Opinion

The Lie About Voter Fraud Is The Real Fraud

Published

9 years ago

May 16, 2017

After President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey because of, as Trump admitted, the “Russian thing,” he struck a new blow to American democracy: He created a commission on “election integrity,” stemming from his fantastical claims of voter fraud in the 2016 election.

In reality, fraudulent voting is virtually nonexistent. The claims of widespread voter fraud are a fraud. Voter suppression, on the other hand, is a real, present and increasing threat to our democracy. And all signs are that Trump’s commission will add to that threat.

Trump named Vice President Mike Pence as chair, with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a leading advocate of ballot-restricting legislation, as vice chair. Kobach has made a national spectacle of himself as a crazed pursuer of mythical voter fraud. In Kansas, Kobach has led Republican efforts to suppress the vote.

As Ari Berman of the Nation reports, Kobach claimed that “the illegal registration of alien voters has become pervasive,” although he could point to only five alleged cases of noncitizens voting in Kansas during the previous 13 years.

Kobach helped push through a law that required documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, such as a birth certificate, a passport or naturalization papers. That requirement disproportionately impacts the elderly, the poor and the young, who often don’t have access to such papers. Since the law went into effect in 2013, Berman reports, “one in seven Kansans who attempted to register have had their registrations held ‘in suspense’ by the state.”

To solve the non-problem of voter fraud, in 2015 Kansas gave Kobach the power to prosecute such cases. So far, he’s convicted nine people. Only last month did he convict his first and only noncitizen for voting fraud. The Kansas City Star has noted the paltry results Kobach has to show for his unique prosecutorial powers, mocking him as the “Javert of voter fraud,” a reference to the obsessed police inspector of “Les Miserables.”

Now Kobach will be the driving force leading Trump’s commission. Its purpose, no doubt, will be to cry wolf about voter fraud and push more states to pass harsh legislation to suppress the vote.

Unlike voter fraud — which every independent study shows is essentially a myth — voter suppression is real and growing. The most significant outside factor in the 2016 campaign was not the scattered cases of voter fraud, or Putin’s hacking, or even former FBI Director Comey’s interventions. The most significant factor was the suppression of the vote — particularly the black vote — in North Carolina, Philadelphia, Detroit and Milwaukee. As Berman has argued, federal court records show that “300,000 registered voters, 9 percent of the electorate, lacked strict forms of voter ID in Wisconsin.” A recent study by Priorities USA, a Democratic PAC, estimated that Wisconsin’s harsh voter ID laws “reduced turnout by about 200,000 votes” — disproportionately black votes. Trump won the state by 22,748 votes.

The 2016 election was the first in 50 years without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. Fourteen states had new voting restrictions in effect for the first time. Now Berman reports, 87 bills to restrict access to the ballot have been introduced in 29 states this year. Arkansas and Iowa have already passed strict voter-ID laws.

Republicans claim these laws are needed to stop voter fraud, but, again, the claims of voter fraud is the fraud. These bills are being pushed because they make it harder for certain communities to vote — and Republicans benefit when they vote in smaller numbers.

When politicians can pick their voters — by voter suppression laws, by gerrymandering, by big money campaigns — rather than voters picking their leaders, democracy is mocked. Political leaders in both parties should be pushing to make it easier, not harder, to vote. Instead, voter suppression has become a partisan weapon. Our very democracy is under assault.

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Arts and Culture

COMMENTARY: Black Music is the Sound of Black Freedom: Let Us Reclaim Both This Juneteenth

Black Music Month started when Black Music Association members Ed Wright, Kenny Gamble and his wife, journalist and radio host Dyanna Williams were able to persuade President Jimmy Carter to establish the observation on June 7, 1979.

Published

4 weeks ago

June 9, 2026

Oakland Post

Robert Johnson (1911-1938) is thought of as the godfather of blues music, especially Delta blues. The 29 songs recorded by him during his short life have been of massive inspiration to guitarists and musicians over the last 80 years. Public domain photo.

By Wanda Ravernell

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked – Black music is the sound of our freedom.

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans’ ‘sorrow songs,’ to the fields of Civil War battle where Black soldiers picked up abandoned bugles, to the upright piano played in juke joints on Saturday night and churches come Sunday morning, our ancestors’ innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated ’round the world.

In 2000, Congress made it official. In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama changed the name to African American Music Heritage Month and in 2023, Pres. Joe Biden changed it back to Black Music Month, two years after he declared Juneteenth a national holiday, the result of a movement led by Opal Lee.

Our ancestors battle for freedom over these last 400 years and the music that allowed them expression of their humanity deserved to be honored.

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us…’

Along with the long-known exploitation of Black musicians whose recordings were stolen by record companies, the commercialization of Juneteenth feels like another kind of theft.

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

Emancipation Day was Jan. 1 in Pennsylvania, April 16 in Wash., D.C., May 20 in Florida, and Aug. 8 in Kentucky. But Juneteenth, June 19, has the most renown, known in Texas as the ‘colored peoples’ Fourth of July.’

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.

Yes, church.

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee – the day of freedom – when they had chains on their feet and hands. They ‘testified’ about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.

And they sang.

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute’s Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance recalled this part of Juneteenth with prayers in the languages of the African captives. In the middle of the ceremony, a soloist would lead us in singing “Many Thousand Gone” while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas – two months after the Civil War ended.

“Many Thousand Gone” was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:

“No more auction block for me,

No more, no more

No more auction black for me

Many thousand gone.”

Other verses refer to the ‘pint of salt’ and the ‘driver’s lash,’ the realities of enslavement that they had survived.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us’

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, “the joy inside our pain.” So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs – based on spirituals – that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don’t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.

The power of those songs is showing a resurgence across the South as we battle again for the right to self-determination through the ballot box.

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith. Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.

This Juneteenth, let us reclaim those holy voices expressed in Black music for ourselves. It is our birthright. It can neither be bought nor sold. No more. Never again.

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland’s 11^th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.