The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Election fraud" ...
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Who Can Vote? Comprehensive Database of U.S. Voter Fraud Uncovers No Evidence That Photo ID Is Needed
“Who Can Vote?” is the 2012 project of News21, a multimedia investigative reporting initiative funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and headquartered at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Twenty-four students from 11 universities across the country worked on the project under the direction of journalism professionals. The project, launched just before the 2012 political conventions, consists of more than 20 in-depth reports and rich multimedia content that includes interactive databases and data visualizations, video profiles and photo galleries. Student reporters conducted an exhaustive public records search and built a comprehensive data base of voter fraud cases that revealed: • Since 2000, while fraud has occurred, the number of cases is infinitesimal. • In-person voter impersonation on Election Day, which prompted 37 state legislatures to enact or consider tough voter ID laws, is virtually non-existent. Only 10 such cases over more than a decade were reported. • There is more fraud in absentee ballots and voter registration than any other category. The analysis shows 329 cases of absentee ballot fraud and 364 cases of registration fraud. A required photo ID at the polls would not have prevented these cases. • Voters make a lot of mistakes, from people accidentally voting twice to voting in the wrong precinct. However, few cases reveal a coordinated effort to change election results. • Election officials make a lot of mistakes, giving voters ballots when they’ve already voted, for instance. Election workers are often confused about voters’ eligibility requirements.
Tags: elections; fraud; public records; voters; ballot
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Port Authority: Battle at the Waterfront
This investigation was about lies and obfuscation, and the stakes were enormous: A mayor’s election, a growing media empire and potentially billions of dollars in development. Our reporting revealed how within months of purchasing the largest media operation in San Diego County, the new owners of U-T San Diego were using their power and status to influence -- and even threaten -- government officials into helping them realize lucrative plans for developing the downtown waterfront. It also illuminated an insidious practice suspected nationwide: use of private electronic accounts to conduct the public’s business. Our reporting defined much of the discussion around the mayor’s race in the weeks before the election. In the end, the candidate at the heart of the probed was defeated.
Tags: Mayoral election; fraud; government officials; San Diego
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St. Bernard Voting Fraud
In an effort to preserve the sense of community in St. Bernard, and other similar parishes affected by Hurricane Katrina, the state passed legislation allowing residents to continue to vote at their previous residences, even if they were living outside of the parish during the rebuilding process. Fast forward six years. 2011. The rebuilding of St. Bernard continues, but with a post-Katrina population of 35,000, the parish has a fraction of its former residents. While some property owners have returned, many have moved to St. Tammany Parish. This is where WVUE's investigation begins. The investigative team received a tip that a St. Bernard Sheriff's Department employee lived in St. Tammany Parish, but was still voting in St. Bernard. This tip came right after the primary in St. Bernard's critical fall elections. The WVUE-TV team requested all voting records for the election, and found out that the deputy was the tip of the iceberg; illegal voting was widespread.
Tags: broadcast; voter fraud; Hurricane Katrina
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"Washam's Law"
In this investigative report, reporter Sean Robinson took a hard look at the personal and political life of Dale Washam, elected to Pierce Country Assessor-Treasurer to the "surprise" of many in 2008. Serving as Pierce Country Assessor-Treasurer for two years, Washam has been called a "gadfly" and a "busybody." This series of stories "exposed Washam as a fraud" who was only interested in his own "crusade."
Tags: Pierce County; Dale Washam; Ken Madsen; gadfly
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Vote early, vote often
Joint venture between WSB-TV in Atlanta and WCPO-TV in Cincinnati. The investigation uncovered voter fraud on the eve of the 2008 presidential election and and proved there to be no federal oversight to prevent voters from casting ballots in multiple states. The reporters took advantage of newly enacted voting laws in their states to track and compare the master voter rolls and early voting records of registered voters in Florida, Georgia and Ohio. They found more than 100,000 people who appeared to be registered in more than one states, with the potential to vote in both. They also found three individuals who already had used new early voting laws to cast ballots in both Florida and Georgia, a felony crime. They found an additional 12 people who had already voted in one state and also received an absentee ballot from another.
Tags: voter fraud; 2008 presidential election; Ohio; Florida; Georgia; absentee ballots; duplicate votes
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Bundle of Trouble
These articles examine the shady fundraising practice of "bundling" campaign donations. The articles spotlight fundraiser Norman Hsu, who has used bundling to raise money for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. The investigation looks at the impact of this practice on modern campaigns, and also delves into Hsu's shady past.
Tags: campaign finance reform; fundraising; Federal Election Commission; politics; data analysis; fraud
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Broken Ballots
After a primary election in "an inner city legislative precinct in Memphis" finished with a margin of just 13 votes for the winner, the Commercial Appeal looked into the election. Among its findings were: "names of dead people and others on vacant lots were used to cast ballots." Also, a poll worker who was tasked to monitor voting and "whose signature appears on Election Day records including vote tallies from voting machines was actually in New York on a taxpayer-funded trip that day, not at the polling place." In addition, hundreds of deceased persons and people who have moved away are still on the voter lists, and many Election Day workers at the polls have criminal records.
Tags: Election fraud; false voter registration; dead people on voting lists
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Valley's Dead Cast Their Vote
New York's new statewide database of registered voters contains as many as 77,000 dead people on its rolls. As many as 2,600 of them have cast votes from the grave, according to a Poughkeepsie Journal computer-assisted analysis. The analysis was examined the potential for errors and fraud in New York's three-month-old database. No fraud was found however errors had been made.
Tags: voting; fraud; elections; ghost voters; computer assisted reporting
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Small-Town Election, Big-Time Trouble
The stories chronicled election fraud in two small communities. In the first community, one candidate's mother headed up the registrar's office, while in the other community, Gate City, the mayor manipulated the absentee voting system to his advantage, sometimes filling the forms of elderly absentee voters himself.
Tags: election fraud; absentee voting; voter registration; Roanoke; Scott County; Gate City; Willie Mae Kilgore; Charles Dougherty; Jerry Kilgore; Terry Kilgore; State Board of Elections; campaign donations; Republican Party
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Detroit Election Fraud
The Detroit News found negligence in election oversight and election fraud in Detroit. Reporters found that city employees were coaxing nursing home residents to vote, ballots were sent to juvenile detention homes, the voting rolls had 300,000 registrants who had moved or died, and people were voting from abandoned homes and vacant lots. After the story ran, the FBI and state officials seized city voting records.
Tags: Detroit; elections; election fraud; absentee ballots; voter registration; FOI; senior citizens; city clerk; absentee ballots