As voters go to the polls in the mid-term elections, some will encounter the effects of Voter Identification laws in Georgia and North Carolina. The Supreme Court has ruled the state of Texas could use its new voter ID laws, which require voters to show a state-issued Election Identification Certificate. 

Suspicion of voter fraud is the reason given for state election boards pushing voter ID laws. However, an investigation by journalist Greg Palast found what the laws are really doing is much more than that: They are disenfranchising large numbers of voters, primarily Latinos, Asian and African Americans.

It all started with the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program, where 28 states matched their voter files and found 6.9 million people, or 3.5 million people, voted twice. Voting twice is a federal crime with a sentence of five years. What Palast found, after he was able to acquire a partial list, was that state election boards were drawing conclusions about names with little information.  

"Robert Steven Jackson Jr. -- or Robert Steven Jackson is supposed to be the same person as Robert Herman Jackson Jr. and one voting in Virginia, one voting in Georgia. ... They claimed there was a Social Security match. But there is no Social Security match," Palast told Amy Goodman, host of "Democracy Now!"

"Most Jacksons in America, according the U.S. Census, are African-American. Most David Lees -- we have a whole list. We have pages of Michael Lees. And most of those, about 64 percent, are Asian-American, like Michael L. Lee is supposed to be the same voter -- he's from Georgia -- is supposed to be the same voter as Michael Thomas Lee of Virginia," Palast said.

Most of the states that participated in the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program had Republican-dominated election boards, and the majority of those states had strong Republican ties. 

And what about the claim of voter fraud? Palast found not one single state had prosecuted a voter for committing voter fraud. 

Palast said what is also going on is that people are being purged off the voting roles. If a voter is sent a notice to verify their name and address and they don't respond, they're taken off the voter registry.  

"If they don't vote Tuesday, they're marked inactive. If they don't vote Tuesday, then they will lost their vote for the presidential election. And that's where you're going to see the biggest effect of this.  It could determine the Senate on Tuesday, but it will absolutely have a huge impact on the presidential election in 2016," Palast told Goodman.