James O’Keefe has another run-in with the law

>>> right wingers are so desperate to justify their radical voter suppression agend athey'll do anything. even if it means possibly committing voter fraud themselves. you may remember this guy. he's the professional smear artist who was behind the fake acorn scandal. now he sent his cohorts out to fraudulently collect primary ballots in new hampshire using names of voters who recently died. federal law says it's illegal to get ballots, quote, that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious or fraudulent. watch this.

>> there you go.

>> okay. thank you for that.

>> this sure looks like they are getting ballots to me. also, new hampshire law requires all parties to agree when they are being recorded.

>> hello.

>> do you have a robert bailey on your list?

>> a what?

>> robert bailey .

>> do you have a thomas mccarron?

>> spell your last name.

>> i don't see consent there. but no matter what games this guy or anyone else tries, it's baloney. voter fraud does not exist on a major scale, period. the right wingers are trying to fool the public and games and tricks are their strategy. in this new hampshire scheme, the conservative provocateur claims he got his hand on more than a dozen ballots. if these radical voter i.d. laws were passed nationwide, 21 million voters would no longer be able to vote. is that any way to justify these radical laws? they have one goal, stop blacks la, tinos, elderly and the poor from voting. joining me from manchester, new hampshire , is paul bergeron. he is from nashua, new hampshire . he's city clerk there and has been in charge of overseeing elections in nashua for 20 years. thanks for join neing me tonight.

>> thanks for having me. glad to be here.

>> did they break new hampshire law in trying to record getting some voter ballots with dead men's names that they knew were dead?

>> in my belief they did and certainly i know the attorney general's office is investigating the matter. these people went up to the checklist table and presented themselves as being people that they were not. and our election laws state that anyone who poses as a different individual as to the qualifications as a voter has committed a crime in our elections laws and is subject to a civil penalty of up to $5,000. they took physical possession of the ballots. and that, to me, shows that they were acting in illegal manner.

>> now, paul , according to what we've been able to get, including some of the information from republicans, there's been a case of one case of voter fraud in the last several years in new hampshire . just one in the whole state .

>> i'm only aware of one. it happened on the sea coast area and was a young man who used his father's name to obtain a ballot. and he went to court and was found guilty and sentenced to community service .

>> 1 out of 3 million votes. just one. so if, in fact, this man collected more than a dozen ballots during this film, he actually increased fraud in the state by 1200 % to try to prove there was a problem that didn't exist.

>> yeah, you don't prove there's been voter fraud by committing it yourself. he's establishing an activity that creates a voter fraud situation and it's his own activity that should be looked at and prosecuted.

>> so, paul , you are there. you are the city clerk in nashua . do you feel there is a problem of voter fraud in the state ?

>> no, i do not. i have not seen enough instances of any voter fraud in the state . i know the attorney general's office investigates any claims of voter fraud and have not found any to be of substance.

>> now the estimates from -- that we've been able to get from the secretary of state in new hampshire estimates that 50,000 to 75,000 new hampshire residents don't have photo i.d. the fact is that if you put photo i.d. laws in, you are actually disenfranchising legitimate voters and you aren't stopping massive voter fraud because there is no massive voter fraud .

>> let's not forget it's also possible to counterfeit i.d.s as well. so if someone were to decide that they wanted to commit fraud in a state that has voter i.d. laws, that can still be done. we're not changing or limiting voter fraud by putting up obstacles to get to the ballot box .

>> very interesting. so if you are saying that even if you have photo i.d. , if one was really trying to play a fraudulent game, they could just play phony voter i.d.s. so this investigation really would amount to much of nothing anyway.

>> absolutely.

>> it's amazing. have you in your experience, and i've got to let you go, i know, but in your experience, have you ever had a concern raised about massive voter fraud ? i know you said it is not there, but i'm trying to find out where this came from giving them all the benefit of the doubt that maybe i'm wrong, that it's not geared for a certain demographic. but have people come up to you saying they are worried about voter fraud ?

>> no, i don't get a lot of complaints about that. occasionally in an election, someone will complain that a car without a state plates or a bus with out of state plates are bringing people across the border. there are people out there believe there's conspiracy in every action that government is involved in. i haven't seen any instances of voter fraud up until this particular election in my city or the city that i worked in previously.

>> well, it's up 1200 %. now you have 13. paul bergeron, thanks for joining us tonight.