Rigged Elections in D.C.? Really?

With the 2016 presidential election just two weeks away (early voting in D.C. started Saturday), the talk last weekend was all about rigged elections.

But how much of a threat is it, particularly in Georgetown and D.C.? And what do we mean by “it,” actually?

Almost everyone agrees about the basic principles of voting: A voter must be a citizen, age 18 or older, officially registered. And he or she may vote only once.

However, there is almost no agreement as to how, exactly, an election can be rigged and which type of voter fraud is the most serious threat. These terms seem to mean completely different things to Democrats and Republicans.
For Democrats, “voter fraud” is mainly about purposely voting in the name of another person.

Democrats are also very concerned about voter suppression. They point to new state laws that limit early voting or Sunday voting — a tradition in some minority communities — and protest new ID requirements and restrictions of on-campus voting by college students.

Republicans see voter fraud differently. They point to the fact that most districts’ voting rolls are old, containing many names of voters who have moved or died. They are concerned about voting by non-citizens, who can register to vote when they get a driver’s license — a process that often does not require proof of citizenship. Studies by the politically conservative Heritage Foundation have shown that thousands of non-citizens have voted, especially in concentrated immigrant communities.
Republicans are also concerned about college students voting twice — by absentee ballot and on campus — since there is no system for national cross-checking. And they, too, have stories of voter intimidation at polling stations.

Partisans in both parties worry about ballots being lost or incorrectly counted. “This is almost impossible now,” said Ken McGhee, general counsel to the District Board of Elections, during an Oct. 21 demonstration of the new express wireless digital voting machines to be used in voting stations throughout the D.C. metropolitan area. The machines tabulate the votes both electronically and on a paper tape collected at the end of election day, along with the hard ballots. They also digitally record the voting “book” — the sign-in sheet of voters. The names are automatically checked against absentee-ballot and voter registration records in Virginia and Maryland.

And the likelihood of a rigged election here in D.C. is almost nil, according to McGhee, who laughingly asked why anyone would bother. “We’re not a battleground state. The biggest voting problem we have in D.C. is that people here believe their vote doesn’t count.”