>>>But IF trying to paint a more sinister picture I would argue that the election fraud theme is not motivated by a weak ego but an early attempt to position Trumpeteers at election chambers in 3.75 years.
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>In fairness, in Germany you're assigned one polling station where you must present your voter ID to participate. Whereas in the US you can register in multiple states and vote in all of them without much risk of being caught. Some states don't even require registration or identification, merely an assertion that you're intending to reside long term. This creates an incentive in presidential elections for voters on the East Coast (for example) if their state college seats are considered to be in the bag for one candidate, to drive to a very close contiguous state to help sway the result there too. There's also the risk of corruption: e.g. in New Hampshire, conservative activists have videoed voting officials encouraging people to lie about residency so as to vote. And in states that don't require registration or proof of eligibility, even non-citizens can turn up to exercise their vote.
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>Some US states have implemented stricter rules but there is resistance in others because of the impact on poorer (usually Democrat) voters who may not have proper ID or evidence of fixed abode. The other side counters that the status quo allows dead people, serial impersonators, foreigners and carpetbaggers to defraud the vote. They point to California and New York (the two states that swung the popular vote for HRC) where no voter ID is required and there's anecdotal evidence of serial impersonation and alien voting.
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>Worth noting that after the latest election, Green party candidate Stein accumulated a fund with more dollars than she had received votes, to assert electoral fraud and challenge the result in key states. This resulted in a slightly increased majority for Trump in WI... but this challenge merely recounted the tally and did not check the validity of votes.
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>The fact is that nobody knows for sure the size of the electoral fraud problem. IMHO it *is* wide open for fraud when you don't need any ID and as with all easy dishonesty, unscrupulous behavior is inevitable. FWIW it's not just Germany that formalizes place and ID to prevent voter fraud; most democracies require formal validation of your right to vote once. Australia goes further, actually *requiring* all eligible citizens to vote, which obligation is firmly enforced.


As in Belgium.