A nationwide survey of voter fraud cases that have been prosecuted since 2000 was reported in Sunday’s Washington Post. The headline and lead paragraphs focused on the near absence of voter fraud by impersonation in the past dozen years:
The analysis of 2,068 reported fraud cases by News21, a Carnegie-Knight investigative reporting project, found 10 cases of alleged in-person voter impersonation since 2000. With 146 million registered voters in the United States, those represent about one for every 15 million prospective voters.
Following the links provided in the article, I looked at the database for Virginia, which included this summary:
Virginia has 35 cases of alleged election fraud since 2000. By category, Voter had the highest percentage of accused at 91 percent (32 cases), followed by Campaign Official at 6 percent (2 cases). The most prevalent fraud was Casting Ineligible Vote at 89 percent (31 cases). The status of most cases was Unknown at 77 percent (27 cases).
The list of Virginia cases on the News21 database web site varies slightly from the data the organization received from the Virginia state police, which identifies 77 individual charges against approximately three dozen people. (The site’s list begins with Feda Kidd Morton, a former congressional candidate in Fluvanna County who is now under indictment for petition fraud. Morton is not included in the state police report, but a case summary indicates that information about her was obtained from local news media stories.)
The vast majority of the allegations listed by the state police stem from a single case in Wise County in 2006 involving individuals from the Town of Appalachia. Most of those indictments were directed at Ben Ellis Cooper, with a handful of charges against Owen Anderson “Andy” Sharrett, III; Owen Anderson “Dude” Sharrett, Jr.; Adam Brody Sharrett; Belinda Carolyn Sharrett; three other members of the Sharrett family; and six others. (That full indictment is available here; it mostly involves cases of absentee ballot fraud and vote buying.)
In fact, of the 77 cases listed by the state police, 47 are from Wise County and the other 30 are distributed around the state, including six in Mecklenburg County; four in Charles City County; four in Nottoway County; two in Louisa County; two in Madison County; and one each in the cities of Bristol, Manassas, and Norfolk and the counties of Arlington, Brunswick, Fairfax, King and Queen, Prince Edward, Prince William, Pulaski, and Sussex.
Not all of the charges resulted in guilty pleas or convictions. Some were dismissed, some resulted in acquittals, and some of the outcomes are not recorded or are still pending (like the Morton case in Fluvanna).
None of the charges recorded by the state police or reported by News21 involves voter impersonation in Virginia, the key impetus behind legislative initiatives to strengthen voter ID requirements.
Considering there have been more than 20 million votes cast just in November elections since 2000, having only three dozen cases of alleged and proven voter fraud in the past dozen years is a pretty strong demonstration that 21st-century Virginia runs clean, transparent, and fair elections.
