Talk:Electoral fraud in the United States

"voter impersonation should be made illegal"?

I'm not an attorney, but I believe that voter impersonation is fraud and is already criminal in all 50 states. Is there any evidence that it's not?

This claim should be reworded or removed -- unless clear evidence can be provided proving that it's NOT illegal in some jurisdiction in the US. DavidMCEddy (talk) 20:09, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

• I agree that this sentence, although sourced, is confusing and unclear, and so have removed it. Everymorning (talk) 23:07, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm loath to completely discard the reference to a potentially relevant paper in a law journal. The article begins, "The act of impersonation, where a person votes as some other person, living, dead, or fictitious, is a crime in many democratic jurisdictions." A footnote then mentions India, the UK, and South Africa, claiming, "The situation in the USA is discussed throughout the article." On p. 169, they say, "[I]n many jurisdictions, perhaps most saliently the USA, there may be very good political and/or practical reasons for both widening voting mechanisms and for not making the barriers to registration and voting too onerous or complex. ... [M]easures such as postal voting, and generally the relaxing of administrative barriers to registration and voting, increase the opportunities for personation."

However, unless someone can provide further evidence that it's NOT criminal in the US, I'm content to leave this reference in this Talk page. I could not find other references to the US in that paper. I remember hearing in August, 2016, a claim that voter impersonation was already a crime, at least in Kansas and I think Missouri, punishable by perhaps as much as 15 years in prison, though the penalties probably vary between states in the US.

And I've not heard anyone suggesting doing away with such criminal penalties. Indeed, the Secretary of State of Kansas requested and received in 2015 the power to prosecute such cases. And he got all of two convictions in almost a year. (A Kansas City Star editorial suggested this was a Republican witch hunt, and Kobach “should be stripped of his power to prosecute these cases.”) DavidMCEddy (talk) 23:53, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

References

Bundling footnotes

User:Shaded0 removed one of seven footnotes in a single place, because of WP:CITEKILL. I restored the one deletion while bundling all seven, per Wikipedia:Citing sources#Bundling citations.

WP:CITEKILL says, "Two or three may be a good way of preventing linkrot for online sources or providing a range of sources that support the fact, but more than three should usually be avoided; if more than three are truly beneficial as an additional range, consider bundling (merging) the citations."

I therefore bundled all these references while restoring the one that was deleted. This is such a controversial topic, I think it's useful to keep all seven footnotes. DavidMCEddy (talk) 02:56, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

The Wash Times piece about driving licenses in NH has nothing to do with voter impersonation

This rubbish Wash Times story about people using out-of-state driving licenses when voting in New Hampshire has nothing to do with voter impersonation[1]. There is as far as I know nothing that prohibits someone with an out of state license from voting in NH and there's no reason to expect that they're not allowed to vote because of it. Here's a story by AP (an actual reliable source) about this horseshit, which makes it clear that there's nothing here that demonstrates voter impersonation or voter fraud[2]. 19:00, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Not A Thorough List

This is not a very thorough list of voter fraud. There is a better list here:

• Voter Fraud — Preceding unsigned comment added by ExportTester (talk • contribs) 20:54, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

• I don't think Wikipedia needs to copy Conservapedia. In Wikipedia articles on controversial topics "the two sides actually engaged each other and negotiated a version of the article that both can more or less live with. This is a rare sight indeed in today’s polarized political atmosphere, where most online forums are echo chambers for one side or the other”, according to Peter Binkley in an invited 2006 article for the Canadian Library Association magazine Feliciter. No source is perfect. However, the rules of evidence in refereed academic journals is plausibility among other leading experts. The rules of evidence in legal proceedings in the US tend to be more adversarial and perhaps tighter than typical refereed academic journals. By contract, the rules of evidence in the mainstream media seems to be whatever most advances the social status of those who control media funding and governance. And the rules of evidence for a source like Conservapedia seems to be constrained by how well any source fits with their ideology. DavidMCEddy (talk) 00:43, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

I note that your source is about “voter fraud,” including false registrations and absentee ballot fraud, and no one disputes those things happen, and voter ID laws do nothing to stop them. But this article is specifically about impersonation, which voter ID laws purportedly seek to stop, despite numerous studies finding it exceedingly rare. soibangla (talk) 02:02, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

References

Agreed. I remember when history books would give notable examples dating back hundreds of years. The only thing I see here is a statement that Trump made accusations of fraud in his election and a bunch of people saying it's rarely common. I also remember watching period pieces 20 years ago that would portray it happening in the early 1900's. Wikipedia is a joke. Jawz101 (talk) 04:52, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

... the articles is even intentionally not labeled fraud and commenters argue that impersonation is not a form of fraud. Redefining fraud to exclude impersonation, forgery, or basically any form of intentional misrepresentation Jawz101 (talk) 04:57, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

... is fraud Jawz101 (talk) 04:58, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Could foreign interference and hacking be considered voter fraud?

I am not talking about the narrative that is continually pushed by conservatives and Trump, such as thousands of illegals (or at least their definition of "illegals") compromising American elections. We know based on the empirical evidence that that type of voter fraud is rare. What I am talking about is foreign interference in the elections. Remember the Russian interference in the elections of 2016, 2018 and 2020? At least most of the 2016 interference was not voter fraud per se, but it did stir up ire and chaos in the political system. Russia was basically acting as if it were the 51st state of the United States, unlawfully casting its vote to compromise democracy. Now it seems that they (and possibly other enemy countries) are engaged in hardcore tactics such as hacking and manipulating the electoral system, and it is possible that in doing so, the hackers can cast their votes looking as if they came from real American citizens. That would make a good case of voter fraud. Is this in any way relevant to this article, or are the separate articles on the interferences sufficient? GaɱingFørFuɲ³⁶⁵ 21:56, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Can you find documents published by sources that are normally considered reliable saying that hackers are casting "votes looking as if they came from real American citizens" when they are not coming from those citizens?

If you can find such, then I would support, e.g., adding a new subsection under "Reporting and investigation: with a title something like "2020 vote fraud allegations".

The sources don't have to be unimpeachable, only plausible, generally considered reliable, and their claims accurately described in neutral terms, e.g., "On 18 October 2019 ABC News alleged that ...", and cite a source that contains claims appropriately summarized in what you write.

If your most reliable sources are publications like the National Enquirer, then I might not support including anything here unless you found a large number of such sources. In the latter case, I would suspect to find stories in more mainstream publications summarizing these claims as questionable, likely false, or vastly overstated. Then the section might be modeled after the Wikipedia article on "Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories", only on a much smaller scale.

Thanks for asking. DavidMCEddy (talk) 00:33, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Serious problems with article requiring major changes or deletion?

The problems with this article are numerous, to the point where it might be better deleted than continuing in its current form:

• There is a long history of voter fraud in the US, real and imagined, which seems to be entirely left out of this article, with literally nothing on the topic addressing its history prior to 1968. One could read the article and believe that there has never been any voting fraud in US history, a laughable proposition. There's a great Wiki article on LBJ's Senate election in 1948; surely fake ballots count as "voter impersonation"?

This article begins, "Voter impersonation ... is a form of electoral fraud in which a person who is eligible to vote in an election votes more than once, or ... by voting under the name of an eligible voter." "Fake ballots" and LBJ's Senate election of 1948 seem different to me. DavidMCEddy (talk) 21:23, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

• Most of the article seems to be a long (and slanted) screed arguing against Voter ID laws (which have their own article). For example, the "University of California, San Diego study (2017)" section has nothing to do with voter fraud, other than as a purported justification for Voter ID laws.
• Half the introduction to the article is about President Trump's unsupported claims, which can't possibly be among the most relevant facts about the entire topic.
• Why is the article called "Voter impersonation" and not "Voter fraud", when it includes the issue of illegal aliens and non-citizens voting, which is not "impersonation" but a different sort of "fraud"?

I've made some relatively minor edits because the article had a passage without citation that suggested the Pew report found that there was "no evidence of voter fraud" — which is true, but only because the report didn't look for or address fraud at all. He also made broader statements about the lack of voter fraud, but not in the context of "even with the out-of-date data". Bizarrely, this is also covered under an entire section, "Pew Report (2012)" — which is about how the Pew Report has nothing to do with the subject of the article! Another prime example of what a mess this article is.

I also removed a sentence: "On the contrary, inefficiencies in the electoral system resulted in 51 million American citizens being prevented from registering to vote…" as it isn't relevant to the article topic and isn't "contrary" to anything preceding.

I'm sure someone who works on this page can come up with better — and I'm happy to contribute any way I can. Else, perhaps it should be considered for deletion? Thanks! Elle Kpyros (talk) 19:08, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

This article has received 134 total edits by 57 editors since it was created 2015-12-09. It has attracted 42,327 pageviews since 2017-07-05. I don't think it would be sensible to try to delete it at this point.

However, I agree that there is a need for an article with a name like "Electoral fraud in the United States", and there isn't one. Meanwhile, this article has attracted edits relating to that, since it's far easier (and often more sensible) to edit an existing article than create a new one.

Further, I would support "Electoral fraud in the United States" as the name, because there is already a Category:Electoral fraud in the United States, and this article carries that category.

Also, I think we should create "Vote fraud in the United States", being an alias, autoforwarded to "Electoral fraud in the United States". This latter title is what came first to my mind, but the English language is defined by usage, not by me ;-) I would support also creating "Voter fraud in the United States" as another alias autoforwarded to this article.

Wikipedia has an article entitled "Wikipedia:Moving a page" describing how to change the name of an article like this. If you can create the time to read that article and follow the process outlined therein, I would support that (though I don't see myself creating the time to take the lead in that).

Thanks for raising this issue. DavidMCEddy (talk) 19:52, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

@Ekpyros Four years later: I added an 'early history' section (19th-early 20th century) but it's not my area of expertise, so if I missed any significant cases feel free to add them. JSwift49 16:18, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the concerns discussed above -- namely that there is no general voting fraud in the U.S. article, and this article deals with a subset of fraud, voter impersonation, but redirects from voter fraud generally. It is also is focused on contemporary issues in voter fraud -- which would be fine, except historical examples like LBJ's senate election are neglected. I'm not experienced enough to feel confident in addressing this problem comprehensively. This looks to me like it should be a sub part of a much larger article. JArthur1984 — Preceding undated comment added 15:45, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

At this moment 2022-06-21 this article includes 100 "References" to sources routinely considered credible by most Wikipedians. That's far too much material to be absorbed in another article. To make this article a candidate for deletion, most of those references would have to be removed on claims that they weren't relevant or were improperly described, and I don't see any evidence of that. DavidMCEddy (talk) 16:45, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

DavidMcEddy your point is persuasive to me. I agree that the material here is good (for what it addresses). We would not want this much good work lost. What is the solution - expand this current article in scope? JArthur1984 (talk) 21:14, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't see a need for any major change. DavidMCEddy (talk) 21:23, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Serious problems redux

I am a wikipedia editing know nothing, but isn't there some type of rational oversight that prevents such biased drivel from being published..I mean this is just ridiculous.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rickbadertscher (talk • contribs) 22:27, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

@Rickbadertscher: Wikimedia Foundation rules asks people to write from a neutral point of view citing credible sources.

Informally "bias" refers to something that conflicts with my preconceptions. In scientific circles and in Wikimedia Foundation projects, "bias" means a systematic deviation from the best available evidence.

The rules of evidence in the court of public opinion is whatever will maximize the power of those who control the money for the media. The rules of evidence in a court of law are sometimes more balanced, actually requiring evidence. In Fish v. Kobach, Judge Julie Robinson, appointed to the bench by US President George W. Bush, a Republican, concluded that then-Kansas Secretary of state Kris Kobach had prevented almost 1,000 US citizens from registering to vote for every non-citizen he could find who had registered. The question of non-citizens registering to vote is different but related to voter impersonation.

For a summary of my work in this and related issues, I invite you to review Wikiversity:Electoral integrity in the United States. An alternative perspective is provided by Wikiquote:Paul Weyrich, especially his 1980 remarks to a religious roundtable, where he ridiculed his colleagues who wanted good government saying they had "The Goo-Goo Syndrome: Good Government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. ... [O]ur leverage in the elections goes up as the voting populous goes down."

If you have substantive documentation that this article is biased, I want to know. So far, all the serious evidence I have found suggests that the claims of voter impersonation and widespread voter fraud seem like a cover for big money efforts to divide the body politic and make it easier to pick their pockets.

Thanks for your support of Wikipedia. DavidMCEddy (talk) 00:47, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

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Misrepresented Quote From Listed Sources

(Totally new to editing on Wikipedia. Read it every day and now trying to do my part.)

At the top of this article it states that, Existing research and evidence shows that voter impersonation is extremely rare. Between 2000 and 2014, there were only 31 documented instances of voter impersonation. It then goes on to cite three sources.

1. The first source is an article published by The Washington Post in 2014. It cites another Washington Post article for its reference to 31 documented instances of voter impersonation. (Which also happens to be the second listed source for this quote.) The rest of the article offers no analysis on how this number was achieved this number and is more focused around voter ID Laws.

2. The second source is the Washington Post article which was cited by the source above. It is written by Professor Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola University Law School. He outlines his research into voter fraud instances. Again, the totality of this article is focused more around voter ID laws and not voter impersonation as a whole. Regardless, he goes on to cite 44 individual cases of voter impersonation and explains how only 31 of those could have been prevented through voter ID laws. However, there are still 13 remaining cases which still are documented instances of voter impersonation. even if they couldn't have been prevented by Voter ID laws.

3. The third source published by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law incorrectly cites the second source mentioned above. It states that, A comprehensive 2014 study published in The Washington Post found 31 credible instances of impersonation fraud from 2000 to 2014, out of more than 1 billion ballots cast. Even this tiny number is likely inflated, as the study’s author counted not just prosecutions or convictions, but any and all credible claims There's a missing second piece to their claim which is that the Professor Justin Levitt found 31 credible instances of impersonation fraud which would have been prevented by voter fraud. He still states that the remaining 13 were documented instances of voter impersonation.

I believe the above referenced quote in this article should be removed. The references are more focused on voter ID laws and don't fit very well here. Additionally, the time period referenced isn't very recent. Otherwise it should more accurately state, "Existing research and evidence shows that voter impersonation is extremely rare. Between 2000 and 2014, there were only 31 documented instances of voter impersonation which could have been prevented with a voter ID law" Which doesn't fit in this article, given that it is not focused around voter ID law. Another option would be, "Existing research and evidence shows that voter impersonation is extremely rare. Between 2000 and 2014, there were only 44 documented instances of voter impersonation." Which feels wholly unsatisfying.

I believe the quote, "Existing research and evidence shows that voter impersonation is extremely rare." Should remain given the information that follows.

References

Tribune Pontius Aquila (talk) 04:27, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

@Tribune Pontius Aquila: Standard advice on Wikipedia:Be bold but not reckless ;-)

I have not studied the sources in detail. However, your discussion sounds sensible to me. If someone else doesn't like the change, they can change it back or offer something they think is better.

Quesion: Is your account configured so you get emails when a Wikipedia article you are watching changes? I ask, because my use of {{re|Tribune Pontius Aquila}} above appeared in red for me. That made me wonder if you would get an email. If you can use help with that, see Help:Notifications. DavidMCEddy (talk) 12:02, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm finding the first post hard to follow, without an overall explanation of what part of the offending passage(s) are in and explanation of why it/they aren't appropriate for this article. I notice the first paragraph of the lead is about US electoral fraud in general, but the second paragraph is about what kinds of electoral fraud are most discussed (according to this Wikipedia article). This creates a potential fallacy, in that the most discussed forms of fraud may not be the ones that pose the greatest risk of changing an election.

I've reverted to a version of the article dated 15:11, 20 July 2024 UTC.

It seems to me the 31 cases are reasonably well justified as likely cases of voter impersonation, which is how they are described. The number 44 seems to apply to this from the Levitt article:

In elections from October 2008 through June 2011, 44 individuals with names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers matching the information of individuals listed as incarcerated were recorded as having cast ballots in person in Michigan. It is not clear whether records were further investigated to determine whether the matches represent fraudulent votes or clerical errors in either the incarceration records or the voting records.

Not sure this is a good number to use at all, since it could be mostly clerical errors. Also, it does not at all fit the definition of voter impersonation. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:27, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

The numbers are incorrect though. This wikipedia article states it as "only 31 documented instances of voter impersonation."

The original Washington Post article, which the other two lists as it's source, never at any point says that there are "only 31 documented instances of voter impersonation." It states that Professor Justin Levitt documented 31 instances of documented, in-person voter fraud that would have been prevented by stricter rules around identification at the polling place. I believe the two are very different. You could have more than 31 instances of in-person voter fraud which couldn't be prevented by voter ID laws. This is a misleading excerpt which cuts off an important piece at the end.

The 44 number comes from Professor Levitt stating that out of the 44 cases he found, only 31 of them could have been prevented with voter ID laws.

This sentence should be removed or have the line "that would have been prevented by stricter rules around identification at the polling place." added to it. Tribune Pontius Aquila (talk) 17:47, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Rasmussen poll

I am confused as to why this was removed:

A 2023 poll by Rasmussen Reports of mail-in voters found that 17% of 2020 mail-in voters admitted to voting in a state where they were no longer a permanent resident, and that 21% admitted filling out a ballot for a friend or family member. The poll was met with skepticism by Philip Bump of the Washington Post, who noted that Rasmussen had previously promoted election denialism.

Rasmussen is in the Real Clear Politics average, [3] and Wikipedia includes Rasmussen polls, for example here: [4] so I think if we include that the Washington Post noted the pollster's viewpoint bias, it's fine. JSwift49 19:36, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

( edit conflict ) In this edit JSwift49 (talk · contribs) that 17% of mail-in voters admitted to voting in a state where they were no longer a permanent resident, and that 21% admitted filling out a ballot for a friend or family member. The added paragraph attributed the claims to a poll by Rasmussen Reports, and also mentions that poll was met with scepticism by Philip Bump of the Washington Post.

Since Rasmussen Reports has been described as Republican-leaning both by Bump and the Wikipedia article about it, I don't think this paragraph should be present unless we can establish that Rasmussen Reports is a reliable source. I think the principle Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence also applies. Since 17% is a plausible number for the total number of people who moved state-to-state in the years leading up to the 2020 election, it seems extraordinary to claim that just about all of those who moved voted in the wrong state (although the information available doesn't state the exact wording of the question in the poll).

I also object to the only citation being to a Washington Post article by Bump which takes a negative view to the poll and Rasmussen Reports in general. The meaning of poll questions depends critically on how the questions are worded and how the poll is conducted. Not having a citation to Rasmussen Reports makes the meaning of the poll hard to evaluate.

I'll also point out the conduct that seems to be described in the poll isn't always illegal. Military members and their families are allowed to vote at their address of record, even if they are stationed elsewhere (foreign or domestic). And assisting a voter to fill out a ballot is often allowed, although just casting votes without asking the voter how the voter wants to vote is illegal. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:38, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Here is the source to the poll [5] I only saw positive coverage of the poll in local news (e.g. [6]) or conservative sites like the Washington Examiner [7]. Rasmussen is quite partisan so if we are not treating the Examiner, FOX News, NY Post as reliable, it wouldn't be either. However RCP and Wikipedia include their polls alongside other pollsters. So that's what I didn't get. JSwift49 19:58, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

In general, it's OK for a source to be biased, as long as it doesn't lie and isn't careless about the truth of the information it presents. I don't regard FOX News as honest. I haven't read the Examiner. I also haven't read the NY Post except to glance at the headlines on news stands; the headlines were enough to make me pick a different newspaper. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:34, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I was referring to Perennial Sources. [8] Fox and NY Post are classed as unreliable, Examiner is no consensus but should not be used to substantiate extraordinary claims. If the poll is judged as an extraordinary claim Rasmussen should not be used for that purpose. But then it is used for that purpose in other Wikipedia articles. Hm JSwift49 22:08, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Loch ness monster quote

@Jc3s5h: Am I correct that you removed the following:

In October 2020, Republican election lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg wrote:

I spent four decades in the Republican trenches, representing GOP presidential and congressional campaigns, working on Election Day operations, recounts, redistricting and other issues, including trying to lift the consent decree.... Nearly every Election Day since 1984 I've worked with Republican poll watchers, observers and lawyers to record and litigate any fraud or election irregularities discovered. The truth is that over all those years Republicans found only isolated incidents of fraud. Proof of systematic fraud has become the Loch Ness Monster of the Republican Party. People have spent a lot of time looking for it, but it doesn't exist.

What's the problem with this quote? It's in the Wikipedia article on Benjamin Ginsberg (lawyer). If the quote is NOT in The Washington Post article cited, then it should be removed from the Wikipedia article on Ginsberg.

If that verbiage is in The Washington Post article cited, then I think something of that nature belongs in this article, though it may be abbreviated, e.g.,:

In October 2020, Republican election lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg wrote:

Nearly every Election Day since 1984 I've worked ... to record and litigate any fraud or election irregularities discovered. ... [O]ver all those years Republicans found only isolated incidents of fraud. Proof of systematic fraud has become the Loch Ness Monster of the Republican Party. ... [I]t doesn't exist.

??? Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 21:32, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

That part of the edit I reverted was off the bottom of my screen and I didn't notice it. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:36, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I restored the quote in abbreviated form: This article is long enough. It doesn't need the longer version ;-) DavidMCEddy (talk) 21:55, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I moved the quote to the Trump section, I think it's in a much better place. It didn't have to do with voter impersonation (where it originally was) but it's perfect to add context to Republican actions in 2020. JSwift49 23:02, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I moved the abbreviated version to 'Frequency' section since it is more relevant there (discusses 4 decades) than in a section on Trump Superb Owl (talk) 17:14, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I strongly oppose (and have reverted unless consensus) as while it's an important quote, it only talks about the Republican Party so it's not an encyclopedic summary. It's perfect for the Trump section because it was written in response to Trump, and while it mentions the history of the GOP that is important context to his actions. JSwift49 14:08, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

There was no consensus to move it to that section in the first place from what I can tell but will see what others have to say. It discusses Republicans because Republicans are the ones pushing this narrative of voter fraud - not sure what is unencyclopedic with that Superb Owl (talk) 15:31, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

As a compromise I included it as a citation in the lead of 'frequency' (with the quote spelled out in the source). I think that's appropriate/proportionate. JSwift49 18:34, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I believe I removed it… I didn’t see a good place for it. It wasn’t a study and wasn’t addressing a specific type of fraud. JSwift49 21:56, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

References

DavidMCEddy (talk) 21:32, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Possible inclusion from AP wrt Ohio

Here's a RS (AP) stating "Ohio’s elections chief on Wednesday referred for possible prosecution 597 apparent noncitizens who either registered to vote or cast a ballot in a recent election."

Link: https://apnews.com/article/ohio-voters-citizenship-referrals-42799a379bdda8bca7201d6c42f99c65 73.123.180.173 (talk) 15:50, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

The Ohio attorney general might or might not take an interest in these cases. My guess is that if any further investigation is done, it will be found that the majority of the instances will turn out to be non-citizens with similar names to citizens, cases where the DMV automatically registered someone to vote but it can't be proven the person affirmatively stated they are a citizen, people who didn't click a citizen box on a DMV record but who are citizens, or people who have a record with USCIS because they entered the US before they had US passports, but now have proof of citizenship and didn't inform USCIS of the change. (This could be through obtaining a passport or a Consular Report of Birth Abroad, which are issued by the US State Department, which doesn't talk to USCIS.)

The 595 instances of possible non-citizen voting or registration can be compared with the removal of 154,995 registrations. That last number demonstrates that voter registration roles are not highly accurate records and a substantial number of innocent errors should be expected. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:47, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Agreed - we should stop including speculations like this that seem politically motivated. This page is turning into a laundry list of 'possible noncitizen' stats with no reliable evidence suggesting that is the case Superb Owl (talk) 23:14, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

It could go in 'estimates of frequency', but the 'non-citizen voting' section already has figures from Arizona, Virginia and Alabama. If a number of convictions occur out of this, it can go under 'Notable cases'. JSwift49 15:34, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Arizona, Virginia and Alabama 'figures' are very dubious and their inclusion was done in a very NPOV way by @JSwift49. I honestly do not think they should be included at all and we should only include reliable secondary sources Superb Owl (talk) 23:15, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Agree. The amount of speculation has been very high in the last few years and highly partisan. Even ignoring that, why would an encyclopedia include any speculation? O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:31, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I quickly collapsed them into one sentence and am trying to streamline the problematic ODU study - not sure it needs a whole paragraph, let alone the 3 it had before Superb Owl (talk) 00:55, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I disagree with removing the Arizona study in particular, as it was reported on in the Washington Post and impacted a court decision (with the judge saying it was credible). But I agree that it was missing context before. With context, it provides additional evidence that Richman's 2014 study was flawed.

As for states, there has certainly been speculation, but we also can't disregard that state agencies have reported small numbers of potential non-citizens being removed from rolls. I think if we summarize it like the AP did: [9] that several GOP states have done reviews that turned up small numbers of potential non-citizens, and mention an example like Virginia with appropriate context, it is more encyclopedic than not mentioning them at all. JSwift49 15:47, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Maybe you can pitch a reworked version of the Arizona study including the history of the author for context but the author does not seem particularly credible so I am hesitant to include it. Not impressed by GOP governors and politicians making claims that they do not provide evidence for Superb Owl (talk) 15:50, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

What I'm not getting here is why figures from government investigations are "speculation". It's one thing to remove politicians claiming fraud exists based on anecdotal/false evidence. But when state agencies conduct investigations and find several hundred or thousand potential non-citizens, that seems absolutely notable and WP:DUE to me.

I would in fact argue that it provides added context to the article: even Republican states counting potential non citizens only find them to be a small part of the electorate. JSwift49 17:01, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

These are not neutral investigations. When they are exposed to the slightest scrutiny, many have fallen apart. Why would we include preliminary 'results' of 'possible' non-citizens registered and not wait for a verified, final tally from a more reliable source than a politician? Superb Owl (talk) 17:16, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Are there any notable investigations that fell apart that you can share? If so they would be good to mention as context alongside the above investigations. JSwift49 17:52, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

These are no different from voter roll purges which are very imprecise and capture large numbers of voters who should not be removed. Superb Owl (talk) 17:58, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

In 2019 Texas questioned the status of almost 100,000 registered voters. The effort stumbled when, within days, it was found that 25,000 of the names had been added by mistake. The effort was blocked by a federal judge and in April 2019 the Texas secretary of state agreed as part of a legal settlement to abandon the effort. -- Jc3s5h (talk) 21:13, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

@JSwift49: Have you read Fish v. Kobach?

Steven Wayne Fish and others sued Kris Kobach, then Secretary of State of Kansas, for unlawful denial of the right to vote. Kobach claimed there was a massive problem of vote fraud by people not legally allowed to do so, including 11.3 percent of non-citizens residing in the US amounting to some 3.2 million votes in 2016. The court found that "31,089 total applicants ... [representing] 12.4% of new voter registrations [were denied] between January 1, 2013 and December 11, 2015". Meanwhile, Kobach, who claimed this was a massive problem, provided evidence of only 39 cases of non-citizens having registered to vote in Kansas, which represented only "0.002% of all registered voters.

Moreover, Kobach called Hans von Spakovsky as an expert witness, whose testimony included citing a U.S. GAO study that 'found that up to 3 percent of the 30,000 individuals called for jury duty from voter registration roles over a two-year period in just one U.S. district court were not U.S. citizens.' On cross-examination, Spakovsky acknowledged that he had failed to mention 7 other jurisdictions reporting percentages of noncitizens called for jury duty: 4 were 0. The other 3 were less than 1%.

I think Spakovsky should be tried for perjury, because he clearly intended to deceive the court in his testimony.

Moreover, "The voting rate among purported noncitizen registrations on [a Kansas temporary driver license] match list is around 1%, whereas the voting rate among registrants in Kansas more generally is around 70%."

Judge Robinson, an H. W. Bush appointee, noted that "400 individuals [in Kobach's Election Voter Information System] have birth dates after their date of registration, indicating they registered to vote before they were born." I don't know how many of those actually voted before they were born. DavidMCEddy (talk) 21:50, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Replying since pinged: Def deserves the mention in the article it has JSwift49 00:12, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

It sounds like we have consensus to remove Hans von Spakovsky, not sure why he was re-added? Superb Owl (talk) 15:21, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't agree to remove Hans von Spakovsky: He's a clear example of leading personalities to deliberately defraud the public on this issue, orchestrated by Kris Kobach, then Secretary of State of Kansas. I'd be pleased with any wordsmithing that makes that point better. DavidMCEddy (talk) 17:41, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I removed him from being quoted as a former FEC commissioner in an unrelated section that did not provide any context as to the Kobach case or any other controversies on the issue. Superb Owl (talk) 18:14, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Given the desire for more context, I included him in the non-citizen section, in a sentence which clarifies 1) he's a Republican and 2) that claims of widespread fraud were unsupported by evidence. JSwift49 13:46, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

You continue to misunderstand the consensus here. This addresses none of the concerns around portraying Hans accurately in relation to Kobach case. Superb Owl (talk) 20:21, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

I added the descriptor agreed on here in the article. Really shocking that he was not convicted of perjury after reading more about that case. And not an isolated incident either Superb Owl (talk) 06:41, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

The consensus wasn't to remove him either though. If we just describe him as "Hans von Spakovsky, who gave false information..." and don't say anything else about who he is, that's not NPOV.

I have moved mention of von Spakovsky to the Kobach case, and added his claim about the GAO study as mentioned by DavidMcEddy. Replaced with Mike Johnson as a 'prominent Republican' JSwift49 13:32, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

References

Notable examples

Is anyone else concerned that listing every example of voter fraud that receives press coverage is WP:UNDUE? For a phenomenon that is described as 'rare' 'very rare' 'exceedingly rare' and 'almost never occurs' devoting that much space of an article to exceptions seems like WP:FALSEBALANCE to me Superb Owl (talk) 14:36, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

The article is called 'Electoral fraud in the United States', not 'Why electoral fraud doesn't occur in the United States'. Listing particularly notable cases of fraud (not "every example" as claimed) is in no way WP:UNDUE for this article and is in fact necessary for it to be encyclopedic. The article already discusses in detail why each type of fraud is rare, and has an entire section devoted to Trump's false claims. JSwift49 16:21, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I do not follow your logic here. I also want to point out that many of the examples are listed twice - once in that standalone section and in other sections as well Superb Owl (talk) 22:50, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

If many examples are listed twice, the article should be rewritten to eliminate the duplication. When each duplicate is eliminated, the Edit summary should say, "eliminate example mentioned in the section on _____". DavidMCEddy (talk) 00:46, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I take your points about duplication so I removed the three cases also listed in the 'Mail-in ballot fraud' section; there's just one duplicate now and its second mention is that it was cited by an expert. JSwift49 14:36, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Lead

1) Propose removing 'United States elections' from the lead as it implies voter fraud in national elections despite the evidence of fraud existing mainly in local elections.
2) Propose removing 'with some experts stating that mail-in voting is more vulnerable to fraud than voting in-person' from lead as WP:UNDUE. Mail-in fraud is considered very rare. Superb Owl (talk) 15:18, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

1) It implies no such thing, since it clarifies in the same sentence fraud has mostly affected elections at the local level. If you go to United States elections it takes you to Elections in the United States, which begins with "In the politics of the United States, elections are held for government officials at the federal, state, and local levels."

2) Not WP:UNDUE. If we are summarizing the lead sentences of each of the four types, each is listed as very rare, and additionally multiple experts have said mail in fraud is more likely to occur than in-person. Saying something is rare but more likely to occur than other rare events is encyclopedic. JSwift49 16:27, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I am not addressing the article, per se, but instead your editing rationales. Your justifications for removing sourced content is troubling, in this case with 2:... whether or not mail-in fraud is actually rare or not is beside the point. The fact is, "some experts" do indeed state that it's more vulnerable, and it's very well sourced. Marcus Markup (talk) 17:26, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I disagree with both of your perspectives so far but will gladly hold off on using that logic until others can weigh-in and we can get consensus on this Superb Owl (talk) 17:35, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Context of public opinion

Propose adding back the chart that shows the full context of the Berkeley poll. Given that election fraud conversation impacts all of these other election concerns (as mentioned in this article) it seems very relevant to include this poll Superb Owl (talk) 15:27, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Reversion and re-adding of objective edits

@JSwift49, I noticed some more removal of reliable sources, valuable examples and watering-down of language throughout the article before we have been able to reach consensus on which language to use (such as deciding between describing voter fraud as 'extremely rare' or 'very rare' or both). I reverted your edits and manually added back the ones that seemed constructive. Superb Owl (talk) 16:18, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Useless and nothing more than venting, without diffs. Marcus Markup (talk) 16:34, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

This diff needs consensus. Those two are different, not redundant. I chose 'quite rare' as a hopefully more precise term that is more agreeable. Superb Owl (talk) 16:41, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm good with 'quite rare'. JSwift49 18:07, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

How about 'highly rare' in the lead? JSwift49 18:08, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Highly rare is not a phrase that is really used in English and seems imprecise. Extremely rare is already somewhat watered-down. I think that is appropriate for the lead unless you prefer to go back to listing two descriptors like 'very rare' and 'exceedingly rare'. Superb Owl (talk) 18:13, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Ok, let's just stick with the two descriptors JSwift49 18:24, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

The only thing I think it makes sense to remove is 'occurence' - which seems a bit awkward/unnecessary. We could just say "Electoral fraud in the United States is considered by most experts to be very or extremely rare." Superb Owl (talk) 18:42, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Hm I see your point though would prefer keeping 'occurrence' so that that sentence and the 'estimates of frequency' sentence aren't exactly the same. I agree if there was one adjective it would work better. I searched 'highly rare occurrence' and it came up in several news/academic articles, what's the concern about imprecision? JSwift49 18:59, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

It just obfuscates and waters down the sentence unnecessarily. I am going to remove it until a compelling reason arrives. This is not an academic article and is supposed to be approachable for people at all levels. Superb Owl (talk) 19:09, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

If we are going to qualify the claim with 'most experts' then it seems more precise to use just 'extremely rare' instead of both 'extremely' and 'very'. The majority of experts pretty clearly say various versions of 'extremely'. Superb Owl (talk) 03:15, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

OK, for concisity JSwift49 12:36, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

This diff might have been an accident but no reason given for deleting nonpartisan efforts (is now more clearly differentiated). Also important to note that the Latinos in question are citizens trying to vote. Superb Owl (talk) 16:44, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I gave a reason and stand by it. This is an article about electoral fraud and its effects. You have not shown how nonpartisan organizations helping people to vote is relevant. [10] JSwift49 16:48, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I will work on making that clearer Superb Owl (talk) 16:50, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

You removed a line supported by four reliable sources that voter fraud is more likely in small/local elections. How is this less relevant to an Electoral fraud article than nonpartisan organizations registering citizens to vote.[11] JSwift49 16:54, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Those are different edits, and most sources should be maintained as they have been shuffled around the article throughout the series of 21 edits you made. Picking one diff does not mean four reliable sources are gone from the article Superb Owl (talk) 16:57, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

? I asked why you removed the content. JSwift49 17:01, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Seemed like fluff that implies, without evidence, that a problem exists that was crowding out more substantive and verifiable content (a recurring theme in your edits so far) Superb Owl (talk) 17:04, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

• WaPo: [12] "In the last half-century, there are only scattered examples of where election fraud appeared to have made a difference in the outcome. They often take place in races that attract relatively few voters and thus the impact of fraud could be greater."
• NPR: [13] "As many experts have said for years, Adams said instances of voter fraud are rare and more likely to be found in small, local races than in a statewide or national election."
• Governing: [14] "What the researchers did find, however, was that illegal voting was most prevalent in local races, where a small number of votes could alter the outcome. In other words, in the few instances where illegal voting happened, it was not in a presidential election — the contest that has been the focus of the attacks on mail voting by Trump's base."
• WaPo from 2012: [15] "In the past three years, six legal cases have laid out, step by step, ways that elections can be stolen. All involved local races, for positions such as magistrate, county clerk, mayor and state representative."

It doesn't matter what it implies, if experts say it's both rare and more common in local elections, then that's what we write. JSwift49 17:13, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

First, that was already in the lead and a bit redundant for a minor point, and second, my main objection is not that aspect but the elevation of republican challenges to mail-in voting to open the paragraph. The general structure of the article has lots of examples like this of 1) false/misleading/unproven claims or attempts to solve problems justified by those claims 2) verifiable facts and context. However, this is potentially a harmful approach that instead of elevating facts, actually works to elevate unproven claims before discussing what we know to be true. This seems like Wikipedia:False balance. Superb Owl (talk) 17:21, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

The article is specifically about how common fraud is, and what elections fraud is more common in is a central question, so not a "minor point". Re. the Trump paragraph, Republicans challenged mail-in voting (which objectively happened), and someone wrote an op-ed criticizing Republicans challenging mail-in voting, it's pretty straightforward to link the two no? JSwift49 17:28, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Your edits [16] were not WP:NPOV. For example:

• Illegal non-citizen voting is considered rare[43][44] very rare,[45][46] extremely rare,[47][48] exceptionally rare,[49] exceedingly rare[50][51] or 'so rare as to be insignificant.'[52]
• Voting rights advocates worry that the rhetoric about noncitizen voting could have a chilling effect on Latino citizens and naturalized immigrants trying to vote.
• They have been driven by Republican politicians since 2010 with the stated aim of preventing voter impersonation.
• The belief that an election was not legitimate can lead to political violence such as the January 6 attacks and threats against election workers.

is not neutrally presented content and is filled with loaded language. It's the responsibility of any Wikipedian to revert or correct such language and I will continue to do so. JSwift49 16:34, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

These are what the sources say - if the sources are unreliable and need to be better attributed, then let's do that but I have not seen any evidence of misquoting or improperly using wikivoice here. Superb Owl (talk) 16:36, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I undid this diff, for example, and then redid it but keeping instead 'extremely rare' for illegal noncitizen voting as the median option, as opposed to the watered down 'rare' or 'very rare' that you have been pushing throughout the article regardless of what most source say Superb Owl (talk) 16:37, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

This diff about the chilling effect should not have been deleted. Unclear what is wrong with it. Political violence and threats are a very real fact of life for many people because of voter fraud claims. I am still expanding that section if you want more context. Superb Owl (talk) 16:43, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Classic example of WP:LOADED language: "deterrent effect" is much more appropriate than the emotionally loaded "chilling effect". JSwift49 16:47, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I think it is more important to be precise when describing threats of political violence and the impact it has on people. This is not an area that makes sense to water-down, as you did by also removing the reason why vote-counting was moved to more secure locations in that same edit (intimidation by poll watchers) Superb Owl (talk) 16:53, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

How is "deterrent effect" imprecise? JSwift49 16:57, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

"They also warn that the focus lays the groundwork to sow doubt in the election results and could have a chilling effect on legal voting among immigrants, especially Latino voters." - WaPo Superb Owl (talk) 16:58, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

After a quick search all the other times I found the term "chilling effect" used was by attributed quotes or non-news sources. [17][18][19][20][21][22] So it's not universally used and remains emotionally loaded. It's not 'watering down' to use a less emotionally loaded term that conveys the same thing, it's encyclopedic. JSwift49 17:07, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

The phrase is still attributed to advocates and is not a general statement of fact Superb Owl (talk) 17:14, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

How about saying it would deter Latino voters, and then a quote from LULAC president describing it as a "chilling effect". [23] JSwift49 18:22, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

That is a good compromise for now unless/until others weigh-in Superb Owl (talk) 18:33, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Proposal:

Voting rights advocates have expressed concerns that rhetoric about noncitizen voting could deter Latino citizens and naturalized immigrants from trying to vote.[24] In 2024, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton executed search warrants in multiple counties related to fraud and ballot harvesting allegations. LULAC president Roman Palomares said this could "create a chilling effect that will stifle the Latino vote." [25]

Though honestly this is less about perception and more about prevention JSwift49 18:41, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Not sure about elevating Ken Paxton's conduct here because it could be read that fraud and ballot harvesting is going on and that is the reason for the chilling effect. (Paxton not super reliable on this topic in particular). I think the sentence as-is with single-quotes is proportionate. Superb Owl (talk) 18:45, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm iffy on Paxton too since that's not about public perception, so OK let's not.

Re. replacing "worry" with "have expressed concerns" and "have a chilling effect on" with "deter" ... besides WP:WIKIVOICE, I also think it's better because it shows that these orgs aren't sitting around worrying, they've actually expressed concerns. And 'deter' spells out more clearly what they are concerned will happen, 'have a chilling effect' can be read ambiguously. JSwift49 18:52, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

As it is written now seems perfect. Do not see how that would be an improvement on this more WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE version:
Voting rights advocates worry that the rhetoric about noncitizen voting could have a 'chilling effect' on Latino citizens and naturalized immigrants exercising their right to vote. Superb Owl (talk) 19:12, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I have kept the wording for now but added 'According to The Washington Post' so that it's clear who made the 'chilling effect' quote.

"Those experiencing voter intimidation can call 866-687-8683." isn't encyclopedic content JSwift49 12:49, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Another example: "Georgia seems the most likely state to overturn election results on unfounded claims of fraud in 2024 due to recent changes in who oversees elections." [26] According to who? Read WP:WIKIVOICE, opinions must be attributed. JSwift49 18:09, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I can't see the author because I am not a subscriber but can attribute it to the New York Times Superb Owl (talk) 18:12, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

https://archive.is/ is your friend; give it a try! JSwift49 18:22, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I do not use websites where it is unknown who has created them. Superb Owl (talk) 18:26, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

@Superb Owl I'm OK with removing the quote from the Republican Lawyers' association, but in the same edit you also removed the encyclopedic, longstanding line "Organized absentee ballot fraud has caused isolated elections to be invalidated by courts" (which you previously changed to 'isolated' and I was OK with). Not sure if accident but please restore. [27] JSwift49 17:08, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Please read WP:Synthesis. These are just three examples listed, which already exist in the other section. Do not think they belong here per WP:UNDUE in the first place. Superb Owl (talk) 17:15, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

That's not accurate, the Bridgeport article says But in Bridgeport, Connecticut’s largest city, ballot manipulation has undermined elections for years. and describes four examples of courts overturning (including the main story) In 2022, a judge ordered a Democratic primary for state representative to be rerun amid an allegation of ballot fraud. In 2018, Bridgeport was forced to hold three primaries for City Council. The first was invalidated over a miscounted absentee ballot; the second was voided by the State Supreme Court in part because a police officer had improperly collected absentee ballots. Similar episodes have been documented back to the 1980s

Also, the Miami Herald article (which I can replace the other Miami article with) describes two cases. [28] JSwift49 17:37, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Still synthesis. It remains a general theme with this article that bears repeating and attention: there are still too much emphasis on examples and too little analysis from secondary sources of overall trends in this article. Will continue flagging problematic portions of the article inline and would appreciate those flags not being removed until issues are addressed Superb Owl (talk) 17:41, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I found an article by a law professor that gave it a number so that's better anyway. JSwift49 17:58, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

That law review article is definitely better as it is not synthesis but it still needs context (out of how many elections that were run during that period) Superb Owl (talk) 18:12, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

It honestly doesn't, it's stating a fact. It only needed context if the point of this article was to persuade people fraud was rare, which it is not, it's an encyclopedia. JSwift49 18:24, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I should clarify - it is worth including as-is, but the ideal source is one that puts raw data and outliers into context. The Brennan Center, for example, is good at putting into context what percentage of ballots cast have been proven to have been done so illegally Superb Owl (talk) 18:29, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Secondary sources

Propose shifting this article towards more reliable secondary sources and removing all WP:Primary sources. The reasons are:
1) Wikipedia prefers secondary sources like meta-analyses over a random list of examples of one-off studies or opinions by politicians or even individual experts.
2) It is becoming unmanageable to continue to faithfully summarize, flag, or challenge all the primary sources that keep getting added to different sections which do more to clutter and confuse than provide helpful information and context Superb Owl (talk) 21:59, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Strong oppose, I think it's incorrect to say peer-reviewed articles/studies are primary sources, they are analyses of the facts (election data). If we can summarize a news article we can summarize an academic one, and initial mistakes are no excuse for removing everything.

As to what Wikipedia prefers, let's look at something similar: the 'Democratic backsliding' article. Democratic_backsliding#Forms Democratic_backsliding#Causes_and_characteristics It's full of sections that present different individual scholarly arguments alongside each other. The way the article currently is is in line with Wikipedia. JSwift49 22:56, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I should clarify my proposal - the issue is not 'are primary sources allowed on Wikipedia' but is 'should we include primary sources if we have better secondary sources that address the same topic' Superb Owl (talk) 23:25, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I should also clarify that this restriction for this article would help with repeated issues around selective interpretation of primary sources. For example, Aliens study that you keep quoting - the aliens question shows that some people do not fill out surveys carefully and is certainly an outlier primary source if you interpret that differently than the Washington Post columnist cited who says in the same article 'Contrary to Trump, Pence and Kobach, nearly all political scientists and reputable experts believe that voting fraud is a non-problem in the US.' and 'if you rely on survey evidence to ‘prove’ the existence of voter fraud, you should also believe that large numbers of Americans are kidnapped by space aliens.' That is not at all how it reads, and fixing it creates another example that says what is already summarized in secondary sources: fraud is a non-issue. Superb Owl (talk) 20:25, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

More simply put – if you rely on survey evidence to ‘prove’ the existence of voter fraud, you should also believe that large numbers of Americans are kidnapped by space aliens. About the same number of people – 2.5 percent of the population – say that they have been involved in both. [29] That's what the study found. JSwift49 20:27, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

This is why we aren't supposed to be interpreting studies ourselves and why secondary sources are more useful. I strongly suggest we delete reference to the study altogether, especially since its conclusion is so easily misunderstood. Response error is a real thing. That is why 2.5% is not credible as a number to cite. That is why Richman's work has no credibility in academia. Superb Owl (talk) 06:45, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

The quote I posted was from a secondary source (WaPo) analyzing the study JSwift49 10:59, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

I have re-added it but without the 2.5% statistic, just that Americans when surveyed admit to alien abduction at the same rate as voter impersonation (that is both what WaPo says and doesn't emphasize the number) JSwift49 12:50, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Another example: Possibly outdated/selective and WP:UNDUE 2012 Hasen op-ed quote when his 2024 position on voter fraud is 'Trump has been able to manufacture doubt out of absolutely nothing; fraud claims untethered to reality still captivate millions of people looking for an excuse as to why their adored candidate may have lost.' (I added this to the Trump section). Superb Owl (talk) 20:31, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Hasen thought non-citizen voting wasn't a Republican fantasy, but that the number of non-citizens voting is small, as evidenced by the context (three other quotes) in which this quote is presented.

This is an article primarily about the incidence of voter fraud in the U.S., not what people think about Trump's false claims. Put your quote in Election denial movement in the United States JSwift49 20:31, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

September 6th edits

Want to flag a bring a number of edits by JSwift49 to get some consensus here. They are grouped into 3 themes:
Burying the lead (making it harder to understand the key points with unnecessary details or verbage)

1) Double voting subsection

2) Prosecutions section

3) Fish v. Kobach paragraph

Removing notable information (possibly in an NPOV way) without first flagging or requesting any clarification

1) Modern influence operations

2) Georgia possible role in 2024 elections

3) Removing January 6th - it is not just notable for violence but for attempting to change election outcomes

4) 2020 is important context for why the change was made

5) Not sure why 2024 election is off-limits

6) Was not just Trump, and was 2020 and 2024

Removing flags without addressing the issues

1) another disputed outlier primary source - there is no consensus on its inclusion Superb Owl (talk) 20:29, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

For most of these, I added back flags or restored content that was deleted Superb Owl (talk) 20:05, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

These complaints are, for the most part frankly, meritless.

Burying the lead

1) This was fixing the same study being cited twice in different paragraphs.

2) The main point of the NYT article was not that "most prosecutions don't realize they are breaking the law", it's that most prosecutions result in different outcomes. I fixed an WP:UNDUE violation while still keeping that content in.

3) More detail in the case was originally added by DavidMCEddy and while I agree with removing some of it, the 67 statistic is useful and not "unnecessary" at all.

Removing notable information

1) Material is the same, just making the point of the article more concise. This article is about electoral fraud in the United States, and the type of disinformation by authoritarian regimes does not need its own drawn-out sentence.

2) "Georgia seems the most likely state to overturn election results" WP:NOTNEWS WP:CRYSTALBALL

3) Jan 6 was already mentioned under the political violence section. We do not need to bring it up every time 2020 is mentioned.

4) It says that Detroit poll workers received protection after being intimidated. We do not need to spell out that people were knocking on the windows changing 'stop the steal', in an article about the occurrence of electoral fraud in the U.S.

5) WP:CRYSTALBALL speculation

6) "Donald Trump and allies" is fine with me.

Removing flags without addressing the issues

1) I find it interesting that in an article called "Electoral fraud in the United States", you would try to remove a study on electoral fraud that was discussed and analyzed in the Washington Post (a secondary source) and found credible by a court, yet you insist on including all of the above irrelevant detail to bang readers over the head with speculation and the details of election denialism – which, I may remind you, has its own article. JSwift49 20:22, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

(Also, the concern you expressed was that the study didn't indicate that fraud ie. non citizen voting occurred, so I changed it to add data of non-citizen voting estimates, so I did in fact address your flag.) JSwift49 20:36, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

There is an ongoing discussion on the talk page about the inclusion of these outlier studies and whether they are more misleading than informative. It is akin to mentioning a number of studies that doubt the human contribution to climate change in an article about climate change. It is WP:UNDUE. Secondary sources are better than primary sources. Superb Owl (talk) 21:03, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

A study that doubted human contribution to climate change wouldn't be taken seriously by the Washington Post or a court of law. I framed Richman's studies exactly as the Post did so that's a secondary source. The result also isn't an outlier, it still shows very small numbers, and it's not comparable to the GOP politicians at all. The 2014 study is mentioned as context and is mostly about why researchers disputed it, so not WP:UNDUE whatsoever. JSwift49 21:28, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Electoral fraud is not as widely understood or researched as climate change so that is not an apples-to-apples comparison. 2024 Washington post certainly does not entertain it as a serious threat or put undue weight on that study. Superb Owl (talk) 21:35, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Well I didn't originally make the comparison :) The Post article, which is specifically about the prevalence of non-citizen voting, actually spends about half of the text discussing Richman. JSwift49 21:43, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

I think you missed the point of the analogy. The 2014 Washington post blog posts are very different from 2024 Washington Post articles given all the research that has happened since that is not in line with that disputed survey. Superb Owl (talk) 22:24, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm confused. The article discussing Richman is from 2024. Are you arguing that we should only remove the 2014 (outlier) study and not the 2023 study? Because that would take away context that the RS mentions. JSwift49 22:39, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

You are right - I missed the 2024 article. Still mostly cited just by one publication and is one disputed study. Seems WP:UNDUE in its current form. Maybe we cut in half, or maybe take out altogether. The 2023 study is absurd in its conclusion - it says 'let's assume that half people on the voter rolls voted' - lots of non-citizens end up on voter rolls by accident but most do not try to vote. That is a huge leap. Superb Owl (talk) 22:47, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

There were two studies. The second isn't widely cited as it was confidential and released as a redacted version exclusively to the Post. The Post devoted half its article about non-citizen voting to Richman when it didn't need to – that's the opposite of WP:UNDUE. We aren't in a position to impose our own judgments on this study like that, as we aren't experts. JSwift49 23:06, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

I will try to find a more reputable academic meta-analysis to put some more of these bad studies to bed. Even the Washington Post can make mistakes Superb Owl (talk) 23:10, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

I finally dug into what the bulk of reliable sources had to say about Richman and his work. It is reflected in the article. I did not realize how widely cited he was by Trump and election denial camp and might have changed my mind on his inclusion. We might want to include him, but if we keep him, WP:DUE means he gets significantly more criticism than neutral coverage since that is proportionate to the reception he has gotten in reliable sources. If it is too many paragraphs for one professor, we could create an article for Richman and move the content over there. Superb Owl (talk) 06:51, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

I like what you've done here, I have consolidated most sources into 'The study was criticized by numerous academics and has been described as discredited or debunked.' though still mentioning Shaffner, the 200 political scientists etc. The original paragraph in its more detailed form could go into an article on Richman. JSwift49 12:51, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Per WP:CRYSTALBALL: "All articles about anticipated events must be verifiable, and the subject matter must be of sufficiently wide interest that it would merit an article if the event had already occurred. It is appropriate to report discussion and arguments about the prospects for success of future proposals and projects or whether some development will occur, if discussion is properly referenced." If this came to pass, these events would certainly merit their own article and would be highly notable. They are from reliable sources and not WP:OR.

The most notable part of election fraud in the US is the consequences of that essentially false belief/conspiracy. Sanitizing an article of discussion of the fallout of this belief in significant electoral fraud is NPOV. Superb Owl (talk) 21:15, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

"...though editors should be aware of creating undue bias to any specific point-of-view". Regardless the main point is that this article is not about election denialism, it's about the incidence and history of electoral fraud. We can write about how the perception of it caused political violence/failed overturning attempts, but speculation about Georgia, or violence in the future by "some experts", does not belong here. JSwift49 21:35, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Do not follow the logic here. This is extremely notable as both a cause (motivation for these claims of electoral fraud) and effect (outcome). It seems inescapable that this article would cover it in detail. Superb Owl (talk) 21:36, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Exactly: 'claims of electoral fraud', ie. election denialism, ie. its own article. Of course the effects of public perception should still be discussed briefly, but especially no need for speculation. JSwift49 21:53, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

agree to disagree Superb Owl (talk) 22:21, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

The first sentence: "Electoral fraud in the United States is considered by most experts to be extremely rare."

The problem with that is obvious. It provides criticism of a thing, before even defining what the thing is. Astoundingly bad work. This is an encyclopedia, not the Daily Kos, for Pete's sake. Marcus Markup (talk) 13:46, 8 September 2024 (UTC)