Pat Dollard | Young Americans

If You Could Vote Twice, Would You?

by: Hagit Limor - (WCPO)

On the eve of an historic presidential election, the I-Team uncovers a potentially huge flaw in our voting system, a flaw that could let millions of people vote more than once. It’s a national problem, and one that Hagit Limor has been investigating as a team project with reporters in Florida and Georgia.

For example, Thomas Habel has two homes, a condo in Marco Island, Florida and a house in Hartwell, Georgia. On October 25, voter records show Habel voted at the Collier County Public Library, a fact he readily admits.

But Georgia records show he already had voted 25 days earlier in Hart County, Georgia.

Habel told us, “It’s a mistake.” He says he never voted in Georgia.

But the chief registrar of Hart County, Georgia remembers him personally. “He voted here first. I don’t know what to tell you about that,” says Elizabeth Forbes. She says there’s little chance a person could vote and not realize they had done so. “I would hope we don’t have anybody that is in that condition,” she says.

Habel insists he doesn’t remember voting twice, records or no records.

The I-Team and our partners compared raw voter registration rolls in Ohio, Florida and Georgia, then cross-checked with records of early voters. We found two other people who records indicate also already voted in two states, plus many others who could because they’ve received two ballots.

Lauren Arnone, a Xavier University student in Cincinnati, says she voted in Ohio but also has an absentee ballot from Georgia

Aaron Bashore is in the same boat. He moved from Georgia to Warren County, Ohio in April, and says he knows he could have voted twice. “Could have,” he says, “I know that, and I was tempted, because anybody who votes wants their candidate to win, but that would be, I’m sure it would be illegal and if not, it would be immoral so we (he and his wife) only voted one time.”

But that’s what the system demands: honesty from the voters. Our investigation exposes a giant loophole. There is no federal database to stop people from registering in two or more states. There’s no way Ohio will know on Election Day if you first vote on the Ohio side of the bridge, then drive to the Kentucky side and vote again. It’s against the law – a felony in all three states, punishable by up to 18 months in prison in Ohio — but no one’s looking.

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner says the state will prosecute anyone it finds voted twice, but the state has no way to track if someone votes here and in another state. “We are not specifically taking our database and trying to match it with Florida or match it with another state,” Brunner says.

We shared our research with Brunner. We found 112,148 matches of the same first, middle and last name - and birthday - registered in two of our three states. While some matches could be two people, the vast majority we spot-checked were the same people who had two homes or had moved. The lion’s share, almost 70,000 matches, registered in Ohio and Florida or Ohio and Georgia.

Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel says that’s unacceptable. “This is extraordinarily disturbing and we launched an immediate investigation,” she says not only of those who voted twice, but those like Lauren Arnone, who could vote in Atlanta but chose Cincinnati because, Arnone says, “Ohio’s a swing state. I’m not from here. I’m from Atlanta, Georgia. So I re-registered in Ohio.”

Handel bristles at that choice. “You don’t get to pick and choose based on what is a battleground state, so that’s very disturbing, and we will be looking at every single name on that list.”

But Arnone says she called the Georgia Secretary of State’s office and was told her Ohio registration would cancel out her Georgia registration, information that simply isn’t true. There’s only so much states, and local boards of elections, can monitor. As Forbes, the chief registrar in Hart County says, “If they’re registered in two places, what can we do?”

Arnone calls that “Definitely a loophole in the system, a flaw in the system.”

Bashore agrees. “I think it could potentially change the outcome of an election, and thus the outcome of the direction of our country,” he says. He remembers that . President Bush won Ohio in 2004 by a mere 100,000 votes, and won his first by winning Florida with less than 2000 votes.

For Ohio’s Secretary of State, the possibility of someone voting twice undermines our very system. “It’s one person, one vote,” Brunner says. “And the beauty of an election day in a democracy is that election day is the one day when everyone is equal. No vote counts more than any other vote.”

At least it shouldn’t. Multiply the numbers the I-Team found in three states, by the United States, and the potential for fraud equals millions of votes. President Bush won Ohio last time by a mere 100,000. He won Florida by less than 2000 votes his first term.

Brunner says she’s tried for a compact with neighboring states but that would leave out most.

Voter fraud is a felony in all three states, punishable in Ohio by six to 18 months in prison, and a permanent record.

Brunner says it would be hard, but not impossible to create a federal database to compare state rolls. People move every day. But federal law says states have to keep inactive voters on their rolls for two presidential cycles, so people stay on there for eight to 11 years, before their names can be purged.

Tuesday, whether you’re a poll worker or voter, if you see any signs of trouble at a precinct, long lines that may be discouraging voters, disputes between officials or campaigners standing outside, voting machines or scanners that aren’t working, anything at all, call the “WCPO Voter Hotline” at (513)852-4966 or email me at votingconcerns@wcpo.com I’ll be airing and blogging on wcpo.com all day to let you know how it’s going. We’ll report any challenges that come up here and across Ohio.

(h/t Kurt-Shop)