Voter fraud in US

In Russia it’s caused voter fraud; in the United States its technical ‘irregularities’

New Voter Fraud -- 953 Dead People Voting South Carolina

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- 

South Carolina's attorney general has notified the U.S. Justice Department of potential voter fraud.

Attorney General Alan Wilson sent details of an analysis by the Department of Motor Vehicles to U.S. Attorney Bill Nettles.

In a letter dated Thursday, Wilson says the analysis found 953 ballots cast by voters listed as dead. In 71 percent of those cases, ballots were cast between two months and 76 months after the people died. That means they "voted" up to 6 1/3 years after their death.

The letter doesn't say in which elections the ballots were cast.

The analysis came out of research for the state's new voter identification law. The U.S. Justice Department denied clearance of that law.

Wilson told Nettles he asked the State Law Enforcement Division to investigate.

SUMTER, S.C -

Dr. Brenda Williams, who grew up in the segregated South, has spent 30 years helping patients register to vote. She considers the state's new voter ID law a reminder of when blacks were forced to sit in the back of the bus.

"It is a way of disenfranchisement of certain segments of our society, primarily African-Americans, the elderly, and the indigent," Williams said in an interview in her office in Sumter, halfway between Columbia and Charleston.

"It is very sad to see our legislators try to turn the clock back," she said.

In all, 85,000 registered voters in South Carolina are without the kind of ID that would be required under the new law, according to a vetting of the voter rolls by the state's department of motor vehicles.

According to the state's own data, blacks in South Carolina are 20 percent more likely than whites to lack a driver's license or a state-issued photo ID. The Justice Department flagged that statistic as evidence that the new law would be discriminatory and blocked it from taking effect under the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

In addition, many older blacks, born outside of hospitals during segregation, don't even possess a birth certificate, which is required to get a license or state-issued photo ID.

"The issue is that valid birth certificate," said Williams' husband, Joe, who shares her medical practice and critical view of the law.

Without a photo ID, obtaining your birth certificate in South Carolina costs $30, plus shipping costs, and double that if you were born out of state.

"This is a poll tax. This is requiring people to pay money to cast a ballot, and I don't think we want that in this country," Joe said.

The only exceptions for providing a birth certificate are people born in or before 1918, who would be 94 years old. The state is very strict in requiring that every detail be perfect.

DMV executive director Kevin Shwedo said, "If you want me to maintain the integrity of a person's identification, so that people are safer at the end of the day, and we're also not giving out entitlements to those people that don't deserve them, then you've got to ensure that the person coming into your office is the one represented by the ID card."