South Carolina Report Finds No Evidence Dead Voters

By Erin Ferns Lee February 23, 2012
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An initial review of South Carolina’s allegedly dead voters has been released today, finding no evidence of voter fraud from the grave.

The South Carolina State Election Commission released the findings of a partial review of allegations from the Dept. of Motor Vehicles, which suggested that 953 votes were cast in the name of deceased voters.

“And no surprise, the commission found that of the 207 cases reviewed, there was no evidence in 197 of them that fraudulent votes had been cast. The commission said that records in the other 10 cases were ‘insufficient to make a determination,'” Pam Fessler at NPR reports.

Clerical errors proved to be the main source of “dead” voters with more than 100 cases amounting to “name recognition errors” whereby a deceased John Doe Sr. was marked as voting when it was actually John Doe Jr. who voted.

“But in South Carolina, the issue is highly charged because the state is currently battling the Justice Department’s decision to block implementation of its new voter ID law,” Fessler reports. “The allegations of ‘dead’ people voting have fueled arguments that photo ID is needed to stop fraud at the polls. The Justice Department argues that the law is unnecessary and would discriminate against African-American voters who are less likely to have the required photo ID.”