Voter Fraud

 

Flim Flam Man

He's the one in the Trojan horse
Making out like he's Santa Claus.
Oh lord, the man's a fraud,
He's a flim flam man

Should measures to prevent voter fraud be enacted?

Voter fraud laws are being proposed to ensure that there is ZERO fraud.  However as a former engineering professor of mine used to say, “You don’t build a church for Christmas Eve services”.  Perfection is the enemy of the good.  The benefit of eliminating voter fraud must be balanced against the cost of voter suppression. Just including the benefit of preventing voter fraud without also considering the cost of voter suppression is like building a church for Christmas Eve services, i.e. incurring the cost of an outlier, not an average, event.

The likelihood of voter fraud is small according to most studies.  It is not however zero.  But likelihood is not the risk.  Risk is the product of likelihood AND consequence.  The risk of voter fraud which must also be estimated. If the risk, likelihood times consequences, is large then perhaps the measure should be adopted.  But if the goal is zero fraud, then no measure can be considered to be worth the cost.

Australia requires everyone to vote.  There is a fine for not voting.  Fraud is expected to occur if everyone must vote and there are fines for fraud. This system does not require voters to prove their identity.  https://www.voteaustralia.org.au/faq_voter_fraud.

It is impossible to eliminate fraud, just as it is impossible to eliminate murder.  However to prevent murder we punish this behavior, we don’t assume that everyone is a murderer.

If someone still insists on preventing voter fraud, ask them if they have heard the phrase  “He that smelt it, dealt it.”