Claims of voter fraud in Minnesota are greatly exaggerated. Minnesota Reps. Mary Kiffmeyer and Tom Emmer have introduced legislation calling for photo identification in order to address voter fraud. They assert that alleged voter fraud in the state can only be cured by photo IDs. Yet what evidence exists that voter fraud is rampant?

Last year — in two articles of mine in the Harvard Law and Policy Review and William Mitchell Law Review — I investigated all the credible studies examining voter fraud. The conclusion?  There is no evidence that voter fraud is a problem that has affected any recent elections, including in Minnesota.
   
Voter fraud refers to intentional acts by voters to falsely register or vote. The most persistent claims of voter fraud come from the Wall Street Journal's John Fund, and the Carter-Baker Report. Fund's "Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy" alleges that the Florida 2000 presidential election demonstrated "sloppiness that makes fraud and foul-ups in election counts possible."

No statistics to support claims
Even if one accepts all of his claims in his book as true, the sloppiness he alleges is not voter fraud, the problems are with election officials. He alleges that "lax standards for registration encouraged by the Motor Voter Law have left the voter rolls in a shambles in many states."  Fund does not document which states, what "shambles" means, how the problems affect voting, and whether those problems constitute voter fraud. In short, the book fails to provide verifiable statistics to support its claims.
   
"Building Confidence in U.S. Elections: Report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform," the report of a group chaired by former president Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker ("Carter-Baker Commission") is cited by those who argue that there is widespread voter fraud. The report asserts that: "While election fraud occurs, it is difficult to measure." Proof is citation to 180 Department of Justice investigations resulting in convictions of 52 individuals from October 2002 until the release of the report in 2005. While the Carter-Baker Commission called for photo IDs, it also noted that: "There is no evidence of extensive [fraud] in U.S. elections, or of multiple voting, but both occur, and it could affect the outcome of a close election."  As with other studies, absentee voting is singled out as the place where fraud is most likely to occur.
   
Even accepting all of the documented accounts of fraud as true, they are insignificant. The Brennan Center points out that in the state of Washington, for example, six cases of double voting and 19 instances of individuals voting in the name of the dead yielded 25 fraudulent votes out of 2,812,675 cast — a 0.0009 percent rate of fraud. Assume the 52 convictions by the Department of Justice are accurate instances of fraud.  This means that 52 out of 196,139,871 ballots cast in federal elections, or  0.000003 percent of the votes were fraudulent.
   
Minnesota's numbers also insignificant
The same is true in Minnesota. In 2006 there were six alleged cases of illegal aliens seeking to vote out of a total of 2,202,937 votes cast. This represents 0.000003 percent of all votes cast.  Even if there are other forms of voter fraud, they are an insignificant number. Mary Kiffmeyer should know better. During her tenure as secretary of state she was unable to document any serious or widespread voter fraud.  If fraud did exist, there is no indication that the current laws are ill-equipped to address the problem.
   
Conversely, defenders of voter IDs trumpeted studies claiming that the adoption of voter ID laws in states such as Indiana have actually led to an increase in turnout. These studies are statistically flawed. They ignore or fail to control for the overall aggregate affects of increased get-out-the-vote efforts and mobilization among Democrats in 2006 and 2008. They also ignore that the increase in turnout in Indiana was less than in other swing states that did not adopt photo ID laws.  Finally, they really do not examine the impact the photo ID laws have had on those individuals who lack such identification and who sought to vote.
   
The most comprehensive study so far on voter fraud largely dismisses its existence. A report by the bipartisan United States Election Commission concluded there was "little polling place fraud," including voter impersonation, "dead" voters, noncitizen voting, and felon voters. The main abuses were absentee-ballot fraud and efforts to intimidate voters on Election Day. None of this will be cured by photo IDs when voting.
   
Think about it. Do we really believe people are lying and cheating their way to the ballot box?  The hard evidence nationally and in Minnesota dismisses this claim as simply a myth.
                                                           
David Schultz is a professor at Hamline University, where he teaches classes in government ethics and election law.