November 4, 2024
The Central Conference of American Rabbis rejects deplorable and false claims of widespread voter fraud in the United States, unjustly and dangerously casting doubt that the results of our upcoming presidential election can be trusted. These fabricated assertions empower state officials who would unscrupulously purge eligible voters from the rolls and suppress turnout in marginalized communities.
Though democratic republics like ours were unknown in Talmudic times, “Rabbi Yitzchak taught: One may appoint a leader over a community only after consulting that community.”[1] Through much of its history, America has fallen short in defining the community—that is, the voters—who must choose our leaders. The Electoral College is a vestige of our founders’ belief that only white, landholding men were qualified to choose the President of the United States. Gradually the right to vote was expanded to Black men in 1870, women in 1920, Native Americans in 1924, and those aged eighteen to twenty in 1971. In every generation, those who would seek to exclude Americans from participating in elections have found ways to accomplish their undemocratic aims.
Recent efforts to combat election fraud have been, at best, a solution in search of a problem, and more often, our own generation’s method of dissuading legitimate but marginalized voters from going to the polls. Lorraine C. Minnite, a Rutgers University professor and author of The Myth of Voter Fraud, observes, “Fraud committed by voters is exceedingly rare. But allegations of voter fraud are ubiquitous. They are almost always leveled by opponents when reformers seek to make it easier to vote, not just at election times. The specter of voter fraud is used to scare people and justify rules that make it harder to vote for that segment of the population that already votes the least—the poor, new citizen voters, young people and, most importantly, racial minorities.”[2]
As the 2024 election approaches, Americans are assaulted by repeated claims of large-scale voting by undocumented immigrants. However, the Bipartisan Policy Center reports: “The Heritage Foundation’s analysis…found only 24 instances of noncitizens voting between 2003 and 2023…. Illegal voting, including by noncitizens, is routinely investigated and prosecuted by the appropriate authorities, and there is no evidence that noncitizen voting has ever been significant enough to impact an election’s outcome.”[3]
The Central Conference of American Rabbis calls on federal, state, and local election officials to reject forcefully all unjustified demands that they take extraordinary steps to combat all-but-nonexistent voter fraud. Instead, Reform rabbis call on elected officials to fight voter suppression. We are proud that our Reform rabbis have joined the Religious Action Center’s Every Voice, Every Vote campaign, to uphold the integrity of our elections by ensuring every voice is heard and every vote is counted. The CCAR renews its call to vouchsafe and expand voting rights by vigorously enforcing the Voting Rights Act, fully implementing the Help America Vote Act, adopting the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and granting statehood to the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
Rabbi Erica Asch, President
Rabbi Hara E. Person, Chief Executive
Central Conference of American Rabbis
- Babylonian Talmud, B’rachot 55a. ↑
- Tom McLaughlin, “Is Voter Fraud a Danger or a Myth?” Rutgers, October 19, 2020, https://www.rutgers.edu/news/voter-fraud-danger-or-myth. ↑
- Theresa Cardinal Brown, Theo Menon, Feyisayo Oyolola, “Four Things to Know about Noncitizen Voting,” Bipartisan Policy Center, March 13, 2024, https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/four-things-to-know-about-noncitizen-voting/. ↑