Ripe for fraud: Hundreds of U.S. counties have more registered voters than living people who are eligible to vote

Counties across the U.S. are keeping dead people, felons, and former residents on their voters rolls in violation of federal law, leaving the opportunity for voter fraud wide open — and the feds aren't doing anything about it.

What are the details?

RealClear Politics' investigative unit published an in-depth analysis Thursday, revealing the widespread practice of counties nationwide who refuse to clean up their voter rolls. The report showed Los Angeles is California's worst offender, and further found that 400 counties out of America's 2,800 "have voter registration rates over 100 percent."

Author Mark Hemingway wrote, "In sum, America's voter rolls are a mess — and everyone knows it. While voter registration rates are over 100 percent are not proof of fraud, they certainly create opportunities that otherwise wouldn't exist, such as voting twice in different precincts or the potential for requesting and filling out absentee ballots."

Much of Hemingway's piece echoes the concerns of attorney David Roland, who proved election fraud in St. Louis after the 2016 election. Roland revealed widespread violations of absentee ballot laws in a scheme used against his client, Missouri House candidate Bruce Franks, who lost his primary election to a fellow Democrat.

That case was further bolstered by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which found specific examples of the misdoings. A new election was held, and Franks won in a landslide.

Roland told TheBlaze, "We would all like to believe that our public officials are conducting fair and lawful elections, but the risks and the consequences of election fraud are so significant that citizens have to look over their shoulders."

Anything else?

Hemingway also addressed the contentious 2018 gubernatorial race, "where Democrat Stacey Abrams has still not formally conceded to now-Gov. Brian Kemp, because during his tenure as secretary of state, she observed, 'more than a million citizens found their names stripped from the rolls.'"

According to National Review columnist Dan McLaughlin, Democrats view such tidying up as a violation of prospective voters' rights. He retweeted Hemingway's article Thursday, saying, "According to Democratic Party orthodoxy, it's 'voter suppression' to remove people from the rolls who are not citizens, not residents, or not living. In the real world, keeping the voter rolls up to date is just good government."

McLaughlin further noted, "The fact that Los Angeles County has 1.6 million more registered voters than eligible voters is a California problem. In a national popular vote system, it could become a national problem. 1.6 million is larger than the population of 11 states."