States Use Database to Check for Vote Fraud

There’s a new tool to combat vote fraud: the Interstate Cross Check Project.  This simple shared database allows states them to look at voter registration records from other states.  Thus, authorities can determine if there are individuals voting in the same election in two separate states and can prosecute them accordingly.

When individuals move to another state, their voter registration might not be updated.  As each state keeps separate records of voters, these voter rolls end up inaccurate.

What have states using the Interstate Cross Check Project discovered?  Arizona found 500 registered voters who also are currently registered elsewhere.  Colorado found those who engaged in double voting in both Colorado and Kansas in the 2010 election.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach spearheaded this Interstate Cross Check Project in an effort to combat double voting. Kobach explains that “double voting is a real common form of voter fraud, but it’s easy to discover and to prosecute. You have a rock-solid legal case that the crime was committed.”

Kobach was one of the leaders to get a voter ID law in place in Kansas.  He has written in support of such measures in The Wall Street Journal.  In response to claims that voter ID laws are discriminatory, Kobach calls it “ludicrous” and “patently absurd” to suggest that a person’s skin color affects his ability to go down to an office and get a free ID.

The Interstate Cross Check Project involves a database shared by Kansas, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Tennessee.  Given the success in combating vote fraud crimes, other states are considering joining these 15.