Yet another state’s voter fraud investigation resulted in little evidence of criminal activity.
After 18 months of searching and spending $150,000 of state funds, Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz’s investigation found 16 potential cases of voter fraud. Five cases resulted in guilty pleas, five more were dismissed, and the rest appear to be more about “confusion than criminal intent,” wrote Aviva Shen at ThinkProgress yesterday.
Confusion among voters and restrictive voting agendas among elected officials are part of the problem. According to Shen, three of the five guilty pleas were from formerly incarcerated felons who were confused about their right to vote. The state had previously restored the rights of convicted felons upon release from prison, but in 2011, Gov. Terry Branstad issued an order to create multiple hurdles before for restoring voting rights, “disenfranchising thousands” along the way.
Branstad, like Schultz, are supporters of voter suppression laws like photo voter ID, claiming that voter impersonation fraud is rampant in Iowa. On Sunday, the Des Moines Register reported that Schultz is still “bullish on voter ID laws, despite years of legislative defeats and scant evidence of the problem they’re meant to prevent.”
Photo by Gage Skidmore via Creative Commons.