Voter Fraud in Montgomery County?

It's true. And it's more than possible. It's likely.

In Montgomery County, voter registration is permanent - and will never be revoked until you advise the Board of Elections that you'd like it removed. There is a passive system that will remove your name if you re-register somewhere else, but short of that, there is not even a process by which the current rolls of valid voters are reviewed. So if a registered voter should move and not re-register... or die.... their name is likely still on the rolls. And since no ID is required at the polls, anybody can walk right up and vote as a dead neighbor. Get the name and birth date right, and no additional questions are asked. Check out the section of the Montgomery County Board of Elections website entitled, "Is my registration permanent?"

The American University Center for Democracy and Elections issued a 2009 report analyzing voting practices in the 50 states. While Maryland doesn't really stand out for any of the individual weaknesses, it DOES stand out as not complying with most of the easiest to correct and most impactful recommendations. The key recommendations are: administer elections with non-partisan, professional management, periodically audit and purge the voter rolls, establish inter-operable databases for managing registrations and require (and provide) photo ID to be used at the polling place. Instead we hang on to the minimum standards required by the 2002 Help America Vote Act.

I'm just getting up to speed trying to understand the problems of voter fraud. A local activist, Cathy Kelleher of the National Capital Tea Party Patriots, has invested significant time and resources getting involved with a national organization known as True the Vote. True the Vote is dedicated to promoting free and fair elections in the U.S. and provides its research and resources on thier website.

Cathy will be sharing her understanding Tuesday, June 21, at a meeting of Americans for Prosperity. This meeting is free and open to the public. Please join us at 7 p.m. at the Germantown Fire Station on Boland Farm Road to learn more about protecting the integrity of the vote in Montgomery County.