WASHINGTON, November 5 (RIA Novosti) — Close deciding votes between candidates during the US midterm elections are likely to cause suspicion of election fraud, but such allegations are often false, experts told RIA Novosti on Tuesday.
"The elections are very close [between candidates] all over the country. It leads to big controversy, so I wouldn't be surprised if we hear some allegations [of voter fraud]," Walter Melbane, professor of political science and statistics at the University of Michigan said, adding that "there has not been a successful fraud allegation in a federal [elections] case" so far.
Although officials often blame the lack of voter identification to what causes allegations of election fraud, Melbane said that voter identification laws are being used to discriminate voters instead.
"Voter suppression is a big deal, the voter ID movement is certainly part of an effort by one party to suppress the voters of the other party," said Melbane.
Assistant political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Tatishe Nteta agrees that there is not enough evidence of election fraud to have such policies as voter identification laws.
"There is little or no evidence of rampant voter fraud," Nteta said. "And as a democracy, if we [the United States] want higher voter turnout there is no reason to have voter ID restrictions when there is no problem with fraud."
Thirty US states now require voters to show some form of identification in order to vote in federal, state and local elections, a law that affects some 21 million voters across the United States, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Midterm election results started to arrive at the end of the day on Tuesday, but exact vote counts that will determine the winning candidate could take longer to determine.
