A Voter’s Guide to Elections by the League of Women Voters of the Cooperstown Area

Voter Fraud Virtually Non-existent

Misinformation is something that is unintentionally wrong or misleading. Disinformation is information that is intentionally wrong/misleading. Misinformation and disinformation are most insidious when they spread falsehoods about our election system, especially as Election Day nears. The flood of mis-and disinformation about election fraud has little reference to the facts. The League of Women Voters of New York recently prepared a fact sheet on the myths about elections and voting practices. The league’s goal is two-pronged: to debunk the misinformation and to deliver the facts.

According to the prestigious Brennan Center for Justice, over the last 50-plus years, there has been no evidence of voter fraud in the United States on a scale even close enough to change the outcome of an election. The “Washington Post” has also noted that following the 2016 election, there were only four documented cases of voter fraud out of 136 million votes counted votes.

The primary reason that voter fraud is so low is simply because our elections are secure. Today, the state’s election laws require that although New York’s voting equipment may be electronic, it cannot be capable of externally transmitting or receiving data via the Internet, radio waves or other wireless means. Voting systems must also be certified by the State Board of Elections to ensure that the equipment meets requirements of the state and the federal Help America Vote Act.

The BOE must account for every ballot that is used in an election, and voting machines, also called tabulators, must have a counting mechanism to keep track of how many votes have been recorded. The tabulators are locked immediately after polls are closed. New York’s election law also requires that voting machines “[provide] a ‘protective counter,’ which records the number of times the machine or system has been operated since it was built and a ‘public counter,’ which records the number of persons who have voted on the machine at each separate election.” (New York State Election Law § 7–202). The BOE must account for every ballot that is used and every ballot that is counted.

Ballots are counted by vote-counting tabulators, which are more accurate and faster than counting by hand. Hand counts can have error rates up to 50 times higher than tabulators. However, election officials also verify electronic totals by conducting a mandatory audit comparing the tabulator results with the paper ballots after every election.

There are also many measures in place to ensure the security of mail-in ballots. The BOE compares signatures from mail-in ballots with signatures on record from voter registration documents. Absentee and early mail ballots are only sent to registered voters, who have explicitly requested them.

These ballots are mailed in nested envelopes printed with barcodes specific to each vote. The barcodes on envelopes that come back are matched to voter records, making it impossible for someone to just print a pile of ballots and submit them. These ballots are counted by BOE staff, who are equally divided between representatives of the two major political parties.

When you see something purporting to be a “fact” about the election process, don’t assume it is a “fact.” Check the source of the information. Do some research on your own. The New York State Election Law website is a good place to start (https://elections.ny.gov/election-security) or visit the League’s website, www.LWVCooperstownArea.org.

Check out all the facts, but more importantly, don’t spread misinformation.

Patty MacLeish is communications director for the League of Women Voters of the Cooperstown Area.