The difference is, we have recent examples of elections where there is evidence the outcome may have been altered by hacked or faulty machines – just as we have historical evidence from the old days of machine politics of elections being swung by the machine’s ballot-box stuffing. But we have no evidence of any recent examples of elections where the result – or even the vote totals – may have been affected by people voting under false names or multiple times. You pretty much have to go back to the 19th Century to find that.
If so many people believe that there is fraud in the voting system, then it begs the question: does your vote really matter then? If ballot-stuffing, faulty or hacked machines, voting denial, etc all exist in the proportions that some suggest, then why even bother to vote if the outcome is predetermined by political machinations?
It hasn’t happened to me so far, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t. Last election there were several stories about neighbors who voted for each other, just to see if they could. Most of them treated it like a big joke. In Maryland, all you need to know is my real name and address. Hell, with a little effort, you could do it yourself. RTFirefly spitefully posted my full real name on these boards a while back, I’ve never been one to hide where I live, at least once a year and frequently more often I invite all and sundry to my house for a big dopefest. That’s all you need. Now you too can walk into my local polling place, say “I’m Weirddave and I live at XXXXX”, and you’ll be able to vote as me. So, you tell me, should that bother me or not?
I believe that people who are in government programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, SSI, welfare, various food stamps programs and other plans must provide some form of identification to ensure that they are the person entitled to it. Now if the poor or underprivileged are able to provide proof of identity in order to collect on these programs, why can’t they do the same in order to vote? Why not allow the person to at least show their utility bill and something from the government (welfare check stub, Medicaid card, etc)? This might not keep John Smith from registering using David Johnson’s check stub, but at least we’d know that if two David Johnsons from the same address both registered that there is a case for fraud here. Besides, if you are going to dig up the ID of another person and just be using it to vote, why not stretch yourself a little further and get your own freaking voters registration card? People will commit voter fraud by using someone elses ID not because they are too lazy or poor or confused to go through proper channels but because they are not able to legally get a valid state ID. Requiring proper ID of some form will mean that we guarantee that only citizens vote.
It pisses me off when people bitch and moan about the inconvenience to do some things. If it is important enough to you, then make the effort. People have risked death in order to vote. Yet people in this country gripe about long lines, inconvenient hours or poor locations. I have never missed an election that I was eligible for, even the local ones. I’ve been there to vote when I had a horrible intestinal flu, when I had just gotten out of the hospital for a fractured kneecap and on the morning of my grandfather’s funeral. The one time I knew I would be out of the state on election day (long planned vacation), I submitted an absentee ballot.
Again, this is a case of people wanting things given to them without having to put forth even a modicum of effort or sacrifice.
I assume, then, you would not find a ban on Muslims voting to be unconstitutional, and would frown on the striking of such a law as judicial activism? How about a ban on voting for people who have ever donated money to the Republican party?
Or maybe, just maybe, there may be other consitutional restrictions on playing around with the franchise that don’t fall under race, sex, failure to pay a poll tax, or reaching 18.
Slypork, what you propose is not what Indiana did. It’s really as simple as that. If a system of ID can be created that doesn’t cost money or significant hardship to obtain, I’m all for it (and so are the people suing in this case).
On the general point, though, if it costs money to vote, poor people won’t do it. You may see that as a good thing. I do not. Frankly, if it cost me $15 to vote in Indiana, I’d probably donate the money to the campaign I like best as it would probably have more value than my vote.
The evidence is pretty strong that at least one particular kind of voter fraud, double voting, is widespread enough to be significant.
The requirement of ID and the new emphasis on databases should help with this. If someone has an ID for one state only, it should induce them to cast a vote in just that state.
At the time they were posted, the cites worked, to my certain memory.
In any event, Mr. Moto has posted a current cite and argument above.
Mr. Moto, while I don’t doubt there are ways to stop double voting, the law in question in this thread would not do so in any way. What does that suggest to you about this law?
I wasn’t doubting that they worked at some time. They just weren’t particularly useful now to someone wanting to scrutinize the evidence.
Further…
If the state were insisting on ID for no reason whatsoever, then it would be an unreasonable encumbrance to voting that could not be validated.
This is not the case, though - even assuring greater public faith in the election results would provide enough of a state interest to make this valid.
The nontrivial incidences of voter fraud that do exist should provide additional state incentive for this.
Now, I certainly don’t want to disenfranchise anyone legitimately able to vote. I will point out, though, that Democratic rhetoric here is far different than Democratic practice when elections actually are contested. For all of Al Gore’s public pronouncements to count every vote, he only asked for recounts in certain counties with overwhelming Democratic registration. Further, his legal team sought to exclude military absentee votes until a public outcry stopped them from doing so.
I think it would be helpful, given this, to avoid characterizing the Democrats here as defenders of absolute electoral integrity - they aren’t. Their clear goal is to register as many new voters as they can on the assumption that these will be Democrats, and concerns that these are legitimate voters seem to be secondary at best. Republicans in turn tend to be overzealous in purging voter rolls and passing laws of this type - however, given Democratic behavior, this isn’t terribly surprising.
Out of this grinder comes the sausage that we call election law. It’s enough to turn anyone vegetarian, except, of course, then you can’t enjoy sausage. IOW, as badly administered as a republic is, we still have one.
Also further…
There is a federal requirement for states to comply with ID requirements of the Help America Vote Act. Nothing says that states may not set stricter rules so long as they comply with other constitutional requirements.
That’s true, but the original thread should then have had posts that show the underlyinf cites were examined and their evidence defeated.
Didn’t state legislatures elect the president before states went to popular vote? And why aren’t electors bound by the voters? Is the “right” to vote for president pretty much the equivalent of a right to scratch one’s butt, meaning there’s really no point to it?
To answer that question, I went to the website of the Indiana General Assembly to put this into context. In addition to passing this law, in 2005 the assembly made changes to the ballot, changed requirements for absentee balloting, changed the classification of some election fraud crimes from a Class D to a Class C felony, provided for recall elections for boards that violate public access laws, permitted the state to use email and fax ballots administered by the DoD for troops overseas, and made changes concerning the administration of the statewide computer voter list.
Taken as a whole, this represents an effort to deal with election issues in a fairly systematic way.
If the General Assembly were to pass just an ID law, we could discern their intentions one way. Since just this year they also passed an absentee voter law (another rich source of fraud, historically) and dealt with ballot issues and other things, we can discern a different intent.
My point was simply that if double voting is the ill to be fought, one would think the reform package would address that. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t how anything they did will affect double voting.
And while I don’t think the ID requirement was necessarily a partisan ploy, I’m not sure the context really helps clarify the intentions. Disenfranchising some poor voters while making special efforts to count the military vote doesn’t strike me as a particularly nonpartisan effort.
C’mon Bricker, you’ve gotta admit that this is a pretty weak defense you’re offering here. You’re telling me that the only evidence around was in those threads, and though it is gone now I can simply assume that other people gave it sufficient scrutiny? I mean, if you don’t want to have to pull up some evidence just to prove that it exists to some anonymous people on a message board, more power to you. Sometimes I’d rather drink a beer and watch TV than convince some fools myself. But at least admit as much.
I think the much better argument from your side is just that no real evidence exists because this kind of fraud by its very nature is undetected. I could get on board with that argument.
Tightening up absentee voting and better administration of the state database, especially by comparison with other state databases, would help tremendously with both.
As would the ID requirement, as this would deter local double voting to some degree.
Your cite didn’t talk about local double voting, I don’t think. Did it?
My (limited) understanding of the absentee voting changes is that if you’re in another state you can still vote absentee. I agree that cross-checks of different state databases would help. Is that part of the present scheme?
You may not have read the whole thing.
Well, that’s a fairly colorful way of pointing out that we do have to define what we mean by “right to vote.” Obviously, it doesn’t mean, “if you create a position, or you establish a proposed law, I get to vote on it.” What it does mean is that, if we create an election process for whatever reason, we cannot exclude from our selected electorate similarly situated people without establishing a damn good reason for doing so (a colorful way of restating the “strict scrutiny” test).
So, if your state has a presidential primary in which registered Republicans are allowed to vote for a candidate to represent the party in the fall general election, your state cannot tell all the registered Republicans who haven’t passed a course of high school civics that they cannot vote in the election (unless you can demonstrate that allowing them to vote creates a really bad situation, and preventing them from voting is the best way to remedy the issue).