Chicago City Wire

American Independent Media made the following announcement on Aug. 23:

Chicago, Ill.-- In order to prevent voter disenfranchisement in 2020, American Independent Media is launching Citizens Against Voter Fraud (CAVF), a public education organization dedicated to identifying ballot fraud and to alerting voters and elected officials to the conditions that make it possible.

The integrity of U.S. democracy relies on voter registration files used to validate the legitimacy and authenticity of a citizen casting a vote. These files confirm who voters are and where they reside.

Ian Prior | Facebook

However, a review of these files has found they are error-riddled and outdated, including tens of millions of voters who are deceased or have long ago moved elsewhere. Even more Americans are registered to invalid addresses-- properties that technically don’t exist-- or at more than one address.

Now, states declaring vote-by-mail programs are printing and mass mailing millions of ballots for these illegitimately registered voters to their old addresses. 

“States and counties have millions of illegitimate voter registrations in their files. They haven’t practiced proper data hygiene,” said Ian Prior, spokesman for CAVF. “Now every one of those bad registrations has been turned into a bad ballot, circulating by mail into the general public.”

“Fraud no longer requires formally requesting an absentee ballot, or showing up at the polls in person. It is as simple as filling out a ballot mailed to you and dropping it in a mailbox,” Prior said.

CAVF has built a mechanism to track and stop voter fraud, developing a proprietary national database of voter files and other public records that confrimes legitimate registered voters and identifies illegitimate ones.

In the 2020 cycle, CAVF is inviting citizens who have received ballots in the mail for voters no longer living at their address to photograph and submit them to us.

CAVF will alert local election authorities to remove these bad names from the voter rolls.

Furthermore, CAVF will use its database to validate the legitimacy of all absentee ballots and votes cast by mail. Votes found to be cast illegally— on behalf of the deceased, moved or others— will be referred to federal, state and local authorities for prosecution.

According to CAVF’s analysis, five states and the District of Columbia have more registered voters on their rolls than they do eligible adults. 

• Wisconsin has an adult population of 4.553 million but has 5.025 million registered voters, an excess of 472,000 voters. That’s 10.4 percent of the electorate and 16 percent of the 2.97 million turnout in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. President Trump won Wisconsin by 0.77 percent in 2016, or 22,748 votes.
• Alaska has an adult population of 551,585 and has nearly 589,000 registered voters, an excess of 37,018. That’s 6.7 percent of its electorate and 12 percent of its 318,608 turnout in 2016. Trump defeated Clinton by 46,933 votes in Alaska in 2016.
• The District of Columbia has an adult population of 577,303 and has more than 613,000 registered voters, an excess of 35,955. That’s 6.2 percent of its electorate and 12 percent of its 311,268 turnout in 2016. Clinton defeated Trump by 270,107 votes in D.C. winning, 91 percent to four percent.
• Maine has an adult population of 1.059 million and 1.069 million registered voters, an excess of 9,655 or about 0.9 percent of the electorate and 1.3 percent of the 747,927 who voted in 2016. Clinton won by 21,142 votes in Maine over Trump.
• Oregon has an adult population of 3.35 million and 3.374 million registered voters, an excess of 21,537 or about 0.6 percent of the electorate and 1.1 percent of the two million who voted in 2016. Clinton won by 219,703 votes in Oregon over Trump.
• Kentucky has an adult population of 3.47 million and 3.349 million registered voters, an excess of 18,643 or about 0.5 percent of the electorate and 1.0 percent of the 1.92 million who voted in 2016. Trump defeated Clinton in Kentucky by 574,114 votes.

CAVF is a project of American Independent Media, a Chicago-based non-profit that supports media efforts to foster more transparency in state and local government.