Commentary Says Incidence of Voter Fraud is OverStated

In the Myth of Voter Fraud authors of this editorial argue that the cure is worse than the disease in the case of voter fraud. The trend recently has been for legislatures to push for voter identification measures designed, their backers say, to combat voter fraud. People voting more than once as well as undocumented immigrants are two examples.

The downside of requiring proof of citizenship is that significant numbers of people who are entitled to vote don't have the documents and have to incur costs to get them. These voters are disproportionately elderly and minority voters.

Authors Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt are staff members of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.