Lorraine C. Minnite
Professor of Political Science and Associate Professor of Public Policy, Rutgers University-Camden
Chapter Member: New Jersey-Philadelphia SSN
Areas of Expertise:
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About Lorraine
Minnite is a policy-focused political scientist with expertise in American and urban politics and policy. She specializes in the study of inequality and how it is dealt with by the American political system; teaching courses on political participation; poverty; community development; urban politics; and policy analysis. Her earlier work on immigrant communities in New York City engaged a community collaborative research process that produced new insights into questions about immigrant political incorporation. With her expertise on voter fraud; she has testified before Congress; advised government agencies such as the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission and the U.S. Government Accountability Office; been invited to speak to state elections officials about her research; and participated as an expert witness in high profile legal challenges to new voter identification rules adopted in a number of states.
Contributions
The Misleading Myth of Voter Fraud in American Elections
Key Findings Brief,
In the News
Research discussed by , in "Election Experts Say Kris Kobach's Voter Fraud Claims are Misleading," CNN, August 8, 2018.
Quoted by Sam Levine in "Racism Seen as Factor In Differing Sentences for Election Crimes in One Texas County," Huffington Post, April 26, 2018.
Quoted by in "Wednesday Editorial: Protect Voting Integrity in the Right Way," Florida Times-Union, January 10, 2018.
Quoted by Charles D. Ellison in "Questions Loom Big over Voter Fraud Commission," Philadelphia Tribune, July 22, 2017.
Guest on Sirius XM's The Briefing, October 22, 2016.
Quoted by Gabriela Esquivada in "Donald Trump, Desesperado: El Mito del Fraude Electoral," Infobae, October 22, 2016.
Quoted by Jeremy Kohler in "While Trump Warns of Vote Fraud, Experts Say It’s Rare," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 21, 2016.
Quoted by Michael Wines in "How Charges of Voter Fraud Became a Political Strategy," New York Times, October 21, 2016.
Quoted by Simon Carswell in "Slipping in Polls, Trump’s Complaints about Voter Fraud Grow Louder," Irish Times, October 19, 2016.
Quoted by Ryan J. Reilly in "Trump Supporters Have Been Primed for His Bogus Voter Fraud Claims for Years," Huffington Post, October 18, 2016.
Quoted by Tracy Jan and Victoria McGrane in "Is Trump’s ‘Voter Fraud’ Rhetoric Coded Racism?," Boston Globe, October 18, 2016.
Quoted by Noreen O’Donnell in "Trump Stokes Fears of Voter Fraud: A Closer Look at the Claims," NBC News, October 18, 2016.
Quoted by Linda Qiu in "Donald Trump’s Pants on Fire Claim of ‘Large Scale Voter Fraud’," Politifact, October 17, 2016.
Quoted by Gretel Kauffman in "Why Some Republicans Are Denouncing Trump’s ‘Rigged Election’ Warnings," Christian Science Monitor, October 13, 2016.
Quoted by Editorial Board in "The Success of the Voter Fraud Myth," New York Times, September 19, 2016.
Quoted by Sami Edge in "No, Voter Fraud Actually Isn’t a Persistent Problem," The Washington Post, September 1, 2016.
Guest on WYNC Public Radio, September 1, 2016.
Quoted by Michael Hewlett in "Cultural Differences Cause Voter ID Headaches," Winston-Salem Journal, January 28, 2016.
Quoted by Christian Belanger in "Lightning Strikes More Common in Texas than In-Person Voter Faud, says Cory Booker," Politifact, August 18, 2015.
Quoted by Brentin Mock in "On the 50th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, There's Not a Lot to Celebrate," CityLab, August 6, 2015.
Quoted by Bob Costner in "Rutgers University: Voting Fraud is Extremely Rare," Time Warner Cable News, July 23, 2015.
Quoted by Michael Hewlett in "Rutgers Professor Testifies in Federal That Voter Fraud is Rare," Winston-Salem Journal, July 23, 2015.
Opinion: "Movements Need Politicians - And Vice Versa," Lorraine C. Minnite (with ), The Nation, October 22, 2012.
Opinion: "N.C. Rejects Politics of Fear," Lorraine C. Minnite, The Charlotte Observer, July 18, 2007.
Opinion: "They are Arriving: Immigrants are Gaining Power in New York’s Voting Booths," Lorraine C. Minnite, New York Daily News, July 24, 2005.
Opinion: "Albany's Making Bad Elections Worse," Lorraine C. Minnite, New York Daily News, August 22, 2004.
Opinion: "The Other Campaign: Who Gets to Vote?," Lorraine C. Minnite (with ), New Labor Forum, May 2012.
Publications
"Voter Identification Laws: The Controversy over Voter Fraud" in Law and Election Politics: The Rules of the Game, 2nd Edition, edited by Matthew J. Streb (Routledge, 2012), 88-133.
Analyzes patterns in the passage of new voter identification laws in the states and highlights the arguments for and against them.
"New Challenges in the Study of Right-Wing Propaganda: Priming the Populist Backlash to ‘Hope and Change’" New Political Science 34, no. 4 (2012): 506-526.
Analyzes rightwing propaganda campaigns to advance paranoid stories about the political enemies of America, and calls for a revival of the historical-critical tradition in propaganda analysis.
"The Myth of Voter Fraud" (Cornell University Press, 2010).
Presents the results of meticulous research into the evidence of voter fraud in contemporary U.S. elections, finding that voting irregularities produced by the fragmented and complex nature of the electoral process are not uncommon, however, the incidence of deliberate voter fraud is rare.
"Modeling Problems in the Voter ID-Voter Turnout Debate" (with ). Election Law Journal 8, no. 2 (2009): 85-102.
Identifies key problems in the statistical modeling of direct effects of voter identification laws on voter turnout, and proposes improvements; concludes that the data and tools available for this kind of analysis may not yet be up to the task.
"Keeping Down the Black Vote: Race and the Demobilization of American Voters" (with ) (The New Press, 2009).
Traces voter suppression tactics used to counteract the contemporary mobilization of black voters since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and explains their resurgence as a function of the political struggle for power and institutional opportunity structures; explains how new tactics are invented and old tactics revived, usually under the mantle of “election reform.”
"Lost in Translation? A Critical Reappraisal of the Concept of Immigrant Political Incorporation" in Bringing Outsiders In: Transatlantic Perspectives on Immigrant Political Incorporation, edited by Jennifer Hochschild and John H. Mollenkopf (Cornell University Press, 2009), 48-59.
Argues that in the research on contemporary immigration to the U.S., the concept of political incorporation is a conceptual muddle, and that theories of incorporation borrowed from the study of urban politics may not be suitable to the study of immigrant incorporation.