jury duty in a court district that used voter registration for its jury pool were not citizens. Von Spakovsky had pulled that statistic from a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. Ho introduced the GAO report into evidence to show that the court district von Spakovsky chose had the highest percentage of non-citizens of all the court districts included in the GAO report.
The GAO report looked at eight court districts: Four had no cases of potential jurors being disqualified for not being citizens, while one had less than 1 percent and the other two around .1 percent of potential jurors claiming to be non-citizens.
In his defence, it was Betsy DeVos who did the calculations (" 1 + .1 + .1 percent = 3 percents")
People say Martin Skreli has a punchable face. I think Von Spakovsky is worse. My palm practically itches to slap him.
Five grand for a couple days of blather. Wingnut welfare in action. (And don’t say he spent time preparing, because if he did, Kansas deserves a refund.)
And, of course, as usual: if votes by ineligible voters could make the difference in a close election, so could the potential votes of eligible voters who are prevented from voting. But somehow never considered a problem by these evil twerps.
Can’t wait for the court’s written decision, in which the judge states that she finds that von Spakovsky is an unqualified witness with regard to certain aspects of his testimony and not a credible witness in all the others. And I’m still hoping she sanctions Kobach and his lawyers for wasting everyone’s time and money, and then awards fees to the ACLU.
But they did catch a couple of Republicans voting twice: once against the property tax on their declared residence and twice against the property tax on their vacation property.
I hope that point is brought up in the trial!
I’m feeling a good swift kick in his posterior brain would do it for me.
I wonder if there are more ineligible voters voting or more eligible voting in more than one district, county or state. The latter is problem Kobach keeps finding.
I was kind of surprised Hans only got paid $5,000. I mean, he’s the most well-known voter fraud conspriracist there is, other than perhaps Kobach himself, and he constantly, loudly and unabashedly lies.
But, then again, that’s $1,000 for each of the 5 illegal votes over a 20 year period in the Kansas county that they’ve been using to build their case around. So, not so bad on a per-illegal-vote basis.
There was also in one of those cases where the husband voted using his wife’s absentee ballot.
Spakovsky sold himself cheaply. Most experts would have charged a lot more. That indicates that this guy is on a mission and has a personal interest in voter suppression. I hope his cross examination made that clear.
The grift that keeps on fibbing.
I think what von Spakovsky does could fairly be termed “voter-fraud fraud.”
And yet, at the same time, he was overpaid!
I have to wonder how these people live with themselves?
Time after time after time, this crap gets shot down with actual data, but…and I pretty much guarantee this…
…even after Kobach and Von Spakovsky get done getting shredded here, they will be back out on the hustings, making speaking appearances and making EXACTLY the same claims of fraud in voting.
Remember that the large scale firing of US Attorneys during the Bush administration was launched when the attorneys pushed back at DOJ pressure to get out there and find examples of fraud. They were unable to do so and told DOJ that further efforts to pursue the issue were a waste of their time and resources. They got fired for their actions.
Here in PA they tried to launch a Voter ID law…the speaker of the House (GOP) rashly telling fellow party members that such a law would give PA to Mitt Romney. During state court hearings on the rationale for the law, the state’s Secretary of State, under oath, testified she was not aware of any illegal votes in the last PA election and did not anticipate any in the upcoming one. The law was declared illegal (and BTW, the GOP legislature gave the PR contract to promote the program to a firm with close ties to the GOP…what a coinkydink.)
It is all part of the years long effort to protect themselves using any means possible including Voter ID, intimidation of THOSE voters, gerrymandering, and advertising campaigns designed to frighten voters and divert them from voting for their own interests.
Of late, those messages, as evidenced by polls in the PA special congressional election, appear to be having little effect. At least some of the inmates have finally caught on. And in the meantime, the big GOP PACs are shelling out millions to try and save districts they would normally hold without breaking a sweat. Every dollar spent now puts more strain on the whole GOP system. Spend away.
I agree with the earlier comment- someone should bring suit against Kobach and Spakovsky for slander; libel and fraud in deliberately misleading the public contrary to the facts of the matter.
Every SoS in the country should drag these guys into court and demand a retraction and restitution.