And believe me, there's a vast difference between the two. In recent decades, the casting of illegal ballots here in the US has been nearly non-existent. No one has provided any meaningful proof to the contrary. Yeah, I know; in ye olden days, up until the mid-20th Century, the notorious Chicago Machine (my home town) had perfected to a fine art the discovery of ballots beneath thousands of tombstones. But that was then.
On the other hand, election fraud is rampant. Many Republican governors and state legislators have created unnecessary photo ID mandates, knowing full well that the voters most impacted would be low-income seniors, minorities, and the young --- the very folks most likely to vote for Democrats.
(Sidebar: The best analysis of election fraud vs. voter fraud that I've read, appeared in a Forbes Magazine article authored by John Lasik, dated November 6, 2012: Voter Fraud: A Massive Anti-Democratic Deception. It can easily be googled and is worth a look. The article is well-reasoned with no political overtones. Incidentally, Forbes is no hotbed of liberalism).
Many state legislatures have gone to great lengths to ensure that citizens from the aforementioned targeted groups are denied their right to the ballot. One of the most common tactics seems to be the requirement of documentation, such as a birth certificate, in order to obtain an ID. (The ID itself is offered free of charge, but obtaining official transcripts, especially birth certificates, can be costly. Wouldn't such an expense amount to a putative poll tax in violation of the 15th Amendment? Just asking).
Disgusting enough. But it gets worse. Possibly the most flagrant case of election fraud gave us the George W. Bush presidency in 2000. He wasn't popularly elected, nor would he have received Florida's electoral votes had the electoral process remained unsullied. Yet that's exactly what happened. (Unlike many Democrats, I refuse to blame Ralph Nader for Al Gore's loss. Making him the goat diverts attention from the real reason that Bush became our head of state: Florida Republicans' hijacking of the electoral process).
A private data collection agency called ChoicePoint was hired by the State of Florida with the stated purpose of purging convicted felons from the voter rolls. (Many non-felons with identical names got deep-sixed as well. Considering the demographics, they were very likely Democratic voters). Coordinating this effort was Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who also happened to be the director of the Florida Bush campaign. (Conflict of interest? Here, have a whiff!). Also worth a note: The state's governor at the time was presidential sibling, Jeb Bush.
The gory details are precisely laid out in an article by a seasoned journalist named Gregory Palast. His piece first appeared in a British publication, The Observer, within days after the US Supreme Court anointed Bush the President of the United States (Bush v Gore). Like Mr. Lasik's Forbes piece, it's very much worth the read. Here the google info: Gregory Palast, A Blacklist Burning For Bush dated December 10th, 2000.
So there you have it, folks. Election fraud can really have consequences. And election fraud is rampant in every state where concerted efforts are being made to suppress the vote and highjack the legislative process. Consider this: Would a Gore administration have launched us on a tragic trajectory in the Middle East in 2003? (Would ISIL even exist?) Or would its economic policies have crashed our economy five years later?
I really don't think so.
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