There are multiple watchdogs groups ready to try and prevent voter fraud on Election Day.
The U.S. Department of Justice says it will deploy more than 400 election monitors to 18 states to keep tabs on the electoral process. Their mission is to prevent fraud, intimidation, or voter suppression.
Several states have established their own hotlines, and in New York City voters can even tweet in reports of problems.
Some citizens' groups, like Election Integrity Watch in Minneapolis, plan to deploy their own poll watchers.
"Our mission is to ensure fair and honest elections," said Jeff Davis, a founder of Election Integrity Watch and President of the conservative advocacy group, Minnesota Majority. "Over the course of the last elections here in Minnesota, we have discovered numerous problems, and government officials were reluctant to acknowledge those problems or investigate. We've concluded that it is up to us, we the people, to ensure the integrity of elections."
Just last week authorities in Minnesota charged 47 people with voter fraud from the 2008 election, and Davis believes the actual number is higher this year. They even held a news conference with Ian Hodge, who received an election postal verification card saying he is registered to vote, and listing his polling place. The only problem is that Mr. Hodge is not an American citizen. He's British.
"If people are aware that there are going to be people watching the election process," he says, then "that will maybe dissuade those people who have committed fraudulent voting in the past."
But others fear that such groups can lead to voter intimidation.
Wendy Weiser, of the NYU's Brennan Center for Justice, told Fox News "what we are concerned with is that when there are large scale mobilization around ballot security efforts, they often cross the line and used tactics that have the affect of suppressing legitimate votes. And this has happened time and again and we are worried that this may happen again this time."
Read more: http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/11/01/stopping-voter-fraud#ixzz148Nzt8YK
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