on voter fraud

 First a thought experiment:

Which is more democratic?  

A country has 100 people in it---in the first country voting is really hard (biometric scanning, multiple hard to get IDs, long waits to get scanned etc) resulting in only 10 people voting and zero voting fraud every recorded in any election EVER.

A second country has 100 people in it, voting is hard but possible.  Some places have long voting lines, (typically city populations with large black communities) some areas require various types of IDs others don't, some ares allow vote by mail others don't.  In this country 50 people vote, and there has been found to be 1 case of voter fraud every 100 elections.

In a third country voting is easy.  Everyone gets their ballot by mail, with an in person option available as well.  In this country 85 people vote and there is 1 fraudulent vote per election.

Which one do you find to be the most democratic?  There isn't a 'right' or 'wrong' answer.  FYI the first country doesn't really exist, the second is very close to the US and the third closer to Sweden, although the rate of voter fraud is much much lower than 1 out of 85 per election cycle.  

So which are you---a higher voter turnout =more democratic, or absolute zero fraud and very low turnout=more democratic.

Looking at the US there are about 1,300 cases of known voter fraud over the past 38 years in all elections.  Out of billions and billions of votes there are......1,300 cases of fraud.  Is that because no one is looking for voter fraud.  I think not.  President Trump appointed a commission to look into voter fraud and didn't get much data but also didn't find any evidence of voter fraud (ohhhk maybe .0001% of votes have been cast by green card holders who didn't realize they couldn't vote).  Show me an election decided by less than .0001%.

The DOJ and department of homeland security have permanent teams devoted to finding and prosecuting voter fraud.  They do very little--if you want a boring cushy job join the DOJ voter fraud team.

Oh yea, states who actually according to the constitution are responsible for overseeing voting, have teams dedicated to this as well.  

What is happening more and more is US citizens being purged from voter rolls.  We as a country are fighting a problem that doesn't exist and the bystander that is getting killed is voter participation.

What is clearly dangerous to democracy is lack of faith in elections.  Who is undermining trust in elections--Trump and the GOP.  Let's be really honest, having the President say before an election that any result that doesn't confirm him winning is fraudulent is dishonest and dangerous to democracy.  Claiming fraud in the absence of evidence is damming to democracy.  Continuing to do so after 60 court losses and then using the argument that because many citizens believe there was fraud there must have been fraud is crazy in the extreme (looking at you Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley).

But back to basics---if democracy is based on the will of the people, which country is the most democratic?  The one where most everybody votes or almost no one does?