Election official target: Integrity

McCOOK, Nebraska -- Nebraska Secretary of State John Gale intends to reform several aspects of Nebraska voter registration in an effort to eliminate pocketed areas that he believes present a high potential for voter fraud. Gale sees practices such as same-day and mail-in first time voter registrations, among the areas that invite voter fraud.

During a visit to McCook Wednesday, Gale said 31 states have some form of voter ID requirement but most people don't realize there is considerable difference among the requirements.

"The largest number do not require a strict photo ID," said Gale.

Among the 31 only six states have a strict photo ID requirement, eight states require a non-restrictive photo ID and 18 do not require a photo ID but some other form of ID instead, according to Gale.

"I decided, rather than trying to adopt a program simply because another state is doing it, to study the greatest potential for voter fraud, and like a laser, focus on those issues. Rather than a broad sweeping requirement," said Gale.

Gales intent to target and eliminate areas with high potential for voter fraud is a strategy he hopes will increase voter confidence and turnout, while avoiding conflict with extremists on both sides of the voter ID debate.

"There will be a small group on both sides of the issue that will be unhappy no matter what, my hope is our approach will minimize those groups," said Gale.

Ninety-eight percent of registered Nebraska voters have some combination of driver's license information and the last four numbers of their social security number confirmed with election offices.

"Those 98 percent are authentic voters, cleared, no suspicion. The remaining 2 percent is what we are focusing on, 16,000 registered voters with neither," said Gale.

Gale said his approach places a microscope on the targeted group as they have the highest potential for voter fraud.

"We are sending a letter to all 16,000 asking they update and include driver's license or social security informaiton. There is no law requiring their participation. We will strongly suggest it in an effort to reduce that number. We need a more manageable number and need their assistance to update our records," said Gale.

Gale said he understood there would be circumstances with elderly, handicapped or others where they couldn't comply with the request and he wanted his office to be sympathetic to that.

"There are those that have been registered more than 10 years and may have been registered without including the information even if they had it. Our hope is to populate [our voter database] with more reliable information," said Gale.

Gale said there are approximately 25,000 registered voters that the state knew had moved, via United State Postal Service information. The relocated voters were mailed confirmation from their county officials but for whatever reason have not confirmed the move locally, according to Gale.

Gale said county officials have historically been reluctant to delete these "ghost registrations" and they represent another group at high risk for voter impersonation.

"We have decided, through legal research, we have the authority to delete these registrations," said Gale, adding that he would issue an order this October or November to do just that.

"You could easily impersonate these voters if you know they won't vote. Is there a high likelihood of that no, but they are high risk and therefore will be eliminated," said Gale.

Gale said his laser-like approach will also be targeting first time registered voters. By law, first time voters are allowed to register by mail.

"All they need to show is a copy of a utility bill, or other similar form, which are so easy to fabricate. That level of ID is relatively worthlesss and again invites potential for voter fraud. I want to require a higher level of ID, photo or non-photo, but a better record of the person," said Gale.

Gale said first time voters could be required to be provisional voters to allow for time to confirm their registration, but said he hasn't yet fully decided how to address the scenario.

"It's not a large number of people, relatively small, but again a high risk, said Gale, adding that anything would be better then what is currently in place.

Nebraska law also allows people to register and vote on the same day, which Gale sees as another area subject to a high risk of fraud. Gale said election officials were required to accept the same day ballots without so much as a driver's license requirement.

"That means the ballot cannot be rejected later if the information given is found to be inaccurate. We have to require a higher level of ID, eliminate the scenario, or require a 10 day waiting period to allow confirmation," said Gale.

The National Voter Registration Act says even if election officials know from a reliable source a voter has moved, they can't remove them for two federal cycles, according to Gale.

"Every six months we bang up against the USPS database and the information is sent to county clerks. They send notice to confirm and a number of the registered voters do not respond. This results in 75,000 to 100,000 still registered, but yet we know they have moved out of county or out of state," said Gale.

The federal law prohibits county election officials from removing the registrations for four years, which resulted in 30,000 registered voters removed from the Nebraska database in January.

"We remove 24 to 30 thousand every two years and never get beyond 75 to 100 thousand. It leads to public disturbance because counties have more registered voters than they have citizens. People have moved and we can't take them off our records. Congress is not about to change the law so we want to require them to be provisional voters and reaffirm their address information," said Gale.

Gale said the situation served as an invite to create a pattern of fraud and making them vote provisionally would be an effective solution.

Gale said Nebraska does not have systemic fraud, "isolated individual cases and they are sent for prosecution."

In 2012 a voter in Douglas County registered twice and committed fraud on the second registration, which was turned over to the Douglas County Attorney for prosecution.

To fight multiple state voter registration fraud, Nebraska election officials compare their registrations against a database with 22 other states, resulting in approximately 5,000 registrations being removed every couple of years, according to Gale.

Gale said there were five such cases in the last election, where individuals voted in Nebraska and another state, which were subsequently turned over to Attorney General Jon Bruning's office for prosecution

"It is important to prosecute when we find evidence of double voting or deliberate intentional fraud," said Gale.