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By Rebecca Wakefield At the third hearing on voter suppression in as many weeks, members of Congress again sparred over the prevalence of fraudulent voting. This time, it was members of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration at hearing on In Person Voter Fraud: Myth and Trigger for Disenfranchisement?, called at the insistence of Senator Chuck Schumer. The starkly partisan contrast between those who believe voter fraud is the worst affliction on the country's electoral system and those who believe the greater threat is voter disenfranchisement could not have been clearer. The Democrats on the committee called several witnesses to debunk the myth, while Republicans brought in friendly testimony from true believers. The Department of Justice, arguably the arbiter of the actual extent of any fraud, stayed out of the fray altogether by refusing to send a witness to testify. Committee chairwoman Sen. Diane Feinstein of California opened the hearing with a pertinent question aimed at the heart of the seemingly endless debate. Are people showing up at the polls to impersonate registered voters? This persistent idea is part of the rational for laws requiring photo IDs at the polls. "I think getting to the bottom of this is important because, in essence, this is the only type of fraud that would be prevented by a photo-ID requirement," she said, adding that the IDs don't address other types of voter fraud, such as absentee ballot fraud, vote buying, fraudulent registration or ballot tampering. Indiana's enactment of a photo-ID law is being challenged in the Supreme Court, but similar laws are poised for passage in several states, which could retard voter turnout in November's election. By some estimates, as many as 21 million adult citizens, generally minorities, the poor, disabled, and the elderly, do not routinely use photo IDs in their daily lives. Feinstein's comments were heartily endorsed and added to by Senators Chuck Schumer of New York and Patrick Leahy of Vermont, among others. Meanwhile Senators Robert Bennett of Utah and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia backed a myth-making contingent behind Sen. Chris Bond of Missouri. Bond argued that "voter fraud is alive and well in America". He pointed to what he said was the St. Louis voter registration card for an English spaniel by the name of Ritzy. "One person a photo ID requirement most certainly would catch is this person here," he quipped. He did not claim, however, that anyone tried to use Ritzy's voter registration to actually vote. Bond's assertions were undercut by the testimony of Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, who stated that "we have found no documented instances of in-person voter fraud in Missouri" despite the best efforts of Bond, Ritzy, and others to perpetuate the notion that the problem is widespread. "Like the myth of Bigfoot, the more folks hear about it, the more they might think it is true," she said. "Unfortunately, this can hinder voter confidence and discourage participation." Carnahan said that the Missouri legislature's 2006 passage of a photo ID requirement for voting was struck down by that state's Supreme Court because the law was more restrictive that the federal requirements of the Help America Vote Act and could have disenfranchised an estimated 240,000 Missouri voters without government-issued photo identification. Senator Chambliss countered with witness Robert Simms, Georgia's Deputy Secretary of State, who said in-person voter fraud was a big problem in Georgia until the passage of a photo ID requirement. He cited an eight-year old newspaper article that found some 5000 votes cast in the names of dead people in the state in the previous 20 years. Justin Levitt, counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice, also brought up the 2008 Georgia primary, but argued that since "296 voters arriving without acceptable photo identification reportedly cast ballots that were not counted," the unacceptable effects of the ID law are hardly a myth. He further cited extensive research that indicates that while incidents of voter impersonation at the polls do exist, they are "strikingly rare" and overall less worrisome than other types of fraud and much more common disenfranchisement. Feinstein noted that she had invited William Welch, chief of DOJ's Public Integrity Section, to help quantify the problem of voter fraud at the polls, but the department "refused to allow him to testify," begging off with a weak promise to send some lesser bureaucrat to squirm under the hot lights at a later time. Feinstein had also wanted to hear from Welch in the context of DOJ's Bush administration initiative to aggressively pursue investigation and prosecution of voter fraud. "It is my understanding that DOJ failed to complete any Federal prosecutions for impersonation voter fraud," she said. But the DOJ's dodge was made less effective when David Iglesias, former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico, testified. Iglesias was one of eight U.S. Attorneys fired in late 2006 for failing to use their offices as partisan tools of the Bush administration. www.projectvote.org Project Vote is the leading technical assistance and direct service provider to the civic participation community. Since its founding in 1982, Project Vote has provided professional training, management, evaluation and technical services on a broad continuum of key issues related to voter engagement and participation in low-income and minority communities.
Are we not obligated to stop fraud? I say we are. Although showing ID does not stop all forms of fraud,it does stop some and returns some integrity to our elections. That some people can't be bothered to obtain proper ID and won't be allowed to vote is their own problem. How hard is it for anyone to get ID? What happens once Real ID comes into force? All these people who have no ID now will be forced to get it if they want to continue to use banks, travel, or collect government benefits anyway, so why not just get ID now and stop complaining already? by
Watching (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 313 comments)
on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 8:39:33 AM
SPOKEN LIKE A TRUE COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVE Pardon me but your lack of a grasp on reality is showing, not to mention your lack of empathy for people less fortunate than yourself! Eliminating ELECTION FRAUD replacing it with Election Integrity (better ELECTION TRANSPARENCY) will be returned when all electronic voting machines are banned to be replaced by hand counted paper ballots (or at the least made transparent by eliminating secret software, scanning paper ballots, and banning elections run by electronic voting machine vendors). The only widely documented case of "voter fraud" was committed by that shameless, right-wing, pundit harpie Ann Coulter (I swear I can see her Adams Apple) when she voted out of her precinct in Florida. Only a moron or a Republican, wait I repeat myself, would give any creedence to allegations of voter fraud versus the millions of votes that are stolen by disenfranchising voters and manipulating the vote counts caused by electronic voting. by
Mike Shelby (12 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 20 comments)
on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 9:47:55 AM
Stephen Hansen has his Ph.D. in Computer Science, and more than twenty years of industrial experience applying computer science. His area of specialization is pure logic. Logic permeates computer science, from the design of machinery and languages, to the correctness of objects, programs, and whole systems. Dr. Hansen reads other fields, including politics, civil rights, and economics, and has taken a particular interest in voting systems.
Voter ID is the new Poll Tax A basic tenet of democracy, upon which all stable governments rest, is that the government is only legitimate if it has the approval of the people. Not just of a few, registered, identified people, but of the vast majority of the people. Every person should have a say in making the law. It is immoral to expect a person to obey the law if he or she has no say in making the law. Even basic voter-registration laws are immoral, by that measure. The only justification for any form of voter registration is to prevent "outsiders" affecting local elections. But, even that claim is morally suspect. If a person is at the place where the election is being held, he or she is expected to obey whatever law is made in that place, and so should have some say in making that law. Poll taxes were common a century ago. The purpose of ever poll tax was, specifically and intentionally, to prevent poor people from voting. Each poll tax was evidenced by a receipt, a piece of paper, that the voter got from the county clerk when he paid the tax. That imposed two conditions on the voter: First, the voter had to travel to the county seat; Second, the voter had to pay money, which was as much as a week of wages for some people. The result was that most working-class people could not vote. And, that was exactly the intention of the tax. There are only two differences between a poll tax and a voter ID. One is that the receipt for the voter ID includes the persons photograph on the paper. The other is that the voter must posess (that is, buy) other forms of ID before being allowed to pay the for the voter ID. The voter still has to travel to go get the voter ID, and he still has to pay money. The requirement for other ID means that the voter has to have a birth certificate, passport, or other forms of ID that are not free, before being allowed by buy the voter ID. On the whole, the process to get a voter ID is even more difficult and expensive than the old poll taxes. And, clearly, the purpose is the same: to prevent poor and working-class people from voting. There is no legitimate argument in support of voter ID (a.k.a. poll taxes). In many countries, everyone is allowed to vote wherever they want. On Election day, each person may appear at any polling place to cast a ballot. Some countries use indelible ink to stain the voters finger when he/she casts a ballot, and do not allow voters whose fingers are already inked to cast another ballot. That very effectively eliminates double-voting. Voters have an incentive to vote in the place where they live, so that they can have a say in the making of the laws that affect their own lives. So very few people travel elsewhere to vote. And, in particular, the poor people don't travel elsewhere to vote. The purpose of voter ID laws is transparent. They are designed, specifically and intentionally, to prevent poor and working-class people from voting. by
Stephen Hansen (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 8 comments)
on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 9:27:30 AM
The Myth of Voter Fraud Let's not forget the notorious Mark "Thor" Hearne, Rove operative and his RNC front organization American Center for Voting Rights whose job was to promote the false argument for "voter fraud." Let's also not forget the role the EAC could have played in promoting the "problem" of "voter fraud." The EAC decided to bury a study they commissioned which actually proved that "voter fraud" is virtually non-existent. Sometimes all you can prove is the truth. In Ohio, a restrictive voter ID provision was plugged into House Bill 3, the "Voter Suppression" bill, a provision promoted by Ohio Senator Kevin Coughlin whose (fabricated?) testimony before the Ohio Senate Rules Committee, convinced them to write the repugnant Voter ID provision into the bill. That was just not nice Kevin. Let's also not forget the fired USA's who would not pursue "voter fraud" cases for a lack of any real evidence of the "problem." I have to say the "Voter Fraud Fraud" Campaign is a scheme Karl Rove could never get to work right for him and his neocon crony base. Based on all of truth of the situation you would think the Voter ID provisions of House Bill 3 would be struck down and all this noise about voter fraud would just go away, but nooooooo. Not if we don't insist that the issue is discussed HONESTLY! Indiana, are paying attention to this story too? by
Victrola (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 16 comments)
on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 5:12:18 PM
election fraud The most obvious perpetrators of election fraud here in Arizona are party politicians. In 1988 they noticed some independent voters becoming deputy registrars and so they passed a bill signed into law by Governor Rose Mofford requiring that deputy registrars be recommended by the chairman of a political party, and, accordingly, all deputy registrars who were registered independent were sent a letter of dismissal on December 31, 1988, and informed that they were no longer eligible to hold that position. Then an independent voter filed a lawsuit seeking re-instatement of independent deputy registrars. Shortly before the court date for that case, the legislature met again and abolished the position of deputy registrar, effectively nullifying the court case. This made it possible for any person, including convicted felons and illegal aliens to go to County Recorders, obtain voter registration forms, and register voters. People in Arizona continued to register independent, for a time giving Ariaona the highest rate of independent voter registration in the nation. By 2004 party leaders were starting to panic. At the rate of independent voter registration that existed, independent voters would outnumber members of either major party within a few years. Suddenly party leaders became concerned about fraudulent voter registration. Illegal aliens were registering illegal aliens to vote. Whether it actually ever happened has never been proven, but it certainly was possible without any deputy registrars in the state. Party leaders circulated an initiative petition called Proposition 200 which was approved by the voters. A new voter registration form was required. The new voter registration form went into effect in September of 2005. In November a party spokesman now on the state committee of his party was bragging that the problem of large numbers of people in Arizona registering as independent voters had been remedied by a new voter registration form. Statistics for independent voter registration since 2000 are as follows. 2000-2002 107,715 2002-2004 165,771 2004-2006 26,483 If there are party politicians talking about voter registration fraud, they probably have a plan to slow independent voter registration. Other than that, fraudulent elections are a way of life for them. by
Robert Winn (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 28 comments)
on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 7:23:47 PM
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