By Daniel Moritz-Rabson
Breaking News Reporter
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North Carolina's Lieutenant Governor appears in a video offering instructions on how to commit voter impersonation fraud.
"Committing voter fraud is easy in our state," Republican Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest says in the video. "Just for fun, here's one way an organized group could commit voter fraud in North Carolina."
The clip details how people can gather personal information on individuals who infrequently vote and use it to commit voter impersonation fraud.
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The interim executive director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice said the plan detailed in the video would not work. "The scheme that he dreamt up in that clip is not something actually that is workable," Kareem Crayton said. "That you're an elected official and that you make an argument that is intended to undermine the election system that actually got you in office, let alone could throw you and a bunch of other people in jail for felony convictions, is unprecedented — and, to me, sad."
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"The form of voter fraud discussed in the video (you are referring to) would not be possible if North Carolina had Voter Photo ID," the Lieutenant Governor's Press Secretary, Jamey Falkenbury, told Newsweek, when asked why the video was released. "The Lt. Governor is in favor of the Voter ID North Carolina Constitutional Amendment because it would prohibit all forms of voter fraud at the polls."
On November 6, voters will decide whether to add a voter ID Amendment to the North Carolina Constitution.
The amendment is the latest development in North Carolina's battle over voter restrictions. In 2016, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the state's voter ID legislation, concluding it was racially discriminatory.
"Before enacting that law, the legislature requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices. Upon receipt of the race data, the General Assembly enacted legislation that restricted voting and registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African Americans," Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote. "Although the new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision, they constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist."
A rigorous investigation of voter fraud from a constitutional law expert at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, only found only 31 credible incidents of this type of election fraud occurred in general, primary, special and municipal elections between 2000 and 2014.
"Requirements to show ID at the polls are designed for pretty much one thing: people showing up at the polls pretending to be somebody else in order to each cast one incremental fake ballot," Justin Levitt wrote. "This is a slow, clunky way to steal an election. Which is why it rarely happens."
Myriad studies have corroborated that voter impersonation fraud is extremely rare. The Brennan Center noted that it is far more likely an American "will be struck by lightning than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls."
Still, states besides North Carolina have also pursued legislation that restricts who can vote.
A North Dakota ID law could prohibit Native Americans from casting a ballot in 2018, Vox reported. The legislation mandates voters have a form of identification showing a range of personal information, including residential address. But many of the state's Native Americans use post office boxes instead of fixed addresses.
Last year, Georgia passed an "exact match" voter ID law, which requires information on government issued identification to match exactly with the name on a voter registration application. A missing hyphen or extra space could prohibit a voter from casting a ballot.
Voter purges have also recently affected residents in Ohio, Georgia, Virginia and New York City.
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