While election results aren’t usually affected, voter fraud is common. And electoral integrity is perhaps more important than the outcome.
J. Christian Adams
Pajamas Media
8/4/2010
In the fall of 2008, Tarrell Campbell was a student at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. With his three separate master’s degrees, he had been on a college campus, somewhere, for more than a decade. He was so interested in the outcome of the 2008 presidential election that he cast a ballot in Illinois, then drove across a Mississippi River bridge to his hometown of St. Louis and voted again.
Last week, Mr. Campbell entered a guilty plea to federal voter fraud charges for illegally casting two votes in a federal election. He may well sit out the next presidential election in federal prison.
This strange case of a highly educated criminal seeking to game our electoral system is not as rare as you might think. While some dismiss voter fraud as a myth, as common as unicorns and Sasquatch, others claim fraud regularly determines election winners. Both views are wrong. The truth lies somewhere in between.
When he plead guilty, Tarrell Campbell told the federal judge that he simply had forgotten about his Illinois vote when he voted in Missouri. For that preposterous claim alone, he should have to go to jail. Campbell also trumpeted his three advanced degrees as a justification for leniency. Most Americans probably think those three master’s degrees merit extra jail time.
Campbell described one of his degrees as a study of “economic social systems and Mediterranean studies.” He noted: “This program is centered on economic policy and how it can be best implemented in the Arab world.” No word on whether taxpayer dollars were used to educate this professional student turned federal felon, but we can probably presume we all helped Campbell one way or another earn those multiple degrees.
Unfortunately, Tarrell Campbell is but one of many recent examples of voter fraud.
Read the rest at Pajamas Media.
J. Christian Adams is an election lawyer who served in the Voting Rights Section at the U.S. Department of Justice. His website is www.electionlawcenter.com.
