From the Maryland Voter Alliance:
The Maryland Voter Alliance and Delegate Pat McDonough Make Forward Strides in the Passage of a Bill to Approve Maryland’s Participation in the Interstate Crosscheck Program as Next Step in Ensuring Fraud-Free Elections
If approved this Legislative Session, Maryland will join the 33 States already participating in the Program to ensure there are no duplicate voter registrations active in more than one state
ROCKVILLE, MD – February 16, 2015 – The Maryland Voter Alliance, a voter integrity organization dedicated to ensuring fraud-free elections for all Americans, announces today that has continued to make forward progress in the passage of Bill, HB 0253 to approve Maryland’s participation in the Interstate Crosscheck System. The Hearing to discuss the issue, at which The Maryland Voter Alliance and several other experts will testify, is set to take place on Wednesday, February 18, 2015 at 1pm in the State House Building of the General Assembly of Maryland, located at 100 State Circle, Annapolis, MD 21401. Delegate McDonough will also be holding a Press Conference prior to the Hearing at 11:30am on February 18 in Room 310 of the State House.
In partnership with Delegate Pat McDonough, The Maryland Voter Alliance has spearheaded the effort to pass this Bill to take steps to continue to monitor and eliminate active duplicate registrations in more than one state, an issue that has long plagued the electoral system in Maryland that has resulted in numerous confirmed instances of voter fraud. In particular, recent data gathered by the Crosscheck Program in 2014 found 6.9 million people are currently registered to vote in more than one state, underscoring the tremendous gravity of this issue and the alarming potential for fraudulent activity that can exert critical impacts on election outcomes.
The Interstate Crosscheck Program, also known as “The Kansas Project,” is a nationwide database that, at no charge to states, allows for comparison of voter registration data across state lines to flag and eliminate duplicate records that leave the door open to fraudulent activity. Founded by Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach, 33 states now participate in the Crosscheck Program. While Maryland is included in another voter record database, Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), their participation in Interstate Crosscheck Program would bring additional monitoring capabilities and significant impacts to the future of free and fair elections and the preservation of an accurate electoral system, essential freedoms to all American citizens.
The upcoming hearing held by the Maryland House of Delegates will feature testimony from a number of recognized experts supporting the Bill, working in partnership with The Maryland Voter Alliance and the office of Delegate Pat McDonough, including:
– Reagan George, President of the Virginia Voters Alliance, proponent of the Interstate Crosscheck Program, and co-sponsor of the recent efforts to compare voter registration data between Virginia and Maryland, which resulted in the identification of 43,893 duplicate registrations in 2014 and 164 individuals who were confirmed to have actually cast votes in both states in the 2012 Presidential Election;
– Lynda Del Castillo, the 2014 Republican candidate for District 16 of the Maryland House of Delegates and spokesperson for The Maryland Voter Alliance; and
– Lewis Porter, head of Maryland 20-20 Watch, who brings experience as a Poll Watcher in Baltimore City and first-hand knowledge of the grave state of the voter rolls in Maryland.
Any other individuals wishing to testify are required to sign the witness register and provide any written materials for reproduction no later than 11am on the day of the Hearing.
“We are proud of the success we have had thus far in pushing this Bill forward to approve Maryland‘s participation in the Interstate Crosscheck Program, and are grateful for the support of Delegate Pat McDonough and our other supporters,” President of the Maryland Voter Alliance, Robyn Sachs stated. “Membership in the Interstate Crosscheck Program represents the next step in Maryland’s commitment to free and fair elections, and we look forward to the upcoming Hearing and the opportunity to move our quest for clean voter rolls and eradication of fraud to the next level from here.”
The necessity for the passage of this Bill to bring Maryland into the Interstate Crosscheck Program is impossible to ignore, for its potential to preserve the tradition of fair elections in the state and to ensure compliance with Federal law. As an example, in 2014, The Virginia Voter Alliance conducted a thorough review of data purchased from the Maryland and Virginia State Boards of Elections (SBE) that included voter preferences from the 2013 Governor’s race in Virginia and the 2012 Presidential Election in Maryland. A SQL query of the data compared 3.4 million voter records in Maryland and 5.5 million in Virginia by first name, middle initial, last name, and date of birth. The findings were staggering:
– 43,983 duplicate registrations between Maryland and Virginia;
– 164 individuals who appeared to have knowingly participated in double-voting activities across the two states; and
– Over 308,000 potential duplicate voter records in Virginia, identified through record-matching efforts conducted by the Interstate Crosscheck Program comparing that state’s records against 21 other states by first name, middle initial, last name, date of birth, and the last four digits of the individual’s Social Security number for added specificity.
The level of detail and accuracy of this data analysis was made possible by Virginia’s concurrent participation in the Interstate Crosscheck Program and ERIC.
“We stand with The Maryland Voter Alliance, in full support of their efforts to bring a culture of fair elections and accurate voter rolls to our state,” Delegate Pat McDonough said. “Free and fair elections are an essential American right and fraudulent activity that threatens and impedes them brings damaging impacts to all of us as Marylanders and U.S. citizens alike.”
For more information about The Maryland Voter Alliance, please visit the organization’s website at www.marylandvoteralliance.org or the organization’s Twitter page at @MDVoterAlliance.
About The Maryland Voter Alliance
The Maryland Voter Alliance is a voter integrity organization launched by Entrepreneurs for Free Enterprise, dedicated to ensuring fraud-free elections for all Americans. The Maryland Voter Alliance remains committed to stamping out fraud and inaccuracies in Maryland’s voter rolls that invite fraudulent activity, and continuing to fight for change and greater integrity to preserve essential American freedoms at the state, local, and federal levels. For more information, please visit the organization’s website at www.marylandvoteralliance.org or the organization’s Twitter page at @MDVoterAlliance.
This sounds like something good for the integrity of the elections. I’d just like to know how much this is gong ot cost, and who is going to pay for it.
Picture ID would solve most of these issues, In order to receive a ID you should have to provide proof of residency.
Are you willing to make these ID’s free and easy to get ahold of?
Of course they would have to be free. The class of people who would need free ID cards needs and gets erything else for free. So what?
It takes a lot of time & money to make a system like Crosscheck work properly and not disenfranchise “valid voters.”
“…many voting-rights advocates and election experts say that if used improperly, Crosscheck can lead states to remove valid voters. Part of the problem is human error. The program’s own guide for states says that “a significant number of apparent double votes are false positives and not double votes. Many are the result of errors—voters sign the wrong line in the poll book, election clerks scan the wrong line with a barcode scanner.”
But not all states have been careful about reading the fine print. Several Virginia counties last fall used the data to purge their rolls, after conducting only cursory investigations of their own, with the result that legitimate voters were removed weeks before the state’s gubernatorial election.
Just as important, Crosscheck’s reports, which often generate large-sounding headline numbers, can be used to stoke fear of voter fraud with little evidence to back it up. That’s what happened recently in North Carolina.
Based on Crosscheck data, the state elections board announced that it had found upwards of 35,000 potential double voters—provoking a frenzy among state and national Republicans and conservative media. But that turned out to be the number of voters whose names and birthdates – not Social Security numbers—matched those of voters in other states. Experts quickly pointed out that with such a large data pool, the statistical chances for false matches are high. Even the much smaller number of matches that included Social Security numbers, 765, was likely largely the result of errors by voters or poll-workers.”
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/florida-quits-crosscheck
“many voting-rights advocates” AKO democrats.