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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)[reply]
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 He also made broader statements about the lack of voter fraud, but not in the context of "even with the out-of-date data".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)[reply]
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).
@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. JSwift4916:18, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
I never read anything this slanted and full of lies in my entire life. Zero mention of the voting laws unconstitutionally changed by Sec. of States for the COVID “pandemic” .. No mention of five swing States stopped Election Day counting and then continued the counting (without one party’s monitoring) in the middle of the night. And continued counting for says, until all of them got results that favored one candidate who was losing when the Election Day counting was stopped .. No mention of Republican monitors being excluded and even blocked from observations.. etc etc etc
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.[1]
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.,:
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.[2]
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. JSwift4923:02, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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. JSwift4914:08, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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. JSwift4918:34, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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. JSwift4921:56, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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."
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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'. JSwift4915:34, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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: [1] 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. JSwift4915:47, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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. JSwift4917:01, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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. JSwift4917:52, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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.[1] -- Jc3s5h (talk) 21:13, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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. JSwift4913:46, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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' JSwift4913:32, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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. JSwift4916:21, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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. JSwift4914:36, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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. JSwift4916:27, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
@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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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? JSwift4918:59, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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. [2]JSwift4916:48, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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.[3]JSwift4916:54, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
WaPo: [4] "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: [5] "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: [6] "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: [7] "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. JSwift4917:13, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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? JSwift4917:28, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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. JSwift4916:34, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
"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." - WaPoSuperb Owl (talk) 16:58, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
After a quick search all the other times I found the term "chilling effect" used was by attributed quotes or non-news sources. [9][10][11][12][13][14] 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. JSwift4917:07, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Voting rights advocates have expressed concerns that rhetoric about noncitizen voting could deter Latino citizens and naturalized immigrants from trying to vote.[16] 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." [17]
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)[reply]
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. JSwift4918:52, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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.
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." [18] According to who? Read WP:WIKIVOICE, opinions must be attributed. JSwift4918:09, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@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. [19]JSwift4917:08, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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. JSwift4918:24, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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.
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)[reply]
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.[21] That's what the study found. JSwift4920:27, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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) JSwift4912:50, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
HuffPost [22]One study has suggested that as many people commit voter fraud, as think that they have been abducted by aliens.
NYU Jordan Russia Center [23]One study finds that respondents are more likely to effectively admit to having been abducted by aliens than to reveal that they engaged in “voter impersonation fraud”
UCLA LPPI Voting Rights Project [24]Ahlquist, Mayer, and Jackman (2014) found no systematic evidence that voter impersonation occurs, concluding that the proportion of the population reporting impersonation is no different than the proportion of people who report that they were abducted by extraterrestrial beings
It's not the article, it's @JSwift49. Here are some other quotes that provide more context as to the thesis of that article that are more relevant than the sensationalist and easily taken out of context quote that @JSwift49 has selected. "Contrary to Trump, Pence and Kobach, nearly all political scientists and reputable experts believe that voting fraud is a non-problem in the US. So why is there such a consensus? Some – including Trump’s defenders – have claimed that voter fraud is widespread. However, there is no good empirical evidence that voter fraud occurs often enough to have any plausible impact on elections...If people answered yes to all questions with about the same proportions in both the space alien abduction experiment and the voter fraud experiment, then this suggests either that people are rushing through the surveys carelessly, or that alien abduction is a much bigger problem than any of us knew." Superb Owl (talk) 01:37, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am relating how reliable sources describe the study’s results. That’s our only responsibility here, and I don’t see how your quote is inconsistent with what my sources say anyway. JSwift4902:02, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Your selected quote is vague and not specific. Farrell is arguing that the study shows that people are rushing through the survey which is why the results do not align with any other studies or experts. I will add the context and then we can see whether we want to keep or delete it when its conclusion is made clear. Superb Owl (talk) 02:04, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The results don’t align how ? It corroborates other studies that show voter impersonation is rare because alien abduction is rare, and the same number of people admitted to both. There is no point of going into the nuances of surveys if most reliable sources that mention the study don’t. JSwift4902:14, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure how to better explain the findings here other than to say that if this is your interpretation, I think it proves the point that it is not particularly helpful and is quite confusing. As with most primary sources, they do require context about the nuance of the study and its context. Another reason why it is better to stick with reliable secondary sources. Superb Owl (talk) 02:43, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
? I have shown four reliable secondary sources that describe a study in a specific way. What sources support adding a different description into the article? JSwift4902:49, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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.
I never said the section didn’t belong, but that the quote isn’t notable enough for inclusion in this particular article. Regardless the Hasen non-citizen quotes are now one of him saying it can’t be dismissed as a fantasy, vs. four saying the numbers are small, which isn’t at all contradictory. Here in 2012 for example he also said it happens but only occasionally.[25], and he called it “not a phantom problem” but only “small numbers” in 2014. [26] Of course someone who believed the numbers were small would still oppose Trump’s claims of massive fraud. JSwift4902:10, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do not follow the objection here. Also, per WP:AGE MATTERS "Especially in scientific and academic fields, older sources may be inaccurate because new information has been brought to light, new theories proposed, or vocabulary changed. In areas like politics or fashion, laws or trends may make older claims incorrect. Be sure to check that older sources have not been superseded, especially if it is likely that new discoveries or developments have occurred in the last few years." A quote from 2012 is less relevant than a quote by the same author from 2024 as it does not have the benefit of all 12 years worth of research that happened in between, which in this academic field, seems significant. Superb Owl (talk) 02:39, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Lots of studies from around 2012 are in the article. Besides, the mention is due alongside the other more recent quotes, because as far as I can tell he hasn’t contradicted or disavowed his positions from 2012/2014.
(Even in the hypothetical scenario that he did, the evolution could then show that non citizen voting is less common now than before.) JSwift4902:46, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That 'evolution' would be WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. This is also why I have objected repeatedly to studies and quotes from 2012 or 2014 that have been debunked or newer studies that summarize and build upon all of the latest research. Superb Owl (talk) 02:49, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn’t saying we should describe it as evolution, just that it’d serve a purpose to have quotes from both time periods in that hypothetical scenario.
And what we know about non-citizen voting is that it's also extremely rare. It does happen occasionally. Sometimes it happens because non-citizens are registered to vote and don't know they're not allowed to vote. There are very few cases of this.1 Election expert Rick Hasen, director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project and professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote in a blog post that the law that the high court allowed to be reinstated was “bad and unnecessary.” “Unlike voter ID laws, that often have not been shown to have a big effect on turnout, these documentary proof of citizenship laws matter a lot,” Hasen wrote. “They stand to literally disenfranchise thousands of eligible voters for no good reason.”2Superb Owl (talk) 05:32, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed the 2012 Hasen quote assuming WP:BOLDLY that this is enough evidence that WP:AGE MATTERS when elevating a 12-year-old quote over more recent quotes that contradict it. I have also part of the 2024 quote elsewhere in the article as it is relevant commentary to the 'Prevention' section Superb Owl (talk) 05:50, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You haven't shown a contradiction (and you replaced it with a 2016 quote, which isn't much better). However, I accept your point about elevating the 2012 quote over the others. So, I have reworked it like so:
Richard Hasen has said that non-citizens are not voting in large numbers[81][82][83] and cited a 2016 U.S. Court of Appeals ruling as showing "there is no evidence it is a serious problem",[84] though he has also said that it cannot be dismissed as an imaginary occurrence.[85][86]
This is not better or DUE. This continues to be outdated and cherry-picked to support a fringe position that carries essentially no weight among experts today including the expert who said the thing. Superb Owl (talk) 15:24, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Kessler right below said a similar thing: the scarcity of evidence "does not necessarily prove that the phenomenon does not happen". You can believe, as Hasen does and said twice (2012 and 2014) that it's not a serious problem but it's not an imaginary occurrence either. If you find an instance of Hasen saying it's an imaginary problem, then we can update it. JSwift4916:06, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)
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.
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.
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. JSwift4920:22, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(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.) JSwift4920:36, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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. JSwift4921:28, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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. JSwift4921:43, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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. JSwift4922:39, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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. JSwift4923:06, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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. JSwift4912:51, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly disagree with consolidating per my previous comment. That is WP:UNDUE to give equal time in this article to ideas that for a wide variety of reasons are not credible. All those reasons should be listed if we are going to list this study and others like it. Superb Owl (talk) 18:02, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The paragraph about Richman's 2014 study is 8 desktop lines long with 5 1/2 about how the study is criticized + notable criticizers (including a second study), 2 lines describing what the study was, and 1/2 a line about Richman rebuking Trump. That is in no way WP:UNDUE and is the very definition of "more criticism than neutral coverage".
Your proposal [27] was 16 lines long, and is pretty much just listing less notable people who discredited the study, or individual reports on it being discredited, which is WP:TOOMUCH for this article. But it would be appropriate in an article dedicated to the study/Richman himself. JSwift4920:08, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The study, after reading a wider array of sources than WaPo, seems far more notable for why it was debunked and by whom than for what it alleged. I think we should add back the full context or remove the study entirely. The context helps to explain why the Aliens survey and any other surveys is so flawed. Maybe there just needs to be a survey subsection to really dive into the nuances of surveys and why they are controversial Superb Owl (talk) 01:31, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It’s not missing key context; within the scope of the article it’s fine, readers won’t be misled in any way that it’s legitimate. I suggest you write an article on Jesse Richman and include all of the detail re. Methodology there, so anyone who wants to dive deeper and learn about it can do so.
Also connecting it to aliens/doing an analysis on surveys sounds like WP:OR and waay outside the scope of the article. We are not experts and it’s not our job to analyze studies in this way. JSwift4901:53, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear while I appreciate you writing the article about Richman’s surveys I think it’d make more sense to just write it on Richman himself, since it also discusses his stance on Trump, court testimony etc. JSwift4903:05, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly oppose [28] this, this article is specifically about studies of how common fraud is, and should report on studies + immediate context if secondary sources do so. It should not report on other things that Richman was involved in, that should be saved for the article focusing on him. See Wikipedia:Writing for the opponent.
I'm of two minds of whether to make Richman's article into a bio, because most bios of academics I've found don't go into that much detail about their projects, but I haven't seen an article focused on one group of studies like that before. I added a lead for now and am probably leaning toward it becoming a bio. JSwift4913:05, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I added the methodology criticism to this article, so we should be good to go on making a biographic article on Richman, which talks about adjacent things like the Kansas court testimony, what he thought about his study's use etc. Draft:Jesse Richman (academic)JSwift4914:45, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly oppose its inclusion altogether and wanted to show you what WP:DUE summary of a study that by 2017 was not even considered as relevant within the field of study. The entire section, in my opinion, should be removed or trimmed down to one or two sentences explaining that a study happened, linking to his article and explaining why it has no credibility. Superb Owl (talk) 15:26, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You flagged it as "This section may present fringe theories, without giving appropriate weight to the mainstream view and explaining the responses to the fringe theories.", when the entire paragraph is explaining the response to said fringe theory. And you flagged it as "relies excessively on primary sources" even though it's almost exclusively news reports. [29]
If I misused the flag then please let me know which flag is more appropriate. I think this is the proper flag for this article and these sections so long as we are giving undue weight to studies that have been debunked and watering down the criticism of those studies Superb Owl (talk) 16:12, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Your assertion that the criticism is "watered down" is nonsense; the vast majority of the lengthy paragraph about the 2014 study is devoted to criticism. We report on it and debunk it since it is a highly notable study (which spawned a second study). This is an encyclopedia, not an editorial. Plus, Richman's 2023 study was not debunked, either, the court gave it weight, and the WaPo reported on it, so we're not removing that. JSwift4916:23, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do not think that a judge is the same as peer review or meta-analysis and think that all Richman studies are undue weight. Until his 2023 data can be verified, it is speculation and his reputation is, to the say the least, not great. As for his first study: In 2017, The New York Times said that the debate has moved on from Richman's study (whose claims it described as having fallen apart) to whether or not any evidence for noncitizen voting existed. His work is given no weight in Academia. Why would we give it weight here? Superb Owl (talk) 16:30, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The study is given proper context including a response from Levitt. A reliable source (WaPo) published it, and it's not up to us to say it was wrong to do so. Richman's original study is highly notable for being debunked and spawning a second study, so an encyclopedic article covering non-citizen voter fraud studies should include it. JSwift4916:41, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
"...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. JSwift4921:35, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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. JSwift4921:53, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
Agreed – I started the lead now with "Electoral fraud in the United States involves illegal interference with the process of United States elections.", then describe types, and then how common it is. All the old lead content is still there JSwift4914:24, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As of 2024 experts say noncitizen voting is easy to verify
The source doesn't support that. Election administration experts say it’s not only provable, but it’s been demonstrated that the number of noncitizens voting in federal elections is infinitesimal. That's different from 'easy to verify' JSwift4918:07, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also your change here is unsupported. [30] Levitt said "while the CES data here does look to me to be more reliable than Prof. Richman's prior forays, I'd need some more information before I believed it were reliable." He also said he would be curious to know how many of the noncitizens who registered in Arizona cast ballots, as turnout could be lower than average.
The original text included all of this: Justin Levitt, who was skeptical of Richman's earlier research, said that while more information was needed, the CES data "does look to me to more reliable" than in Richman's previous studies, though he posited that actual turnout among non-citizens could be lower than Richman estimated.
Your change takes out of nowhere that Levitt would need to see actual evidence of non-citizen voting to be convinced. That's not what he said, he said the data seemed more reliable though he needed more information on it, and was also curious about how many noncitizens voted. JSwift4918:27, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That is what he said - I took out the 'more reliable' bit because then we have to reexplain just how unreliable he thinks the previous studies were to give that context. Superb Owl (talk) 18:47, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking of rephrasing of the same thing though, the three sentences you have added are basically three different ways of saying the same thing: it's extremely rare. We should merge into one sentence
Illegal non-citizen voting is considered extremely rare by most experts.
According to the Associated Press, "there is no indication it’s happening anywhere in significant numbers" as of 2024.
Election administration experts say that it is provable and has been demonstrated that the number of non-citizens voting is infinitesimal.
The fact that it is provable according to election experts is distinct from the fact that it is rare. Sure, some trimming can be done but these are also the most notable findings on the topic and thus WP:DUE would suggest that they be given proper space and not reduced to make way for more discussion of the findings of debunked studies or dishonest experts or politicians. Superb Owl (talk) 01:39, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The “provable” in the article refers to proof that it is rare, not that it’s always provable when it occurs.
It’s also not very useful when it’s a vague statement like that. Instead we should cite a specific expert who says it’s provable. JSwift4901:56, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It seems pretty clear that it is referring to the fact that verifying a voter's citizenship is provable and has been demonstrated. Here is the full quote for context in case that clarifies what it is referring to: “The answer is that it’s unanswerable,” the Louisiana Republican said in response to a question about whether such people were illegally voting. “We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections, but it’s not been something that is easily provable.”Election administration experts say it’s not only provable, but it’s been demonstrated that the number of noncitizens voting in federal elections is infinitesimal.Superb Owl (talk) 02:32, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That’s not how I read it. Johnson is saying “we think a lot of illegals are voting, but we can’t prove it”.
Election officials are saying “we can prove that a lot of non-citizens aren’t voting.”
how about: According to the Associated Press, election administration experts say that it is provable and has been demonstrated that "there is no indication it’s happening anywhere in significant numbers" and that the number of non-citizens voting is infinitesimal.Superb Owl (talk) 02:46, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But that’s just repeating the same point twice with different wording. “There’s no indication it’s happening anywhere in significant numbers” and “the number of non citizen votes is infinitesimal”. Three times if we count most experts saying it’s extremely rare. There is no need to elaborate on the general statement that it’s rare and we should quote a specific expert if we go further with talking about provability JSwift4902:56, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The article says "not only provable, but demonstrated", it's redundant to include both since demonstrated is stronger than provable. JSwift4916:49, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Didn't solve the issue, so I'll ask again: self-revert. The dispute is what 'provable' refers to. [32] "whether or not non-citizens vote" is not an accurate summary in my view, what's referred to in the article as provable is that only a small number did. JSwift4919:14, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I will add the full quote then so that there is absolutely no summarizing going on and so that the AP article isn't being removed without a coherent reason (really struggling to see how you are reading this) Superb Owl (talk) 19:16, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Here's the sandbox section with the full quote and 3 different workable versions with the word 'provable'. We might need a third opinion on this one if it is so objectionable that not even an inline flag can express or address your concerns Superb Owl (talk) 19:24, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Adding the full quote does not address this specific dispute, because "whether or not non-citizens vote" still remains. It will be removed if it stays until a consensus on the meaning of 'provable' is reached. This isn't a case of undue weight or newer stats preferred it's a case of getting the source right.
Re. my reasoning, I'll try to explain more clearly:
Johnson: “We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections, but it’s not been something that is easily provable.”
Johnson says that lots of illegals voting is the thing that isn't provable.
Election administration experts say it’s not only provable, but it’s been demonstrated that the number of noncitizens voting in federal elections is infinitesimal.
Elections administration experts say it's provable and demonstrated that the numbers are small.
That's different from saying it's provable whether or not a non-citizen/non-citizens vote.
The it's in "it's not only provable" can only refer to something in the sentence itself or to the sentence before, and it certainly isn't referring to the sentence before (lots of illegals voting). So we can only associate 'it's provable' with what is described in the sentence itself. JSwift4919:35, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Illegal immigrants are a smaller subset of noncitizens. A quote addressing noncitizens as provable and 'infinitesimal' includes illegal immigrants. Still not sure what the disconnect is here and why it is so objectionable Superb Owl (talk) 19:47, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is there an objection to According to the Associated Press, election administration experts say it is provable and demonstrated that the number of noncitizens voting in federal elections is infinitesimal.? JSwift4919:54, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. I think I'm only at two sets of reverts in 24h, but to be safe I'll self-revert so you can add it. UPDATE: nvm already added new content JSwift4920:01, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jc3s5h What I don't like about the AP article is that it doesn't name any experts who say this, and the unclear wording. So I also support removing this sentence (I'm just saying if it *must* be included, it should be the less extraordinary claim above) JSwift4920:06, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Suburb Owl's statement "verifying a voter's citizenship is provable" is utter nonsense; it has no meaning.
JSwift49's statement 'Election officials are saying “we can prove that a lot of non-citizens aren’t voting.”' is not useful. Of course we can prove that lots of non-citizens didn't vote. Anybody claiming that most noncitizens deserves to be shunned.
The real meaning of the statement is that it is provable that noncitizens vote, and the number of these votes is infinitesimal. Jc3s5h (talk) 02:50, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On further thought, I think that's the most reasonable interpretation. But I'm relying on a mix of what's in the article and what I know from outside the article. So it's a poor statement. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:02, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think what the author means is it's provable that noncitizens vote, and they do so in infinitesimal numbers. But I don't think I could prove that's what the author meant just from what's in the article. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:29, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
According to WikiBlame "As of 2024 experts say noncitizen voting is easy to verify" never appeared in the article (doing a case insensitive search). Why shouldn't I hat this section right now? Jc3s5h (talk) 18:22, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I see that the sentence is supported by a citation to AP story by Ali Swenson dated May 18, 2024. I see nothing in the story that supports the idea that noncitizen voting is easy to verify. The words "easy" and "verify" do not appear in the story.
I have read various stories and documents, and I think I came across one that said that certain votes, that appear questionable at first glance, were easy to resolve. But that was in the context of a criminal investigation of one voter at a time. When that much attention is brought to bear on one vote, it's usually easy enough to resolve most cases; the person voted or not. The person was a citizen at the time of the vote, or not. But in the context of looking at all the votes cast in a large election, and trying to figure out reliably if any were cast by non-citizens, there's nothing easy about that. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:46, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think this list belongs at the bottom of the article, as is common with other articles that put data-heavy appendices at the bottom next to 'see also' Superb Owl (talk) 18:06, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You have already argued for removing the list altogether in another thread [34] no one has yet supported either of your proposals, and the list's current placing has stood for a while before this, so please self-revert.
Of course, it isn't an appendix, electoral fraud is the main subject of the article. To cover false claims of electoral fraud before talking about notable instances of it is backwards. JSwift4918:18, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You didn't move it back though, you moved it below 'public perception' [35] Trump is not an extension of 'notable cases', because Trump's claims were false and Election denial movement in the United States. If anything 'public perception' and the Trump section should go together since public perception is mostly about false claims. JSwift4918:55, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I take no position on whether this story should mention the meme that that in one or more surveys the number of purported noncitizens who say they voted is similar to the number of people who say they were abducted by extraterrestrials. What I objected to is using the word "aliens" rather than "extraterrestrials". I object because of the crimes described in Sex trafficking in the United States, and the likelihood that some of these crimes were perpetrated by actual aliens. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:21, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In this diff @JSwift49
1) removed examples of other conspiracy theories
2) removed the analysis of the impact on democracy by placing it with a different sentence about Russia and China (after initially deleting the NYT claim) Superb Owl (talk) 17:55, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This seems very relevant to this topic of election fraud and associated misinformation as the premier research group monitoring social media election misinformation shuttered in 2024. Superb Owl (talk) 21:25, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Prevention does not have discussion of election misinformation and disinformation otherwise it would fit better there. Because it does not fit perfectly into a section is not reason for deletion, but flagging for clarification or more information. I am providing more context now. Superb Owl (talk) 21:34, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Started a sandbox page to try and succinctly summarize the existing disputes, that when coupled with the inline and other flags in the article, can hopefully help someone new to this page (or someone having trouble keeping up with all the comments) to weigh-in on the various disagreements.
Proposing to add back context to this section that was deleted. There are no articles on the subject outside of this one and it would be useful to have a fuller discussion of the impacts of proof of citizenship laws, including who they impact most. No clear reason given for removal other than 'concise' but this paragraph has 3 sentences and am unsure why one or two more is too many. Superb Owl (talk) 17:01, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see an automated, built-in-to-Wikipedia to perform a word count for an article. When I copy it into Microsoft Word I get a count of 8188 words. The table in the article size guideline indicates a size over 8000 words "may need to be divided or trimmed; likelihood goes up with size." I know I could write 1000 words on the problems with the SAVE act. The reason I don't is this is being dealt with in the political sphere on a partizan basis. It isn't about what it says, it's about who you hate.
If the article is too long, I propose moving the 'Notable cases' section to a 'History of electoral fraud in the United States' article and having a three paragraph summary in this article. That section is nearly 2000 words and we could save 1500 words with that change alone. Superb Owl (talk) 17:30, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"The researchers found that 4% independents, 2% of democrats and 1% of Republicans did not have proof of citizenship documents. is IMO not notable enough to include as the Dem/Rep numbers are very close to each other.
You have been trying to remove 'notable cases' for a while now, first because it was somehow undue [37] then because it was a list [38] and now to make room for your preferred content. Since proof of citizenship is basically a voter ID law, I'm thinking more in-depth information about it could go in Voter identification laws in the United States. JSwift4918:02, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Having said that I like what you did with the Kobach and Richman court cases; since they are linked to court cases and not studies it would make more sense to discuss them in the proof of citizenship law section. I'm not opposed to more content, but it should be notable, and the content I removed in my opinion just isn't. JSwift4918:06, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely not. There is no need for a separate history article, and the pattern of your suggestions has always seemed to be removing or minimizing cases of fraud from this article. JSwift4918:32, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I continue to disagree with that logic and your accusations and am adding a more appropriate flag to that section pending consensus. I am asking to add 7 words. You are asking for 1500. Will not rehash our other arguments here. Superb Owl (talk) 18:49, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe this article can have more information about the court cases (since that also ties into the frequency) and the Voter ID article can be focused more on enfranchisement issues. Idk. I'm fine with proof of citizenship all remaining here, too, I just want the content to actually be notable. JSwift4918:33, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think court cases are less relevant here given they are mostly about a specific case in a specific state and extrapolating from data from these witnesses who are not widely regarded for their work is WP:UNDUE. I do think they are more relevant on that article as the cases are specifically about whether or not to enact a citizenship law, not whether or not noncitizen voting occurs. Superb Owl (talk) 18:51, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Tbh I would be fine with moving all the court cases to the Voter ID article. Since the voter ID article already discusses major court cases related to voter ID. JSwift4919:05, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It appears you just deleted most anything critical of these laws and kept only the pieces that tried to assess whether they were doing anything to prevent fraud. I am reverting your mass deletion until we can discuss it here. Superb Owl (talk) 20:14, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's not true, it said critics have said that noncitizen voting does not occur and the laws would disenfranchise eligible voters who lack easy access to such documents.[284][285] A June 2024 Brennan Center study estimates that 21.3 million citizens (9% of voters) do not have easy access to documentary proof of citizenship, and that 3.8 million citizens lack access to any form of documentary proof of citizenship, often because their documents were lost, destroyed or stolen.[286][287]. Since we had decided (I thought?) the place for more details about certain laws is in Voter identification laws in the United States, then that's enough because it gets the point across.
Also, I kept the parts assessing whether they were doing anything to prevent fraud because this article is called Electoral fraud in the United StatesJSwift4920:37, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We had not decided what to remove or keep and clearly have different ideas. I have made clear what I think should be removed via inline flags. Perhaps you can try that first Superb Owl (talk) 20:41, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
? You haven't explained what you want here, you just said I removed most all criticism which was untrue. I assumed since you moved the content to the Voter ID article you don't want this section to be as detailed. JSwift4920:48, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I specifically said I wanted to move the content over there to see how it looked. Not to then delete the half of the content here. I do not think any content should be removed from this section, except maybe some of the 2023 Arizona case. I think content to this section should be added, if anything. Superb Owl (talk) 20:53, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's no reason to have all that detail + the exact same content in both articles; why not just summarize the arguments/cases here, and have all the detail in the Voter ID laws article? It's what every other prevention section (Voter ID laws, Signature verification, Election audits etc.) does.
@JSwift49 continues to remove section flags without addressing or discussing the concerns raised about length and neutrality, so here are my concerns for the talk page to weigh-in on: 1) NPOV: After addressing in depth the NPOV issues of the 1996 partisan house hearing by presenting findings of less partisan bodies like a grand jury and secretary of state and analysis by experts of the evidence as 'disputed' and 'highly contested' @JSwift49erased most of those and then removed the NPOV flag which was there because the rest of the examples that JSwift added should get the same kind of fact-checking and examination before they are presented as if they have been vetted for their neturality. This is a common theme of JSwift49's edits on this article - to present an accusation by a partisan or unreliable source prominently and then object to most efforts to contextualize where that figure came from, how reliable it is and what the final findings were once the investigations were completed. 2) Length: I am concerned that the list of examples are too many and would be better off in their own article with only a few relevant and well-contextualized examples remaining here (<1000 words). Superb Owl (talk) 19:16, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is the fourth separate thread since September 3rd where you have tried to remove/demote 'notable cases', which has been a long-term feature of this article. To recap: first you try removing because it's undue [39] then demoting because it's an appendix [40] then once in prose form because it's too long [41] and then you argue that it's "not neutral".
In fact notable cases of fraud are the main subject of the article and far more worthy of inclusion than details on proof of citizenship law cases (which are already in the Voter ID law article)
It is good that you added context to the 1996 case. The only thing I erased was the grand jury sentence, because that was a criminal investigation into an organization, and the main takeaway was that no noncitizen voter was criminally charged (which the AG said). Details can be read on the Loretta Sanchez page if anyone's interested.
"Notable cases" is shorter than the "Frequency" section and about the same length as the "Prevention" section, neither of which you flagged as "too long". As for neutrality, this was the only instance that was a Congressional investigation, and all others are from historians or court findings, and sourced reliably. I will continue to remove your flags because they are frivolous/WP:BLUDGEON and nobody has supported your arguments in the past three threads. JSwift4922:42, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
First off, you greatly expanded the section, then I added the flag, and nobody has supported your removal of the flag. I have offered twice to seek a third opinion to settle other disputes unless/until others chime in so I am not sure what to do here except to keep the flags until the concerns are addressed or the flag is voted down by a third party Superb Owl (talk) 23:49, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One editor opposed your argument re. placement [42] and one only expressed support for eliminating duplicates (which I then addressed). [43] A third editor also expressed concerns about your general rationale for removing content. [44]JSwift4900:25, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And as a result we no longer have flags that reference those discussions. We just have 2 flags that nobody else has weighed-in on yet that I outlined above. Superb Owl (talk) 00:33, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The length concern is basically the concern about undue weight again; and the neutrality argument is not relevant here as outside of the Sanchez case, this section is not reporting on the findings of partisan investigations. It is relaying what reliable sources have said about historian/court findings. JSwift4900:44, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The length concern arose after another editor expressed concern that the article was beginning to get long and so we needed to ration additions in another section. Until I can confirm that other editors with different perspectives have looked at your contributions in that section, this seems like a perfectly reasonable flag to add. Superb Owl (talk) 00:52, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The editor in question specifically expressed concern about adding to the "Proof of citizenship" section [45][46], which you regardless have continued to expand. A good chunk of the article is either tangential (about false claims of fraud and the effects of them) or text already verbatim in Voter identification laws in the United States#Proof of citizenship laws. Therefore, trying to cut the article length by removing "Notable cases" instead makes no sense.
Of the two editors who responded to your flags on "Notable cases", neither expressed objections to my content that I didn't fix. And the "Notable cases" section was lengthened in response to your earlier concern that it was a list. JSwift4901:02, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I still think it made more sense as an Appendix-like list towards the end of the article - I did not explicitly recommend you take it out of list form. Still not sure what makes a case 'notable' in that section. I have been working trim in other sections article and have done that, including in 'Proof of Citizenship' section without sacrificing important context. Depth in some examples is also valuable as opposed to a couple dozen very shallow (with many NPOV) 2 sentence summaries of different types of fraud/suspected fraud (which is largely what this article was a couple weeks ago). My stance continues to be, if you want to give an example of fraud, we should be able to give it proper context without having our edits immediately deleted as excessive detail without discussion or even a courtesy inline flag to provoke discussion about the concern to allow for others reading the article to weigh-in. Superb Owl (talk) 01:25, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But when it comes to notable cases the rest are either proven or attributed opinions of historians. So I’m not sure what other context needs to be added. Regardless if you have an issue with one case it’s no reason to flag the entire section.
Context is good but I explained my rationale. Proper context, in a summary article like this one, does not mean separately spelling out every expert’s opinion or development. A lot of times I’ve also had to remove/fix content for failing verification or being unencyclopedic.
How is detailing specific proof of citizenship laws that are verbatim described in another article more relevant to an article about fraud than notable cases? JSwift4911:00, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For example, especially in the section called 'Notable cases' but even there it seems discussion of the court cases, consequences, and steps taken to prevent fraud in the future are too much context? I really do not understand that. I read that section in depth and flagged it as overweighting examples in big cities and (currently) blue states. Huey Long and other examples of voter fraud have occurred throughout the US and this section should have relatively more of those examples as well Superb Owl (talk) 16:11, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not initially including examples you found (Long is a good example, don't get me wrong) is not a reason to flag with an NPOV violation. It's a reason to improve by adding content. This is why I have had broader concerns about the way you use flags.
As far as I know, it is perfectly reasonable to add a flag while working through the issues flagged (as I am) and it is an NPOV or UNDUE violation or both Superb Owl (talk) 17:46, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In just that Notable Cases section I counted: 25 examples of Democrats are listed as the perpetrators of fraud or implied (big city) vs 4 examples of Republicans being listed as the perpetrators of fraud (or implied). This seems very imbalanced to me. Another editor might TNT it, but I just am flagging it for now Superb Owl (talk) 18:01, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Party affiliation was not a consideration in my research. You are welcome to add more notable cases where Republicans committed fraud. But removing party affiliation entirely just because you’re unhappy too many Dems are listed is quite unencyclopedic.
Intent does not matter with WP:UNDUE - replacing the flag until the imbalance (which has zero support in secondary sources suggesting that one party commits more than another) is addressed Superb Owl (talk) 17:20, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Since party affiliation was removed from case descriptions unless it is needed such as primaries, it's a moot issue anyway now. JSwift4920:42, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to address the issue but many of my edits to address the issue were reverted by you, and so the problem remains. There are also speculative examples that are unproven so am not sure 'Notable Cases' is appropriate as a section header as it could imply that there is consensus on all of these, when in fact, there is not on multiple examples. Perhaps a better section header would be "Notable allegations" Superb Owl (talk) 21:18, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Your edits, for example, replaced 'Democratic primary' with 'primary' which often changed the meaning of the sentence/facts. I kept the removals of party affiliation where it didn't matter, but your proposal would essentially require false or misleading information.
Few of the examples listed are unproven, and they have appropriate context, so... 'notable allegations' would be much less accurate of a title. JSwift4921:42, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, there are many more examples beyond primaries (which I contend still do not need to be specified by party) that you put back party affiliation. Unless you undo your reversions, or until we approach a semblence of balance in this section, then I will continue to flag it as WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV Superb Owl (talk) 21:51, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Again, that isn't a true statement. The only other examples where party is listed are PA State Senate and 1997 California races (where party context is necessary to understand what's going on) and then two others: Kennedy and Nixon and Massachusetts Republican candidate Enrico Jack Villamaino. I removed party ID from the latter two. JSwift4921:59, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I went ahead and made a couple more bold edits in the spirit of trying to get this flag removed. Let me know what you think and I can undo them if there are strong objections. Essentially we need to label Republicans when there are only 4 cases here and 25 cases of democrats Superb Owl (talk) 22:08, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That is... not how WP:NPOV works at all. If anything only labeling members of one party in non-necessary cases is a violation. It's also rather unencyclopedic to flat-out remove which party flipped control of the State Senate as a result of the 1994 fraud. [47]
Actually, it is not up to me to do research, it is up to you to create a balanced section, and if that is not something you are interested in pursuing for whatever reason, then the NPOV flag should remain until it is balanced. I have tried in good faith to address the problems in this section and so we can just wait it out for other editors to weigh-in Superb Owl (talk) 22:22, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you are arguing that it is an unbalanced section, then you are expected to provide evidence of that beyond "there are more Democrats than Republicans". I have included cases that received significant coverage/were otherwise especially notable, which is perfectly reasonable for a list of this nature. JSwift4922:27, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That is really helpful for explaining some of the discrepancies in the 19th and 20th centuries when democrats controlled state legislatures in the south and border states - moved the flags for now to 21st century examples where I will focus my attention on researching and trying to ensure it is neutrally portrayed Superb Owl (talk) 23:59, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also as I explained, it is less accurate to use prosecution as a metric for non-citizen voting since as established in the 'prosecution' section, not all perpetrators of voter fraud are prosecuted, and may instead receive warnings for example. So a bipartisan audit is far better than the number of people arrested. This isn't about removing context. JSwift4923:04, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This article has had many examples, including that section, where all voter fraud cases are crudely lumped together in one nefarious-seeming number. As this article is about voter fraud, if an example is given, it is perfectly reasonable to expect that we should discuss why it happened, what were the motivations/causes and what were the consequences. Most of these cases result in few prosecutions because they were mostly accidental or were dismissed as not even being fraud at all. This seems extremely notable and its exclusion or pushing it onto other pages seems to violate NPOV as that context is also covered in reliable sources, not just the headline numbers. Superb Owl (talk) 23:55, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Context is important eg. with partisan state investigations, but the NC BOE is bipartisan, so I don't see why you need context when they are reported in reliable sources as identifying 41 noncitizens who voted (unless some later turned out to be an error). Maybe some were accidental and maybe only some were prosecuted, but this section is about the incidence of noncitizen voting, so I say that distinction is not important. 41 non citizens out of millions is also hardly nefarious-seeming. JSwift4900:34, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In terms of that case, not all voter fraud cases are the same. The frequency of malicious/intentional vs. unintentional is relevant there. Not sure why that can't be discussed. Also not sure why you deleted the 3 cases referred for prosecution over the last 3 NC elections. That seems like really valuable context and cannot understand why that is no longer in the article. Superb Owl (talk) 00:39, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As I said before, the sources suggest to me that prosecutions are not as reliable a measurement as reliable audits, because lack of prosecution does not necessarily mean lack of intent. If we have reliable audits available we should use those. It's a section about frequency, regardless. JSwift4900:51, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
JSwift49 wrote "the sources suggest to me that prosecutions are not as reliable a measurement as reliable audits, because lack of prosecution does not necessarily mean lack of intent." It seems likely to me that successful prosecutions under count the amount of non-citizen voting that occurs. Occasionally one may find an audit that does a good job of identifying cases that seem like non-citizen voting at first glance, but actually are not. The North Carolina Board of Elections audit, taken at face value, seems like a good audit. But many other audits do a much worse job. The North Carolina audit on appendix page 1 states "In fact, voters who appear to be non-citizens based on DMV data were confirmed to be U.S. citizens in the SAVE database 97.6 percent of the time." [Emphasis in original]. It seems a naive would overestimate non-citizen voting by two orders of magnitude, while prosecutions might underestimate it by one order of magnitude. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:20, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That BOE finding is interesting and something I have been wondering about - just how often these potential matches are verified as actual noncitizens vs recently naturalized citizens. I added it into the Noncitizen voting section (should we bold the quote in the article if it is bolded in the source?) Superb Owl (talk) 18:51, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I only think about one thing at a time. I won't consider Suburb Owl's post of 18:51, 17 September 2024 (UTC) until the redundant citations I mentioned on Suburb Owl's talk page are resolved. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:48, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Per the edit of 13:18, 12 September 2024, providing voters with transportation to the polls constitutes paying people to vote and is therefore a violation of Federal law.
Normally I would just put this on my personal list of other editors' "silly edits", but this is really presented in such a confusing way that I am putting this here to alert others about this claim.
The presentation strikes me as very confusing, but as best as I can tell, it indicates that the courts do not currently consider providing free transportation to the polls to be a violation of Federal election law, and if that's the case, then this is pretty much all moot. (Admittedly, given that this got published in a reputable publication, I must most certainly be wrong!) Fabrickator (talk) 23:10, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It confused me too - seems like it's trying to claim that providing transporation is payment but it isn't? I'm going to split into two paragrahs Superb Owl (talk) 00:39, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Richard Hasen wrote that in January of 2024 that, "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 removed the flag and the version you created now that the first seems to have more consensus to include the full quote (pending any discussion here) Superb Owl (talk) 21:45, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Notable Cases should be its own section because a lot of the cases listed aren't limited to one specific type of fraud, and most of them are quite old. So no, I don't support this suggestion or changes to the structure.
I cannot support removal of context so long as false and misleading claims are on this article (such as 'potential noncitizens' or 'potential fraud' estimates). We should include full context that helps to explain the difference between 'potential' and actual fraud if those figures appear in this article. We can also have a conversation about removing all the claims and just sticking to the facts and removing conjectures to tighten up the article too but I think the first step is to provide context and then discuss whether it is excessive detail and should be moved to a separate article (like we did with Voter ID and Proof of Citizenship). Not to prematurely delete every addition before it can be discussed, improved or moved to a better section. Superb Owl (talk) 21:01, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is a {{dubious}} tag for the claim that the Cato Institute stated there was no detectable amount of noncitizen voting and a {{relevant}} tag for the finding by "the [Cato] Institute" that noncitizen voting is "effectively zero."
Let's take the second claim first. We have a claim that Cato's evaluation of the amount of non-citizen voting is effectively zero. The article is about electoral fraud, presumably about voting by people who may not legally vote. How can a claim that there isn't any material amount of such voting not be relevant?
As to the first claim, which is essentially the same thing, that the amount of such voting is not detectable. This would seem to follow from the claim that it's "effectively zero". Essentially, Cato is being cited twice that the amount of non-citizen voting small enough that it's judged to be not material.
So the real difference between these two tags is whether Cato made such a claim and whether it's relevant that Cato made such a claim. It certainly seems that Cato made the claim, and the relevance depends on how much credibility Cato has in making this claim.
However, the edit comment notes that these perspectives are essentially summarizations of various studies and are therefore "not notable". To me, this is a dubious claim. If the Cato Institute has a certain degree of credibility, their reporting that non-citizen voting is effectively zero would certainly seem to meet a reasonable interpretation of being "notable". Fabrickator (talk) 11:23, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The dubious tag was originally because the text said [49] CATO had "found" there was no fraud, and the only source said CATO "has said" there was no fraud (made no reference to a study). That was fixed so I'll remove.
I'm still unsure why CATO in particular deserves two separate mentions as they not only didn't carry out a new study; but they aren't a nonpartisan expert/summary of studies, and we already have examples of both. For now I changed it to just summarizing what they said in 2020/2024. JSwift4912:06, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In this edit to the article Suburb Owl added a quote from a 28 page article. The way it is displayed at the Brennan Center makes it impossible to do a browser search for fragments of the quote. Supurb Owl did not provide a page number. Please provide a page number. I am marking the statement as disputed because I can't find the quote. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:35, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll add why I don't think the statement is true in context.
The Brennan Center argues that detection of noncitizen voting is "very easy" because there are records of who casts a ballot.
The only context comes from the article title and the section title, "Noncitizen voting". Very easy for who? Various official state investigations have tried, and many of the efforts have been abandoned, heavily criticized, or both. Some non-government group or independent researchers? It's not so easy if you don't have access to voter checklists showing who voted, full Social Security records, full DMV records, or access to the Homeland Security SAVE system. I suspect the quote is actually there someplace, but the surrounding text is likely to indicate a different meaning than when it is seen out of context. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:05, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The quote comes from page 7 as shown on the pages of the document, or page 15 of 26 by the excreable Scribd viewer. The section title in the paper, on the previous page, is "III. How Election Administrators Detect and Prevent Fraud". The bullet point says
High Risk of Detection: Because there are records of who votes, detection is very easy. Voting records can be and are reviewed or compared to lists of ineligibel voters to identify anyone ineligible by election administrators, political parties, and activists. As noted by Tammy Patrick, Fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center and former Federal Compliance Officer at the Maricopa County Elections Department in Arizona: "Voter apathy is an issue for citizens in this country. To think that someone who is her trying to stay under the radar would put their name on an official list and get to vote in elections and expose themselves, with so much at risk, doesn't make sense." Detection threats do not just come from people interested in elections. USCIS can require naturalizaiton applicants to produce proof that they never registered or voted, including a "voting record from the relevant board of elections commission." Indeed, several election administrators we interviewed being called upon to produce this documentation for noncitizens going through the naturalization process. [Footnotes within quote omitted.]
It seems to me that Famighetti, Keith, and Perez did not have a clear concept of who "very easy" applies to. So I would interpret it to the narrowest possible reading of the passage; it's very easy for high level state election officials to determine if a particular individual is likely to have voted while not a citizen, if somebody else has focused the attention of high level election officials on a particular individual.
Going from saying "likely" to "proven" requires a criminal trial, and nobody would say that's easy. Even a weaker word like "clearly" is tough, unless the individual confesses. I'm a voting official, and I've sat at the table, checking people off with a pen on a paper list. It would be easy to make a check mark on the wrong line. When 1000 people vote, usually the hand-counted number of check marks on the paper disagrees with the number of machine-readable ballots passed through the voting machine by one or two.
That's a valid point, I would replace 'very easy' altogether with something more descriptive, like 'voting records can be reviewed or compared to lists of ineligible voters'. JSwift4913:53, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed - because we attribute the quote and because one can reasonably assume we are only talking about election officials here, it sounds like including "very easy" wording is as it is now is the consensus view so far? Superb Owl (talk) 16:17, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The article is unstable. (The editors responsible for the instability know who they are.) I will not think about Superb Owl's post unless Superb Owl links to a specific version and provides a quote of what Superb Owl thinks the consensus view is. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:54, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oh wait, I didn't find it because a {{dubious}} was stuck in the middle of the statement. After reading some of the recent stories about badly written software in Arizona and incompetence on the part of the Oregon DMV, I think the statement is just false. Getting this stuff right takes a decade of intense software development and training of the relevant workers. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:05, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Your proposal of not describing what the study even claimed seems quite the WP:NPOV violation. Plus, it's redundant to describe the NYT saying it's debunked separate from the summary that it is widely debunked + the 2015 study. JSwift4921:25, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The coverage is uniformly negative and saying we should not consider the findings, so why would we repeat debunked findings or put and weight on them in this article? Superb Owl (talk) 21:27, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that makes any sense to discuss bad social science as a means of debunking it - we already link to the Jesse Richman article that has the context. Superb Owl (talk) 22:03, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We're not "discussing" as in analyzing, we're simply saying there was a study that found xyz, it is widely considered discredited/debunked, and it was notably wrongly used by xyz. That's all information readers need. Not sure what the concern is as people won't read that and come away with a different conclusion. JSwift4922:45, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you both for all of your work on this article. I see that you’ve both put in a tremendous amount of effort. This article is changing so fast that it's hard to feel confident that I'm looking at the specific thing that you're referring to. The only reference to Richman that I'm seeing is in the final sentence of the Proof of citizenship laws section. I have three thoughts: 1) I disagree that an encyclopedia should 'teach the controversy' within an article. I don't think that every false statement that has ever been made around a topic needs to be discussed within an encyclopedia entry on that topic. I think including those details is distracting and ‘muddies the waters.’ 2) For that reason, I think that the discussion of the Richman study as currently written is fine. 3) The sentence itself is confusing as written. It says that the documentary proof of citizenship requirement was struck down but some were upheld. It sounds like 1 entire thing was being discussed so I’m not sure what parts remained to be upheld. --BeauregardTA (talk) 01:05, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you also; there are two Richman studies, I changed the 2023 one to make the sentence clearer but without the specific findings. This dispute was actually about the "2014 Old Dominion University study" (it doesn't refer to his name in the article) and I think we settled on phrasing for that but feel free to share your thoughts. JSwift4913:54, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I could not agree more with your suggestion on not teaching the controversy (there are enough fact-checking websites doing that). Thank you so much for weighing-in - I know the edits from the last month or two have been overwhelming but the more input we get from yourself and others, it should really help to stabilize things as a greater percentage of edits are disagreements on wording, what belongs in which article, etc. The Arizona laws are confusing, changing and seem undercovered in the news but will work on clarifying what was upheld or not. Superb Owl (talk) 20:30, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Superb Owl edit about documentary proof of citizenship
Superb Owl made an edit questioning whether we should mention that the federal form to register to vote does not require documentary proof of citizenship. I think it should be mentioned.
A reader is likely to wonder whether it's easy or hard for a noncitizen to register to vote. The reader might come in with the misconception that the voting official will demand to see a US passport, birth certificate indicating birth in the US, or similar documents. The reader will be better prepared to read the rest of the article by knowing that no such proof is demanded. The paragraph later explains that some states cross-check available records to detect probable non-citizens. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:26, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@JSwift49, here are some issues I have with your recent edits which I reverted since most (almost all) were disruptive and not constructive: diff 1 - none of these edits were objectively constructive
1) Changes are not explained in the comments for many edits
2) Confusuing ordering of sentences that does not 'buries the lead' to highlight tangential topics like voter fraud that is not the kind being discussed here
3) Over-quotation of mail-in ballot section
4) 'Attempted registrations' number in Georgia is redundant to below sentence and improperly included without context as to what that number means.
5) Removal of well-sourced information without first flagging or discussing the material
Diff 2 - I went back and made the WEF change, which was a good catch
1) Removal of a chart in favor of partial inclusion of inline text that is not reader-friendly
2) Again, little to no attempt to flag or otherwise discuss well-sourced material
Diff 3 - no objetively helpful edits here
1) Removal of important context about how voter fraud is prevented, documentary proof of citizenship burdens at the heart of these conversations that are cited by a number of reliable sources
2) NPOV edits to try and elevate Richman testimony and erase any mention of the consequences of the Kansas law, which was a main reason it was struck down. Superb Owl (talk) 15:50, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Diff 1:
1) I explained changes for the substantial edits, the greater number of changes per edit was in response to a concern by The Wordsmith [50] that we were making too many small edits.
2) I don't get at all what you mean by 'confusing'. Studies go together, expert opinions go together, other types of information goes together, and each section starts with the central conclusion: how rare each form is.
3) Experts are quoted verbatim in all sections. The removal of quotes from the mail-in section only is in my opinion disproportionate, especially given the excessive detail at the end of the article which is verbatim in other articles/tangential to the topic of fraud.
4) Each of the three reliable sources describes the 1,634 number, and the sentence was as the sources describe it. We should adhere to how reliable sources phrase this issue.
5) I didn't remove substantial info in that diff except the specific penalties for double voting, which I didn't find particularly important, but have added it back.
My objections to your other edits which I changed:
Alien study (which I did mention) is directly related to the topic, has tons of reliable sources explaining it, and has been in the article since 2016 [51]. I don't see a basis for removing a notable, reliably sourced study with long-term implicit consensus.
38 prosecutions, none for voter impersonation is important context as it shows that it's rare compared to other forms (this has also had implicit consensus since 2016 [52]).
It's important context with the 2014 Richman study to mention the 2015 study of the same data that found no evidence of noncitizen voting.
Rest was copy editing. I added back the 'secret ballot' phrasing.
Diff 2:
1) The California bar chart, as I explained, is WP:UNDUE. California isn't representative of the United States as a whole. If we just show a chart about what Californians think, it can mislead readers about American public opinion.
2) If material is well-sourced, it doesn't mean it belongs in the article. The material I removed was in my opinion, out of scope. The WEF highlighted disinformation as a threat to global elections but that's not specifically about fraud or the US. The Stanford Internet Observatory getting shut down is not about public perception of fraud, and it seems it is unclear whether it was shut down anyway. See Wikipedia:Verifiability#Verifiability_does_not_guarantee_inclusion.
You have often removed well-sourced information yourself, though you have more often removed content about voter fraud itself than about tangential topics, and that's what I don't understand since this article is about voter fraud.
Diff 3:
1) The section already establishes that POC laws disenfranchise voters; this is a summary. I don't see a need to include detail that is verbatim in the main article about Voter ID laws. With court cases, the important thing for this article are the findings related to rates of fraud.
2) In my opinion, it's not a NPOV violation to describe Richman's testimony similar to how a reliable source (the Washington Post) described it; WaPo gave it considerable weight in their article, the court found it credible, and the context (experts disputing it) is not lost on anyone. Per @BeauregardTA I'll omit the specific findings and try improving the clarity of the sentence. JSwift4913:13, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
None of these comments have changed my preference for the original edits, so I went through and added back the most clearcut (in my view). Will wait to see if anyone else has the appetite to weigh-in here before bringing back some of the others one-by-one. Here is more commentary on some of your comments that might benefit from more explanation/clarification: Diff 1 2 - the way you phrase it does not specify what we are talking about, which is mail-in ballots. Instead, you are emphasizing another 'potential' number (which I flagged as needing to be updated with the final figure of actual double voting) 4 - the articles that cover this are covering the entire topic, this section is not. This is a recent figure that has insufficient context and is already covered in a below sentence. There is no reason to include it, especially when how it is presented implies that more than 1000 noncitizens tried to register (which is not confirmed and would need to be updated when it is but given the partisan audit behind it, it is not a great source of statistics on this issue, unlike North Carolina's nonpartisan board, making it WP:UNDUE) Diff 2 1 - I struggle to see how the bar chart is WP:UNDUE but listing the same statistic in the body is not. California has ~40 million Americans. If there is a recent reputable national survey, we could replace it with that one.
38 prosecutions are for other items. The way you phrase it makes it looks like it was 38 prosecutions for that subsection category. That is confusing and excessive detail. If anything it can be added back in parentheses, but it needs to be severely deemphasized if included at all.
2 - the Election Integrity Partnership (election misinformation research) was shut down, the part of its work that is the focus of that section and relevant to this article. The sources establish its notability for this topic as showing that researchers have less visibility into election misinformation, disinformation and rumors in 2024 as a result so I added it as a see also for now pending other input. Diff 3 2 - Richman, as we have learned, is not a reliable academic but a fringe source. The most reliable source he had that found him credible was 1 generalist judge and 1 generalist journalist, as a result, gave it weight without endorsing his work. He has not had one single reputable expert find his work credible, not even the AZ work where all 3 experts who have commented remain unconvinced (at best) of any of his findings. That is shocking and damning and until there is any evidence that he has learned how to do research that is not "social science at its worst", then we should be very careful to elevate his claims in this article. It is extremely WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE to rely on one article written by one non-expert journalist citing one non-expert judge as evidence of notability. Literally every other WP:RS in the last 5-10 years does not reach remotely similar conclusions about noncitizen voting. Superb Owl (talk) 03:24, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Diff 1
2 - I don't mind changing the order of the sentence, though the stat doesn't need an update in my opinion. The study found a tiny number of potential ballots and it makes that clear; the point is that so few were even potential.
4 - It has sufficient context as sources have described; in fact Gowser added the yearly average which improves the context even more. Again, I think we should not disregard how reliable sources frame what happened. Reducing it to 'an audit found zero noncitizen voters' doesn't give readers enough context as to why that is.
Diff 2
1 - Because listing the statistic as one of many statistics gives it appropriate weight. When your only image/bar chart is of one particular state, though, that gives it weight above the other polls, which given that it's only covering California is not appropriate.
38 prosecutions; The source mentions the 38 first and then none being for voter impersonation, I tried reversing the order and it's more confusing. I think it's fine as-is.
2 - You put it into the article... Also if you read the Wiki article on the Stanford center it's unclear whether it was even shut down. I still oppose including it as it's tangential information on an already tangential topic to electoral fraud. It would be good for something like Fake news in the United States.
Diff 3
2 - I only see two experts who commented? Regardless I changed it to not mention the specific claims. But we should still mention the name of the person who made the estimate so people have context/can connect it to the 2014 study mentioned earlier in the article.
1) Changing States typically have safeguards to prevent noncitizen voting, and the extent to which states verify citizenship of voters differs to States have safeguards to prevent noncitizen voting such as conducting audits. misrepresents the sources. One source says states "typically" have safeguards", and the other says many states have tried various means of confirming the citizenship status of voters, and mentions Kansas which doesn't verify, and Florida which scrapped its attempt. So the first version is more accurate.
2) Changing New voters must check a box attesting that they are a citizen, though are not required to provide documentary proof of citizenship. to New voters must check a box attesting that they are a citizen and are not required to provide a birth certificate or other proof of citizenship when registering. is confusing framing, and I see nothing wrong with the original text. When I first read it I thought 'other proof' could refer to checking the box. JSwift4912:23, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No reason to remove CATO source about ballot harvesting when CATO is treated as reliable in the noncitizen voting section.
"Illegal noncitizen voting" is imo a necessary qualifier because noncitizens can legally vote in some jurisdictions.
No reason to remove Many states have tried various means of confirming the citizenship status of voters, though these have not been foolproof and have led to some errors and legal fights when that is a close paraphrase of PolitiFact.
How is Texas requires court clerks to notify the secretary of state of those disqualified from jury duty due to being noncitizens. not written neutrally?
The over 30000 citizens is not only unnecessary detail as discussed, but it's also a different court case to the Robinson one.
Survey research is still evidence that was 'claimed to have been found' even if it turned out to be BS.
Hasen previously saying it was a small problem (including in his book) is notable I think for a brief mention, especially given the later contrast.
As explained, illegal noncitizen voting is confusing and even legal noncitizen voting is extremely rare so it's not necessary
No reason to add it either - not sure what it adds.
Some people check the noncitizen jury duty box by accident or on purpose to get out of jury duty. Saying that all of those were in fact noncitizens is mostly wrong, misleading and imprecise.
30,000 citizens is the same case and not unnecessary as it was part of the reasoning given in the decision. Not sure why you are so insistent on removing it and adding other context that is unproven and speculative in other sections as opposed to solid, verified context here.
Using the word evidence is misleading and inappropriate as explained. Not sure why we would want to elevate BS claims with terms like evidence when it was a debunked survey, not evidence of noncitizen voting but estimates. We are not teaching the controversy here.
Stop trying to create WP:SYNTH with Hasen. All but one of his older quotes in unequivocal in how he see the issue. Your continued NPOV pushing of one outdate quote continues to violate WP:AGE MATTERS and WP:DUE. Please stop.
Why is CATO unnecessary? If them saying that noncitizen voting isn't a problem is notable, so too is them saying ballot harvesting could cause coercion.
I am not understanding how "illegal noncitizen voting" it's confusing; am open to ideas on how it should be rewritten. "Illegal voting by noncitizens" might be better.
It just says if someone was banned from jury duty because they were a noncitizen they'd be referred. The source says Texas: Requires state court clerks to notify the secretary of state of those excused or disqualified from jury duty for not being a U.S. citizen.
It adds that many states have tried and some have run into roadblocks; that wasn't mentioned before.
Because Robinson didn't find that 30,000, so bringing that up would require bringing up the appeals court. I think that's too much detail for a summary of a topic tangential to electoral fraud.
I don't think it's elevating to say 'claimed to find evidence'. Estimates I suppose are fine.
It's not one outdated quote; it's his 2012 book, a 2012 op-ed, and a 2014 interview.
I have attempted to address some of these. I added the 30,000 back, though simplified it to 'courts found' instead of naming Robinson since there were two different courts involved JSwift4919:54, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
CATO is fine - I will not delete it again, maybe just workshop the language
The word 'illegal' is objectionable because it is associated with illegal immigration. Find another word if you think it is needed (which I don't think it is).
I will find the source that explains this issue in more detail and doesn't reference the topic in an offhand and imprecise way. If introducing a new concept, you might want to make sure the source is giving that concept sufficient attention and precision.
Vague and imprecise Roadblocks could reference massive politically-motivated voter suppression attempt and not a genuine targeted voter roll maintenance program. This is a conflation of two concepts and is potentially misleading and imprecise. Find a better source that explains this well.
I tried to attribute the appeals court ruling but was interrupted by your reversion. will try again when the dust settles.
Sounds like we're agreed here
Mmm that's a stretch. This article isn't about 2012 views on noncitizen voting. A LOT has happened since then in terms of research. Elevating a quote about uncertainty from over a decade ago is WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE.
What's the issue with 'Illegal voting by noncitizens'? I thought that would clear things up more.
I'm not understanding the jury thing; it seems like a pretty straightforward sentence and we're getting too much into what it may or may not imply.
It doesn't say 'roadblocks'; I do think we should reference that not all methods have been foolproof/problem-free, more specific examples of this are good
This article has a lot of stuff from ten years ago. But regardless imo it's not WP:UNDUE or WP:FRINGE if a notable scholar held a view (established through multiple quotes and a book) that it was a small problem, and later says that it evaporated under scrutiny. In fact, it's useful context.
I already explained how it creates more confusion that it solves.
Then that's a good reason to not include something if you do not understand it from just reading one source. For example, some who said they were noncitizens on one jury duty form have since become citizens. Give me time to find the source explaining the issues with relying on jury duty forms. We can include it, but should be worded neutrally and with a 'needs context' flag
We should be more specific about what the problems are. If we can't do that or if they aren't well-described below, then we should avoid vague statements
Re. noncitizens on jury duty: so? All this sentence is doing is stating what Texas' policy is. If you can find an article about the effects of Texas' jury policy then by all means it can be added but that's not a basis for removing a simple description of state policy. I understand the policy, though not your objection.
Re. Hasen I will only say that your characterization of one 'quote about uncertainty' is inaccurate; this is a position he voiced multiple times that it was a small problem.
There is nothing new to respond to here. None of these arguments are convincing, some are misleading. You clearly have a point of view and continue trying to spread a narrative by elevating half truths and putting WP:UNDUE on controversies. This is not productive and not helpful. Superb Owl (talk) 19:12, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am working from reliable sources and trying to create a balanced article with context (but without unnecessary detail if it is already found in other articles). The article has generally gotten a lot better. But, don't appreciate the WP:ASPERSIONJSwift4919:34, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I continue to object to all of the recent edits. The article has gotten better in most ways, not uniformly and it was not easy countering and debunking all the misinformation and innuendos that was elevated along the way. Superb Owl (talk) 19:58, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I added Stanford back in a more general framing that ties in better to electoral fraud and social media. Also fixed the 38 cases line/removed "have not been foolproof" JSwift4913:58, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Stanford addition is not an improvement, in my opinion, though the 38 compromise works for me. There are, however, a number of other objectionable edits made without any consensus that will be reverted shortly. Superb Owl (talk) 20:02, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You have added material that has no consensus such as your framing of Stanford (which is not an NPOV framing of the situation), while removing material such as aliens which has had longstanding implicit consensus since 2016, and which nobody besides you supports removing. [55]JSwift4921:28, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Petition fraud is discussed in the article, while voter intimidation is not, so I think there's only a need to bring up voter intimidation specifically in the database as everything else is included below.
As I said, extraterrestrial study has implicit consensus since 2016, and no one else has expressed a desire to remove it.
Source doesn't quite get to 'clear paper trail for checking citizenship status', just that registering and voting creates a paper trail.
Source doesn't support that 'many' efforts were overturned.
Not teaching the controversy by saying specifically what Richman found, I understand, but I maintain we should attribute things, as the article has done by including Richman/Earnests' names since 20162018. Otherwise, context is lacking, especially since the authors are mentioned in the article twice.
Still don't understand why a 2015 study finding no evidence of fraud is being removed
The Stanford framing doesn't really relate to fraud; the fact that misinformation researchers are generally being attacked is quite tangential. The main relation is that there is flagging and removing of false claims of electoral fraud, which has caused controversy/attacks against researchers, and the SCOTUS case. So I would only support the mentioning of Stanford in that context.
Which article? The database says 5.87% of cases are petition fraud. If we are going to list the overall number, we should explain what is in it (at least the more notable instances)
ET study was inconclusive and by now outdated. You are the only one supporting retaining it
We can remove clear - no issues there
That's fine - let's remove 'many'. Will find a better source for that
There is another author listed, not sure why including the authors is important on a discredited study.
Study is widely (almost universally would be a better descriptor) discredited - not sure why we need to keep discrediting it
No reason to mention Stanford at all - main focus is the Election Integrity Partnership which tracked and studied false election fraud claims among other election misinformation. Your framing tried to teach the controversy once again and WP:BOTHSIDES a situation that was pretty clearly settled in WP:RS and in the courts as meritless
Ah I meant that petition fraud is already discussed in the Wikipedia article.
But it's useful as it shows it's rare; and again a lot of studies are from 10ish years ago. Since no editor before you had wanted to remove it since 2016, I think more support for a removal is needed.
Wdym by 'another author listed'?
I think it's important because it's not just a discrediting of the study, it's a notable study of data that had its own findings (no evidence).
That's not true; the court (in a split decision) just ruled the plaintiffs didn't have standing. [57] The Nature article specifically says The decision stops short of declaring that such activities are protected as free speech under the US Constitution.[58]
There is no reason to not mention it again in that section - that is an overview section which helps to establish what is meant by fraud. By showing that some of the cases are petition fraud (which might not be obvious given that petition fraud does not have its own subsection in the wikipedia article and is not mentioned in the lead), it clearly shows important context that not all of those cases are voter impersonation, etc.
WP:AGE MATTERS and WP:UNDUE - there are more useful studies since then
There are 3 authors on the study referenced. It becomes excessive detail for a study whose only contribution to the literature seems to have been to fuel conspiracy theory narratives about voter fraud.
It seems to contribute more to a WP:BOTHSIDES and false balance approach than it does to actually convey the scholarly consensus that it is a fringe study. If anything we should include NYT summary from 2017 saying the field has moved on or the 200 political scientists signing an open letter. These secondary sources are way more important and relevant than individual studies in Wikipedia
I took another crack at trying to be more precise then with the language by replacing meritless with: lawsuits (which were successfully defended but at great expense)
I don't mind petition fraud that much just think it's unnecessary but ok.
That is your opinion re. the alien study, but given the longstanding implicit consensus, more people should weigh in before removal.
Same re. Richman and being named/the 2015 study in response. Besides it starts with 'A widely discredited estimate', that isn't WP:FALSEBALANCE at all. In fact, adding the 2015 study makes it even less WP:FALSEBALANCE.
Sorry, that is barely a change and doesn't address the concerns I laid out. Please remove Stanford until there is consensus around the form it takes.
Given how many revisions have occurred over the past month, it seems like a stretch to assume that the new edits will get seen by most folks watching this article and that the best way to get this article to a more stable place might be to flag and discuss instead of immediately removing well-sourced additions. Superb Owl (talk) 17:47, 19 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to be that several of the "other types" of electoral fraud listed in this section are fairly tangential to the intended focus of this article.
falsification of signatures on nominating petitions
This is quite distinctive from voting.
election workers changing or destroying ballots after they arrive
Certainly of concern, but distinct from voter fraud.
voter registration fraud (sometimes linked to third-party services)
Definitely on point!
It is illegal to pay people to vote in the United States.
This may be a valid concern, but it's inherently risky.
Courts have historically considered the practice of busing voters to polling stations legally permissible.
Exactly!
To complement the above, I'll add some others that conceivably could be included:
theft of absentee ballots mailed to voters
theft of voter information notices
disseminating false voter information notices
theft of mailed absentee ballots returned
theft of ballots from drop-off boxes
discarding of ballots picked up from drop-off boxes
phony drop-off boxes and/or polling locations
This list excludes efforts to unfairly influence election results without necessarily violating the law, such as having voting locations and drop-off boxes only in areas convenient to those who support one party or the other or making it more or less difficult for certain groups of people to register to vote. Other examples would be to arrange for unnecessary delays of in-person voting, or establishing laws that prohibit providing water to people who are waiting in line to vote. Fabrickator (talk) 06:27, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My two cents:
Falsification of nomination signatures to me is like illegal voting. You're still fraudulently claiming a certain number of voters supported you in order to win an election (just with signatures). I think it counts.
I see election workers changing/destroying ballots as a type of electoral fraud not committed by voters.
Definitely agree the section on bribery needs more information.
The busing thing... yeah I thought it would be good context to bribery at first but now it doesn't really have a reason to be there, does it?
Some of the examples you mention are described in the mail in fraud section, but they're are all good examples.
You wrote: Falsification of nomination signatures to me is like illegal voting. ... You're still fraudulently claiming a certain number of voters supported you ...
I believe that it's legal in many if not most places to allow for persons who collect nomination signatures to be paid. It's not a measurement of support, it's just a threshold measure to avoid letting people get on the ballot as a complete whim. The "worst" result is that candidates theoretically would spend a little less money to get on the ballot; only theoretically would this make a difference in who gets on the ballot. As to "claiming support" by the number of signatures on petitions, the number of signatures is not much of an indication of support, a candidate would be properly concerned that some signatures will be rejected because they were signatures of unqualified persons (I believe it's common to use statistical sampling to verify sufficient number of valid signatures on nominating petitions).
For emphasis, requiring signatures on nominating petitions doesn't get people elected. It's a way to limit the number of people on the ballot, and some jurisdictions allow getting on the ballot just by paying a filing fee. Perhaps with sufficient grass roots support this can just be a less costly way to get on the ballot.
If we're going to talk about arbitrary sorts of "fraud" that might plausibly have some effect on the outcome (assuming it occurs in sufficient numbers), that's fine, but I'm suggesting that doesn't apply to nominating positions. Fabrickator (talk) 14:22, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fabrikator's reply may apply pretty well to nominations to major offices that get a lot of attention. But there are local offices where the candidates end up on the main ballot (not the primary) unopposed. Sometimes the main ballot has no one running for an office. In these cases, just getting nominated amounts to winning.
I've also noticed a number of prosecutions, court cases, or disciplinary cases where it was alleged that a notary acted improperly in notarizing nominating petitions. (Not all states require petitions be notarized.) Jc3s5h (talk) 14:42, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But if you’re knowingly taking a measure (fake signatures) to fraudulently get on the ballot, that’s still electoral fraud, no? I’m not saying paying people for signatures is fraud, but the Michigan case for example, canvassers illegally falsified signatures, which is illegally helping a candidate. JSwift4916:47, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm presuming that that there's not a general interest in anything that could conceivably be construed to constitute some kind of fraud, but that we're trying to address situations where a minority of the electorate is able to use manipulative techniques to obtain a majority of the vote. If somebody breaks the law, then presumably they can be charged. If they were going to get on the ballot legitimately, they will have no reason to violate any laws to get on the ballot.
Here's how silly this is (well at least in some cases)... running for town council in a town in California with a population of 50,000 might have a filing fee of $25 and require a nominating petition with 25 valid signatures. But if they get 100 valid signatures, the filing fee is waived.
There's not much purpose in enumerating every conceivable way that someone could violate an election law. The focus should be on ensuring that people who followed all the rules get their votes counted and other people aren't able to "stuff the ballot box". These other things being raised are just distractions. Fabrickator (talk) 18:32, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree this article shouldn't enumerate each way to violate an election law. For example, it shouldn't deal with campaign finance violations. I do think it should list examples that have to do with ballots and illegal manipulation of the electoral process. I feel like fraudulent signatures fits into that: Oregon, for example, banned paying signature gatherers per signature to prevent fraud "in the electoral processes". [59]The Ninth Circuit also noted Oregon’s “important regulatory interest in preventing fraud and its appearances in the electoral processes,”206 and cited testimony detailing “reports of interviews of various signature gatherers (paid per signature) who had forged signatures on their petitions; purchased signature sheets filled with signatures . . . ; or participated in ‘signature parties’ in which multiple petition circulators would gather and sign each others’ petitions.”
(Though I agree with you forging signatures are a more tangential form of fraud, so I don't support a long, detailed section on it).
Another point re. signatures is they can also extend to citizen ballot initiatives, which always require signatures. So a referendum could in theory get on the ballot, and pass, only because of forged signatures. JSwift4919:45, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why not? This article is about electoral fraud and nowhere is electoral fraud actually defined. The attempt I made at a definition section was removed and it is certainly a conversation worth having that we do not seem to have had Superb Owl (talk) 19:59, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Right now it's defined as "Illegal voting in or manipulation of United States elections", which IMO sums it up well. I don't think we need an entire definition section especially since the issue of intent fits well in prosecution, but if there's an official definition out there could be helpful. JSwift4922:06, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A proposal to reframe some statements on this page:
Variations of the phrase “[Electoral fraud] is considered by experts to be extremely rare” appear six times. I propose replacing with the unequivocal “[Electoral fraud] is extremely rare.”
“Considered” implies either an opinion on a non-empirical topic (“Democracy is considered by many experts to be the ideal form of government”) or a judgment on an unresolved issue (“Dark matter is considered by many physicists to account for the missing mass in the universe”).
The rarity of electoral fraud in the US is both an empirical question and one resolved to the satisfaction of the overwhelming expert consensus. The cited sources on the page uniformly call electoral fraud “vanishingly rare,” “exceedingly rare,” “virtually non-existent,” etc. without qualifying language as far as I can see. Even the 2012 NYT piece citing “the potential for fraud” from mail ballots and a high failure rate points to undelivered, unsubmitted, and rejected ballots—then cites only very rare instances of actual fraud.
Looking to language used on Wikipedia for other resolved empirical questions:
“Smoking tobaccocauses various types and subtypes of cancers”
"Despite their rarity, many people fear shark attacks..."
“The safety and effectiveness of vaccineshas been widely studied and verified”
“General ranks may also be given by act of Congress, but this is extremely rare”
Saying “Smoking is considered by experts to cause cancer” or “Experts consider shark attacks to be rare” would imply these are still open questions. Because they are not, unequivocal language is better.
Two statements on the page are already in the unequivocal form:
“Ballots being cast for dead people is very rare”
“…addressing voter impersonation, which is quite rare.”
If no reputable source provides evidence that electoral fraud is anything but extremely rare, it seems accurate and encyclopedic to adjust the others to some form of “Electoral fraud is extremely rare.”
If I’ve missed evidence or argument to the contrary in the sources, or there is another reason to disregard this idea, I’d appreciate your help. Thanks much— Gowser (talk) 14:33, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think in a case like this it’s safer to stick with “experts say”; many sources do go with that (or something like “studies say”). Some examples:
[60] “Experts say election fraud is vanishingly rare in the United States”.
[61] “While most experts agree voter fraud on a national scale is unlikely”
[62] “Most experts say there is almost no evidence of systemic voter fraud in the United States”
[63] “though experts say election fraud is rare in the United States and often accidental when it occurs.”
There are also some experts/sources who suggest it can be hard to prove or find; (for example, in the voter impersonation, mail or prevention sections). So I think based on that the experts qualifier is more useful than say with shark attacks. JSwift4903:19, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree for sections like mail fraud and overall fraud it is best to stick with experts (which is what most sources seem to do for those). Noncitizen voting is a little more cut and dry that it isn't really happening at all, which is reflected in the sources Superb Owl (talk) 03:21, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Gowser sure thing, I like "experts say" or "according to experts" too. I do think it could apply to noncitizen voting as well, since many sources do refer to experts/studies; but also we have Politifact saying not all states verify citizenship/processes have been prone to errors [64] and WaPo saying scarcity of evidence "does not necessarily prove that the phenomenon does not happen". [65]
Also with the mail in "potential" wording, some experts cited do describe mail in fraud as flat-out occurring more often (not just potentially). [66] For example, Justin Levitt misconduct in the mail voting process is meaningfully more prevalent than misconduct in the process of voting in person, and Richard Hasen Election fraud committed with absentee ballots is more prevalent than in person voting but it is still rare, as well as the 2012 NYT article. JSwift4912:33, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hasen captures it: All of these statements are consistent with the idea that mail-in ballot fraud does occur more often than in-person fraud and is extremely rare (because in-person fraud is virtually non-existent). Gowser (talk) 20:39, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I started looking into sources that we use and of the 3 sources we have from the last 3 years (2022-2024) are none have the qualifier 'considered by experts'. Per WP:AGE MATTERS I am starting a review of recent reliable sources to see if the qualifier is still justified Overall fraud articles without an experts qualifier: [1][2][3][4] Only 1/4 articles (still trying to verify it) cited by JSwift49 above with the qualifiers is from 2022-2024. I am going to remove the qualifier until and unless the evidence shifts Mail-in fraud: 2/2 without experts qualifier:[5][6]Superb Owl (talk) 21:00, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Superb Owl As it stands, the consensus is "experts say" except for noncitizen voting, so do not make these changes until there is a new consensus. I still support "Experts say" or "according to experts" for the reasons I discussed above re. could be hard to find/prove. Plus many sources/much of this article outright cites experts anyway.
Referring to experts isn't universally done, this is true, but there are plenty of articles from 2022–2024 that use 'experts', [67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75] and it's the safe option.
After a deep dive, I found 5 WP:RS qualifying with 'experts say' and 13 WP:RS without (this includes the reliable sources you provided some used both the qualifier 'experts' and without, and omitted Salon since it is not reliable):
OK, but when you include articles that use both only in the “no qualifier” section, that skews the total. The main point regardless is articles use both, and experts say is better for other reasons I discussed. JSwift4911:10, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Mail-in ballot fraud section posits that "mail-in ballot fraud is ... more common than in-person voter fraud" while the "more pervasive problem ... is disenfranchisement caused by the proportion of [legally cast] mail-in ballots that are discarded on technicalities ... [the] more pervasive problem ... is disenfranchisement caused by the proportion of mail-in ballots that are discarded on technicalities."
However, the text in the body now states that experts are "most concerned about whether legally-cast ballots are then discarded on technicalities.
So this now seems to be implying that it's not voter fraud per se that accounts for the greatest "concern" in terms of number of inaccuracies, but identification of presumably extraneous technicalities.
There are two problems with using "most" ...
The source claims only that it's "more", so there's a lack of basis for claiming it's the "most".
There are two types of miscounts being compared, "voter fraud" miscounts and miscounts resulting from "technicalities", so using the superlative form is incorrect. Fabrickator (talk) 05:52, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Some researchers and groups studying and combatting election misinformation and disinformation, such as those at the Election Integrity Partnership, were scaled back or shut down by 2024 as a result of lawsuits (which were succesfully defended though at significant expense), subpoenas, document requests, threats and online harassment."[1][2][3][4][5][6]Superb Owl (talk) 23:04, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Groups studying misinformation getting sued/attacked (not all of which related to elections) by itself doesn't show a clear tie-in to electoral fraud or how misinformation affects its public perception. So I don't think a sentence focusing on that is appropriate. I would be fine with mentioning it in the context of the bigger picture:
"The flagging and removal of false social media posts related to elections has caused controversy, and has led to lawsuits and attacks by Republicans against misinformation researchers such as at the Stanford Internet Observatory.[78][79] In June 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the government can continue communicating with researchers and social media platforms in an effort to reduce misinformation.[80]" JSwift4900:01, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I slightly reworded to make it flow better. This is more precise and reflective of how the sources listed discuss it (less WP:False balance) "Some researchers and groups studying and combatting election misinformation and disinformation, such as those at the Election Integrity Partnership, were scaled back or shut down by 2024 as a result of expensive lawsuits (that were dismissed), subpoenas, time-intensive document requests, threats and online harassment."[7][8][9][10][11][12][13]Superb Owl (talk) 04:22, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
^Rutenberg, Jim; Myers, Steven Lee (March 17, 2024). "How Trump's Allies Are Winning the War Over Disinformation". New York Times. Disinformation about elections is once again coursing through news feeds, aiding Mr. Trump as he fuels his comeback with falsehoods about the 2020 election.
^Rutenberg, Jim; Myers, Steven Lee (March 17, 2024). "How Trump's Allies Are Winning the War Over Disinformation". New York Times. Disinformation about elections is once again coursing through news feeds, aiding Mr. Trump as he fuels his comeback with falsehoods about the 2020 election.
"Major threats" for US elections in 2022 according to voters in California1
Posting this here so others can weigh-in on whether this makes more sense for the article, which currently has a sentence summarizing this same poll but without the other context? All of these themes are discussed in this article and support removing the sentence and adding back the chart. Superb Owl (talk) 07:24, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We've discussed in above threads but for ease of access: I don't think the chart is WP:DUE because California is not representative of the United States. If the sole chart is from California it could mislead readers that this is what all Americans think. Plus, the description of the study in the article already says more voters were more concerned about other threats, so this chart emphasizing a rather tangential subject isn't needed. JSwift4914:05, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The argument is to replace the text that omits the context of the major concerns (all of which are impacted by the discussion of voter fraud as mentioned in the article). This article already has too much text, so chances to move text into graphics should help to balance it out and make it more encyclopedic. It also clearly states it is California in the description Superb Owl (talk) 15:20, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
More graphics to balance out such a text-heavy article make sense, but I would recommend adding better context to describe the graphic (e.g., "according to a 2022 Berkeley-IGS survey of California voters" or something of that nature). - Amigao (talk) 18:45, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have concerns regarding the conclusions drawn by the author of the report. The question posed to participants was (emphasis mine), "Do you consider each of the following to be a major threat, a minor threat or not a threat to democracy in the United States today?" I don't think that you can equate 'democracy' and 'the nation’s election process.' I don't know if reference to the report is appropriate at all in this article. BeauregardTA (talk) 20:04, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If we change the wording in the chart to: "Major threats" for US democracy..., would that address your concern? (good catch - always best to be precise when summarizing survey results) Superb Owl (talk) 22:34, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Proposing to remove Kessler quote flagged as WP:UNDUE as it is a WP:FRINGE viewpoint. He is the only one expressing these conjectures and is not as notable as academic specialists that say it is not an issue at all. At the very least, his views should not get so much space in the paragraph relative to the academic experts and may need to add more experts to balance out the section. Superb Owl (talk) 20:41, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Glenn Kessler is an award-winning fact-checking journalist writing in The Washington Post. It is rather ridiculous to remove his analysis of a phenomenon as "conjecture" or call it a "fringe" viewpoint (see WP:IDONTLIKEIT)
Also [81] I didn't add any sources, I added a quote to a PolitiFact source which supported my proposed phrasing, so please return that and return the duplicate source fixes as well. JSwift4920:57, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Glenn Kessler is not above controversy and is not an expert. He also is employing WP:SPECULATION (flags that I have added) and is already cited 10 times in this article (hence WP:UNDUE). If we include him, it should be proportional to the prevalence of his views (which I would argue are WP:FRINGE given that no other reliable sources seem to share them) The quote you added from FactCheck.org is from an article that is cited 7 times in the article (possible WP:UNDUE to quote it) and is from 2020. I am going to put together a more recent (2021-present) per WP:AGEMATTERS sample of how mail-in balloting is discussed per the other sections and will not be including that quote in it. Superb Owl (talk) 21:12, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Kessler is a journalist who has done in-depth analyses of the issue; and he's as high-quality a news source as you're going to get. His articles/comments here are analyses of the facts, not speculation; and the statement has appropriate weight.
My bad it was FactCheck.org. That article quotes multiple separate experts, so absolutely WP:DUE and valuable. A 2021-present threshold is not only arbitrary and has no consensus, but isn't at all how WP:AGEMATTERS works. The policy simply asks us to "be sure to check that older sources have not been superseded". It doesn't say "don't use any sources before a certain year". JSwift4921:59, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Because there are plenty of sources post-2021, I strongly believe we should prioritize the most recent sources which can draw on the latest information and knowledge (such as audits of the 2020 election, for example, with unprecedented vote by mail) - that is a textbook application of WP:AGEMATTERS, especially for a field that has increasing attention and study ever since Trump started making those claims.While Kessler's claims may not be clear-cut speculation, they are borderline and he still seems to be using a borderline op-ed format. He does not cite any sources for those claims you quote and he is a fact-checker on all topics, and is not a specialist in election claims. And those claims are still contradicted by other articles (which I will add immediately after his quote for context and balance) explaining that election workers are responsible for verifying whether noncitizens vote that contradict this strange and unique claim of his: "if a noncitizen casts a ballot, there is no obvious victim to make a complaint and little public documentation to prove that a voter is not a citizen".Superb Owl (talk) 22:13, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Prioritizing is one thing, but the testimony of multiple experts from 2020 on this topic is absolutely valuable. WP:AGEMATTERS does not support removing relatively recent content unless newer information replaces or decisively contradicts it.
I don't see how your argument contradicts Kessler. There is no obvious victim to bring a complaint against noncitizen voting unlike other crimes, and yes, since it is up to election workers to verify citizenship, there is little documentation of citizenship that is accessible to the public. A reliable source acknowledging this fact is not speculation nor opinion. JSwift4922:39, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Gowser I think 'not as rare' for mail-in fraud, while I understand your point, is a bit awkward phrasing since 'rare' is mentioned twice in the same sentence, and "more common"/"frequent"/"often" (as well as very rare) better reflects how sources describe it. If we look at them:
FactCheck 2024 [82]While the instances of voter fraud via mail-in ballots are more common than in-person voting fraud, experts have told us the number of known cases is relatively small.
FactCheck 2020 [83]Election experts told us that Trump is exaggerating the amount of voter fraud via mail-in ballots. They say it is more common than in-person voting fraud (something that Trump has repeatedly distorted), but still rare.
CS Monitor 2024 [84]Yet experts generally agree that fraud related to mail-in voting is more frequent than in-person voting abuses.
Wisconsin NPR 2024 [85]While election experts say fraud in mail balloting is slightly more common than in in-person voting, NPR reports that it's still such a minuscule amount it's not statistically meaningful.
USA Today 2024 [86]But while uncommon, fraud seems to occur more often with mailed-in votes than with in-person voting, according to the MIT Election Data & Science Lab.
MIT 2024 (same source as USA Today) [87]As with all forms of voter fraud, documented instances of fraud related to VBM are rare. However, even many scholars who argue that fraud is generally rare agree that fraud with VBM voting seems to be more frequent than with in-person voting.
ProPublica 2020 [88]Numerous academic studies have shown that cases of voter fraud are extremely rare, although they do occur, and that fraud in mail voting seems to occur more often than with in-person voting.
I searched for 'less rare' and found an expert from 2020 who called it 'less rare' [89] and 'slightly less rare',[90] though a NYT article in which his quote appeared also used the phrase 'more vulnerable' Even so, experts say that the mail voting system is more vulnerable to fraud than voting in person. "What we know can be boiled down to this: Voting fraud in the United States is rare, less rare is fraud using mail ballots," said Charles Stewart III of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Didn't find anything for 2021 onward, or when I searched the term "not as rare".
Thanks for this legwork, very helpful to see it laid out that way. I'm least convinced by the appearance of "rare" twice in a sentence—"Electoral fraud is extremely rare...though mail-in voter fraud is not as rare as etc" is a syntactic parallelism, a good, clear construction IMO.
'More common' v. 'less rare' is not a hill I'll die on. I just find the former imprecise and misleading when something is in fact not common in any way.
I'd be happy with some form of the USA Today phrasing: "While uncommon, fraud seems to occur more often with mailed-in votes than with in-person voting." What do you think? Gowser (talk) 15:15, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Re. the double rares, I've always tried to avoid using the same descriptor twice in a sentence, but maybe it's just my way of writing things :)
How about "Experts say that mail-in ballot fraud occurs more often than in-person voter fraud, though it is still quite rare..."? 'Occurs more often' seems less potentially misleading than 'is more common', and tying it to experts more clear than 'seems'. JSwift4915:34, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The concern that Gowser and I both seem to have is that 'more often' is vague and since this section is focused on frequency, we should be specific. I still think the language 'not as rare' is most precise and still support its inclusion. Superb Owl (talk) 22:10, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They said they'd be good with some form of USA Today including 'more often'; I think that's an improvement over the current phrasing so will put that in (still support changing 'seems' to 'experts say'). JSwift4923:06, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks @JSwift49 for reverting my error (I failed to acknowledge the reversed NC congressional election as a result of mail-in ballot fraud). I've done my penance by adding a specific description of that incident in the mail-in ballot fraud section. Please take a look when you can Gowser (talk) 15:03, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are two ways that I think make sense to order the Frequency section:
1) Alphabetical (except first and last sections)
2) In rough order of which are the most frequent (per section title) Superb Owl (talk) 22:57, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Start with the three most discussed: impersonation, mail in and noncitizen, and then the more obscure types. Alphabetizing places undue weight on e.g. double voting which is not as commonly discussed JSwift4922:59, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone else want to weigh-in? Would still prefer to order them by prevalence, especially since what is 'most discussed' is more likely to change than what is more prevalent Superb Owl (talk) 15:52, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This section deals exclusively with actual cases of voter fraud and does not discuss the history of false claims of voter fraud to achieve other political ends (voter suppression or election subversion). I flagged it as WP:UNDUE and believe the section should also have a history of the false claims. Superb Owl (talk) 23:36, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While I still think most info about false claims is better suited to other articles, I added a short section about the history of false claims + turned Trump claims into the 'false claims' section. That way, helps us avoid issues with WP:RECENT and puts Trump's claims in some historical context.
Also, with the lead, please read WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY; best practice is to add content to the body first and then talk about changing the lead, not putting content into the lead that you wish to see in the body. [92]JSwift4913:11, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Starting a discussion here so that we can try and reach consensus on a lead that summarizes the body. As I mentioned in my comment, there is not a consensus definition of what electoral fraud is and as I noted in perception, some people define it to include voter suppression and other actions that are discussed on separate articles. Until there is a more concrete, consensus definition we should not elevate one in the lead and instead simply summarize the major points of the article in the lead including how people define the term differently. Here is the draft in a sandbox since @JSwift49 keeps reverting any attempt to use the article to work collaboratively on a lead. Please feel free to contribute there if you want, but also let's keep the discussion on this talk page Superb Owl (talk) 15:47, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for starting the discussion; please do not attempt to repeatedly force through disputed changes to the lead. [93][94][95][96]
I think the lead as-is [97] is perfectly fine. The United States government defines voter fraud as a separate category from voter suppression and campaign finance fraud,[98][99] and I had added that to the body. The explainer added by Chumpih also makes clear the difference for the reader between the articles on fraud and suppression. [100]
There were several issues I had with your changes [101] to the prior version [102] namely:
Changing 'Types of fraud include' to 'Some types of fraud cited in proponents of more restrictive voting laws include'; this is simply inaccurate, one only needs to look at the body of the article to see that pretty much everyone classifies types of fraud in this way, and you removed two sources I added to the lead that reflected that. The word 'include' is also enough to show that the list is not comprehensive.
Moving types of fraud to the end; as Markus Markup said, we should define what a thing is before providing critiques of it.[103]
WP:UNDUE weight on false claims. I think the article as a whole already focuses too much on false claims + consequences, there are entire articles devoted to precisely that topic. But even as-is, when you have one sentence in the lead re. notable cases and no sentences re. prevention, we should not have significantly more content referencing false claims/consequences.
I think we should keep the lead short and simple; and one sentence that says false claims have a long history and are associated with Trump/election denial movement, as the lead currently does, is proportionate. It's also better to talk about historical prevalence and false claims in different sentences as they are different topics in different sections.
"Some people consider voter suppression a form of electoral fraud though they are often discussed separately." is not discussed in the article body; unsourced and WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY issue.
Plus 1) voter suppression is often legal, whereas fraud is by definition illegal and 2) even when suppression is illegal, the US government views it as a separate category of crime from voter fraud.
"While an anomaly in the 21st century" is simply not needed; the previous sentence talks about how it's rare, and the sentence before that talks about how it's rare; so this is quite redundant.
"In-person voter fraud, noncitizen voting, double voting, and voter registration rolls that are 'bloated'... verges on nonexistant." quote within the Emory Law Journal source. This quote is misleading. The "verges on nonexistent" actually refers to the means-end relationship between laws and govt interest. [104]
At the end, mentioning random cases like Florida is WP:UNDUE, mentioning noncitizen voting is rare is also redundant as that's already summarized. (fraud is extremely rare).
Changing 'affecting the outcomes of United States elections' to 'affecting United States elections', which was unexplained and made the lead less precise to the source.[105] Since we changed 'occasional' to 'only scattered' to better reflect the same source [106] (which I am fine with), we should do the same here. Similarly, 'significantly more prevalent' was changed to 'more prevalent', even though the source [107] and body reflects it was significantly more historically prevalent.
Thanks for detailed feedback - I have incorporated into the draft some of your suggestions including adding back 'significantly', 'affecting the outcomes of' and removed 'anomaly' and the Emory Law Journal quote (I also removed all citations since they should all be reflected in the body) Here are the areas where I disagree: 1) Why would we want a succinct lead on a 9500 word article - how is one paragraph supposed to summarize that? (to clarify, I do not think the article is too long, just that the lead is too short) 2) False claims are the most notable aspect of this topic and one of the main reasons someone might seek out this article. The relative notability and importance of voter fraud vs. the impacts of false claims of fraud (voter suppression, election subversion, violence and threats, etc.) absolutely should be summarized in the lead per WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY. I agree that they should be in a separate paragraph and have reworked the draft to have a paragraph that summarizes those two sections. 3) Definition needs more work. The FBI defines it one way when thinking about what is criminal (that's their job), a political scientist or observer might think about election fraud and voter suppression as two causes of the same outcome: an illegitimate result due to partisan or other unfair skewing of the results. I still think we need more coverage in the body on the definition and what people think voter fraud refers to (the lead language you disputed actually summarizes an article I added in Perception section) before trying to list examples in a way that suggests those are the most common forms of voter fraud. Superb Owl (talk) 18:14, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate the draft; it doesn't resolve many of the issues I raised, though. I especially can't understand the "types of fraud cited in proponents of more restrictive voting laws" claim, these are types of fraud everyone cites so it should not be delegitimized. Also don't get the removal of the statement that fraud has long being a significant topic in American politics, when that fact is a central piece of the article's notability and supported by sources.
1) I think it's good for the lead to stay as a succinct summary; extra detail doesn't strike me as necessary and would hinge too much on discussions of which parts of the article to prioritize.
2) I wholesale disagree that false claims should be the focus of this article. We have Voter suppression in the United States, Election denial movement in the United States, Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, all of these cover in detail the issues you talk about. This article is different in that it is about the incidence and history of actual fraud. While tangential topics such as false claims/consequences have their place and certainly add to the topic's notability, it should not be front and center of this particular article to avoid WP:COAT. It should be summarized and anyone who wants to read more about it can read one of the three I mentioned.
3) I don't think we should give much weight to what people think voter fraud is in surveys; this is a legal term and we should stick with that definition instead of getting into semantics. Especially since an article on voter suppression not only exists, but is shown at the top of the article, so readers immediately know where to go if they want to read about that topic. JSwift4919:44, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I will soften the language in the first sentence to "Some examples of fraud include" and the second re-emphasis of that point is entirely redundant. 1) Thoroughly unconvinced by this argument that WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY is too difficult 2) False claims should be reflected in the lead even if they are not the focus. They should at least get a paragraph summarizing those sections. Just because there are other articles that cover some (but not all) of the topics related to false claims, does not mean that those sections should not be discussed in the lead. Frankly, it strikes me as a very bizarre argument to suggest that WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY would not apply to any sections in this article. 3) We can both largely stick with the legal definition while also adding a sentence to the lead explaining why some people still consider voter suppression as a form of voter fraud. The two topics interact and overlap and trying to neatly cleave them off is both WP:OR and not WP:PRECISE Superb Owl (talk) 20:31, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
1) The argument really is, beyond a high-level summary, it can be difficult to pick and choose which details to include (for example your putting Florida in). I think the lead is better off avoiding that and remaining a high-level summary.
2) That's not what I'm saying; it's that your draft emphasizes false claims too much. Voter suppression and false claims make up more than half the lead in your current draft, which is not reflective of the article (and I already think the article itself is too focused on false claims).
3) Since voter fraud and suppression are legal definitions, that's exactly the kind of thing that lends itself well to being cleaved off. I fail to see why people viewing a legal definition a different way deserves any weight besides a mention in 'public perception'. Regardless, suppression is not even necessary for the lead because the voter suppression article link above does the job.
I have updated my draft proposal; gives space to each section of the article (notable cases, perception, false claims, prevention). JSwift4922:23, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We are definitely getting closer to a consensus even if there are still some major differences. 1) my latest draft did not mention Florida. I agree it can be hard to choose in some cases, which is why I think if we make a list of examples (double voting, felony voting, etc.) we should be careful not to imply this is a definition of voter fraud or even the most common kinds of voter fraud, just some examples. 2) It is 50/50 in my current draft and that is because expert consensus is that the claims of fraud and their consequences are a bigger concern than actual instances of fraud (and thus the most notable/WP:DUE parts of the article) 3) I am willing to remove that first sentence if we also do not try to define voter fraud in the lead (double voting, noncitizen voting, etc.) as it is not something we still have done well or though through in the body in a significant way other than off-hand mentions. Superb Owl (talk) 22:58, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It’s just a list of examples of fraud types discussed in the article; it’s not a definition, so I’m not understanding your point. Listing some main types of fraud helps the reader understand the topic.
I won’t keep repeating myself re. the undue weight/WP:COATRACK of false fraud claims and consequences. But I won’t be supporting a greater relative emphasis on false claims in the lead than there currently is in my draft. JSwift4900:28, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In case it is helpful for others to have it here, here is a specific draft summary of the Misinformation and disinformation section and the Relationship to other issues section that I have proposed that JSwift49 objects to including in the lead: "Since 2015, Donald Trump helped to grow the election denial movement in the United States with unfounded claims of electoral fraud, fueled by misinformation online. This perception of voter fraud has led to political violence and threats to American democracy, including voter suppression and election subversion, which remain much larger concerns for experts than voter fraud." Superb Owl (talk) 22:29, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Should this recent event of a non U.S. citizen successfully being able to register to vote and cast an irretrievable ballot be included in the article
Reported in multiple sources and he was only caught because he turned himself in. Shows that voter fraud and registration is possible. Is notable because reported in multiple sources. Wafflefrites (talk) 00:20, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I reverted an addition of a suspected single vote not found to be fraud as far as I can see.[108] It was restored by the original editor. Even if it was fraud, one single vote would be trivia. Looks like possibly an error on the part of the student as they attempted to withdraw the vote, and it was ruled that it will count making the charge of fraud even less likely. There is no adjudication I can find that this was fraud and an encyclopedia cannot make such determinations. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:22, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I posted above with sources. The sources call it fraud and perjury. It does not seem like error in part of the student as they signed a document stating they were a citizen. It seems deliberate, and it seems like they wanted to test the system (can non U.S. citizens vote). The answer seems to be yes they can and apparently in Michigan those ballots are irretrievable. Wafflefrites (talk) 00:23, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You just accused a person of crimes without even a trial, much less an adjudication. You even invented intent. I strongly suggest you strike these accusations before an admin sees it. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:32, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No one here cares what you think "apparently" occurred or what you think "seems" to be intent. You used the word "seem" four times. No source says that he is guilty of anything. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:47, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I wrote seems because you wrote “Looks like an error on the part of the student…” I don’t understand why are you allowed to speculate with your perception/opinions while I am not? I will strike my sentences if you strike yours. Wafflefrites (talk) 00:50, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Do not misquote other editors. I said: Looks like possibly an error on the part of the student as they attempted to withdraw the vote. Your assumptions are all suggesting criminal activity. I would never do such. O3000, Ret. (talk) 01:01, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I didn’t misquote you, I used ellipsis. But thank you for the explanation about writing about criminal activity on Wikipedia and now I understand that we must be extra careful about writing about crimes. Wafflefrites (talk) 01:13, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:RECENTISM and WP:TRIVIA it does not yet merit including in this article. This is not a list article and we do not have space for every individual isolated accusation of fraud. With BLP we should also assume good faith and not speculate as to intent of the individual. Many instances of voter fraud are accidental. Widespread voter fraud is the focus of this article, and it is not evidence of widespread fraud. Superb Owl (talk) 01:12, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I see, this article is about widespread fraud. I agree that it doesn’t seem to be widespread or systematic (nothing in the news yet). But it is alarming to me that voter fraud is possible and fraudulent votes can be counted! Wafflefrites (talk) 01:15, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The article as currently presented takes the perspective that "electoral fraud" occurs when a person is allowed to vote who is not authorized to vote. But the flip side of this is when a person who wants to vote and who is or ought to be eligible to vote, yet the person is denied the opportunity to vote or is otherwise deterred from voting. There is the article Voter suppression in the United States, but "voter fraud" suggests something that shouldn't be allowed to happen (even in the evidently very small numbers with which this occurs), while "voter suppression", which certainly has a much greater effect numerically, plausibly affects a significant fraction of the eligible voting population.
If "electoral fraud" is anything that improperly affects the voting results, then "voter suppression" is just as much a form of electoral fraud as is the case of counting the votes of unauthorized voters. Fabrickator (talk) 02:27, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the current distinction is appropriate because the U.S. government defines “voter fraud” and “civil rights violations” (ie. voter suppression) as two separate categories of election crime. [109] Voter/electoral fraud is also by definition illegal, whereas voter suppression can take both illegal and legal forms. JSwift4902:44, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Voter fraud is a legal term; we should not define it in the lead based on what people perceive it to be, but what the law is. The “Prosecution” section already does that. If we are discussing what people additionally perceive as fraud, that should be limited to the “Public perception” section (which it is). JSwift4910:54, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have added the US govt/FBI definition to the lead for clarity. The US govt website says 'voter fraud and voter registration fraud', while the FBI says 'voter/ballot fraud'. Since the FBI list is more comprehensive and specifically mentions registration fraud under 'voter/ballot fraud', I wrote 'voter or ballot fraud'. JSwift4912:07, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think this should be more clearly explained in a definition section after the lead or in the lead itself while also noting the the definition is not a universal constant. The disambiguation at the top is helpful but not sufficient. Superb Owl (talk) 21:29, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I take exception to the idea that the government's definition of these terms is of any particular relevance on Wikipedia. The general expectation is that the election results should reflect the preferences of the electorate, and any systematic aspect of the election which detracts from that may be said to impact the election integrity.
Now we have this case of Iowa (there may be other states with similar lawsuits) in which the ballots of over 2,000 voters were rejected because at some point in the past, they had stated they were not citizens. This could have been from documents going back several years, and these would likely be people who have become citizens in the interim. They are given the opportunity to cast provisional ballots, but must come back with evidence to support their claim of citizenship. IMO, only a small portion of these people are going to be bothered to jump through these hoops to get their lone ballots counted, but as for the determination that their votes should not be counted, I'm not sure if you call that "voter fraud" (the election officials are fraudulently failing to count these votes) or is it "voter suppression" (the election officials have set up additional hoops these people must jump through in order to get their votes counted. So "election irregularity" avoids the need for us to distinguish these two categories that interfere with determining the proper tally of votes. Fabrickator (talk) 22:14, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You are correct that voter fraud, voter suppression and campaign finance fraud can all lead to elections being unjustly won or lost. However, this article is only about one of those three categories.
The problem is that reliable sources, by and large, do not conflate electoral/voter fraud and voter suppression or treat them as interchangeable. When combined with the U.S. government explicitly distinguishing the two, there is no basis for WP:OR that merges the two categories. Government + secondary source classifications matter in an encyclopedia, and we should not disregard them based on what we personally think is right. JSwift4900:41, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, but at the federal level, which affects all states including Vermont, voter/ballot fraud is one of three types of election crime that United States government categorizes. That’s what I meant by it being a legal term: it is a government categorization of a legal issue. State-level laws of course have different terms/nuances. JSwift4901:24, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The FBI website cited is just a website, the author of which chose some terms that might or might not have widespread acceptance in the FBI. There isn't a citation to anything more enduring, such as federal legislation. Jc3s5h (talk) 02:13, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One point of distinction between "voter fraud" and "voter suppression" is that voter fraud is per se a crime, while voter suppression can be a result of complying with the law. Fabrickator (talk) 08:26, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It ideally would go in the false or unproven claims category but our article organization doesn't really seem to work. The organization also implies that everything in frequency is not 'false or unproven' even though the majority of claims for all of those categories are false, unproven or exagerrated. Superb Owl (talk) 16:38, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
