WHAT’S A LITTLE VOTER FRAUD AMONG FRIENDS?
Kevin Drum is extremely distrustful of anything the Bush Administration says or does. This is all well and good as the Bushies have made a nasty habit of surprising the country by saying one thing and later having the exact opposite of their claims revealed as the truth.
But don’t let Drum’s jaundiced eye toward politicians fool you. He is actually the most trusting of souls, willing to generously give the benefit of the doubt to all sorts of people - especially those disposed to vote for Democrats:
The State of Indiana has the most stringent voter ID laws in the country. Democrats are always griping about this, and have even gone so far as to challenge Indiana’s law in the Supreme Court. But this is just silly. In this day and age everyone has a photo ID anyway, so what’s the problem?
Just in case, though, the Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity and Race decided to check and see if this was really true. The three charts reproduced here illustrate the guts of their findings. By a substantial margin, the Indiana residents most likely to possess photo ID turn out to be whites, the middle aged, and high-income voters. And while this is undoubtedly just a wild coincidence, these are also the three groups most like to vote for Republicans. (2006 exit poll data here for the suspicious.) Overall, 91% of registered Republicans had photo IDs compared to only 83% of registered Democrats.
In truth, voter ID laws are highly discriminatory. The problem for Drum and other Democrats is that they discriminate against people who want to cheat the system and commit voter fraud. In Drum’s universe, anyone who shows up to vote should be taken at their word that they are who they say they are.
Just so we’re clear on this, in 2004 when the voter registration fraudsters at ACORN submitted registrations with names like Mary Poppins and Dick Tracy, Drum believes the poll workers should have just gone ahead and allowed anyone to vote who chose to use those names - even though Mary Poppins couldn’t possibly have been in Ohio at the time since she was working as a waitress at the greasy spoon down the street from where I lived in 2004, her being between nanny gigs at the time.
How very trusting of Mr. Drum. And how oblivious can you be to the widespread potential for abuse of the system when Democratic partisans like ACORN and the NAACP Voter Fund register non-existent or dead people to vote and then have these phantoms show up on election day, presenting themselves as legitimate?
The Supreme Court ruled in Reynolds v Sims in 1964 that there should be “one man, one vote” not “one man, one vote per registration.” But if we were to listen to the Kevin Drum’s of the world, everyone is basically law abiding and there is very little chance to game the system by faking registrations and then organizing an election day party where groups of Democratic party supporters vote early and often.
To be fair, this excellent article from Slate last May by Richard Hasen outlines the difficulty in carrying out an effective fraud scheme at the polls. But Hasen, like Drum, suffers from an acute case of overtrusting their own interest groups as well as the individual voter.
How could an effective fraud scheme be carried out? This piece by Marc Ambinder reveals the AFL-CIO’s plans for the 2008 election:
AFL-CIO political director Karen Ackerman will oversee the deployment of more than 200,000 volunteers to 23 priority states, including Ohio, pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Five house seats in “union-dense” districts and six Senate seats will be targeted.
In Ohio, where union households comprised 28% of the vote in 2006, the AFl-CIO plans to reach out to more than 1.4 million voters.
The labor federation will partner with other groups and use reams of consumer data to market precise political messages neighborhood-by-neighborhood.
“Our members are building an army to make more calls, knock on more doors and turn out more voters than ever,†said AFSCME President and AFL-CIO Political Committee Chair Gerald McEntee. “We’re going for the Trifecta: the House, the Senate, and the White House.â€
In total, the AFL-CIO unions will spend about $200 million on Election 08 efforts, according to AFl-CIO estimates.
I would say that $200 million is lowballing it. AFSCME alone plans to spend $50 million in 2008. And some independent studies point out that staff time and other in kind contributions by labor raise that number by a factor of at least three, making the real figure closer to $600 million - almost all of it spent to aid Democrats.
The point is simple; there is ample money to organize, fund, and carry out voter fraud using labor allies in ACORN, the NAACP, ACT, and other organizations to supply the fake registrations, sharing that info with unions (unions help fund ACORN and ACT). And given the fact that there is massive resistance to purging voter registration rolls of the dead, of convicts, and others who may have moved out of state or otherwise become ineligible to vote, it seems abundantly clear that the potential exists not only to carry out fraud on a large scale but also, just as importantly, to escape detection doing so.
It is simply naive to believe otherwise.
The fact is, voter ID opponents do not have a good argument against a system that demands voters prove who they are prior to casting a ballot. Instead, they fall back on the tired old canard that requiring identification to vote is tantamount to a “poll tax” or “discourages minorities from voting” - even if, as the state of Georgia recently did, offer to give away state ID’s to those who couldn’t afford them.
They cannot argue simply on the merits of the plan. They must play the race card to obscure the real reasons for their opposition - that it would make voter fraud by labor and other Democratic allies extremely difficult.
Republicans, of course, have their own problems with voter fraud. I outline some of the ways the GOP attempts to tamp down minority voting in my PJ Media article here. Robert F. Kennedy estimates in his widely circulated Rolling Stone article that up to 350,000 minorities were intimidated or otherwise prevented from voting in Ohio in 2004. That number seems very high but there is no doubt that GOP efforts at “election monitoring” and spurious mailings to black precincts warning residents not to vote if they have so much as a parking ticket depressed black turnout.
I am not advocating making it difficult to register or vote. The process should be as simple as possible while still maintaining the integrity of the system. Otherwise, why bother?
I’m not revealing any privileged information by saying that our electoral system is in big trouble and needs to be fixed. Now that states are going to programs such as election day registration, it becomes paramount to make sure that each person votes only one time and that his vote is counted only once.
And if Kevin Drum and other Democratic partisans can quit playing the race card when it comes to voter ID programs, it might help in not only cutting down on fraud but also raising the confidence level of the American people that the most sacred of our democratic institutions is being safeguarded to the best of our ability.
Florida’s salvation came in the early 90s with a terrible corruption scandal in Miami. The state turned to a photo ID law - this while the Democrats still held the legislature and Democrat Lawton Chiles was in the governor’s office. No one is able to complain here - yet.
Comment by Juan Paxety — 11/14/2007 @ 3:13 pm
It seems that a membership at Blockbuster Video is worth more than a person’s vote. You cannot rent a movie without a photo I.D. even if you have already signed up for a membership. Cash a check? Show a photo I.D.
Last time I worked the polls in my Texas home town, we had five men come in to vote. Only one of them spoke English, so the one who could said he would help them vote. We asked for their voter registration cards. Nope. Driver’s licenses? Nope. Addresses? Didn’t know them. I ask the one English speaking what the names were and when they were not on my registration list I told them they were probably at the wrong precinct. At that point, the poll watcher from the Democratic Party came over and told me I could not deny their right to vote.
That did it for me. I said “fine, but here is how we are going to do it. They get a provisional ballot and no one and I do mean no one, can go into the voting booth with them.” She told me “but, but, they don’t speak English.” At that time, I pulled out my little paper with the requirements for citizenship which included a working (reading and writing) knowledge of English. She backed off.
When the provisional ballots were checked for validity, not one of the five had ever registered in the state of Texas to vote. They had been told to come to our precinct to vote by someone else.
Illegal voting is a real problem in Texas. You can register to vote using nothing but a utility bill or a library card. This is just flat out wrong.
Comment by retire05 — 11/14/2007 @ 3:55 pm
Voter ID is a solution that doesn’t work to a problem that doesn’t exist.
There is a big difference between people being paid by ACORN for every registration card they turn in creating fake registrations and people actually trying to vote with them.
There are huge incentives to demonstrate massive voter fraud and it hasn’t happened. Every study of numerous ones made show voter fraud seems to occur at a rate of a dozen people per million or less.
There is an ulterior motive - as the Indiana study you linked to shows but you fail to mention - 91% of Republicans had photo ID and 83% of Democrats. The study found that the photo ID requirement depresses turnout among the poor (and therefore disproportionately affects minorities) and that “voter ID laws are subject to arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement by poll workers.” False and exaggerated claims of voter fraud are commonly made in close elections, overwhelmingly by Republicans, despite this being almost entirely an urban legend - see “The Politics of Voter Fraud.”
Comment by Gary Denton — 11/14/2007 @ 5:14 pm
Wednesday Beer Time links…
Howard Dean makes up his own theology. Everybody goes to heaven? That’s not the deal, as I understand it.Who told the Indians that Thanksgiving should be a time of mourning for them? Can you believe that Newsweek did this? If they really want to sel…
Trackback by Maggie's Farm — 11/14/2007 @ 5:38 pm
Voter Fraud is alive and well in America. Americans need more information like this on vote fraud. Wake up America. You are being manipulated! If 2004 was between two cousins and members of the “infamous” and secret Order of the Skull and Bones. What do think will happen in 2008. The globalists are planning this for us as we sleep. No surprises here.
I know it goes back to at least to Nixon. Maybe as far back as McKinley. Maybe even as far back as “useless” S Grant. If someone has any information on “The History of Vote Fraud in America” I would appreciate the link. There is a book out entitled “Vote Scam” or “Voter Scam” that is unavailable, out-of-print, or supressed. I cannot find it! If you know, please let me know.
Thank You.
WBS
Comment by WB Stanger — 11/14/2007 @ 6:42 pm
Rick, I don’t get it. where’s the evidence of “massive voter fraud” by “Democrat’s allies” that you allege? #3 is right - you show me something more than anecdotal evidence - something more than the “possibility” of voter fraud, and then I’ll buy into the idea that it exists. There’s a possibility that I might get shot on my way to work tomorrow, what with the huge number of guns floating around DC, but you don’t see me crying about it.
Comment by Jake — 11/14/2007 @ 7:07 pm
“In truth, voter ID laws are highly discriminatory. The problem for Drum and other Democrats is that they discriminate against people who want to cheat the system and commit voter fraud.”
No . . . they discriminate against people that don’t have photo ID. Voter fraud is a crime. Crimes don’t “discriminate”. If the Voter ID laws stop lawful, honest citizens from voting, then they “discriminate” against those people.
Comment by busboy33 — 11/14/2007 @ 7:46 pm
It is also noted that the State will provide a photo ID “free.” Sorta. Need a birth certificate or naturalization papers… Where I live, a copy of your birth certificate costs at least $10, while a state-issued photo ID (oddly, issued by the Department of Elderly Affairs, not the DMV or DOT) is $2.
Comment by teqjack — 11/14/2007 @ 8:03 pm
The simplest way to commit voter fraud is with absentee ballots. Do any of these voter ID laws require that the people requesting absentee ballots present valid ID? Do these voter ID laws ensure that the people who filled out the absentee ballots are really the registered voter? Do any of these voter ID laws ensure that people voting by absentee ballot actually are real people?
Comment by mikeca — 11/14/2007 @ 11:53 pm
When I was a kid, I was a runner on Election Day for the Democratic Party. This was the Bronx Democratic Party, proud to be known as a “political machine.” I learned all about the ways to commit voter fraud and how to spot possible fraudulent voters.
Voter fraud was so common that it was routinely shown in movies.
If you can get it, see “the Great McGinty” with Brian Donleavy. The opening shows McGinty, a “homeless person,” voting under many different names for the orgnization. He votes so many times that the organization offers him a permanent position and he finally becomes governor.
One of the early Technicolor musicals had a scene in New York City where the Democrats were voting Irish immigrants right off the boat.
It was a common practice for the Democrats to put twenty or thirty “shoulderstrikers” on a horse drawn wagon and go from polling place to polling place, voting as they went.
Comment by longwalker — 11/15/2007 @ 12:34 am
Every study of numerous ones made show voter fraud seems to occur at a rate of a dozen people per million or less.
If that figure were true, just based on the early 90’s fraud mentioned upthread above you from the number of proven fraudulent voters in Miami that year our population would have to be 3 or 4 times the population of China.
And that is even if you take the incredulous stance that voter fraud across the entire US was contained to Miami.
In short no sale fool.
Comment by SlimGuy — 11/15/2007 @ 2:46 am
What is the basis of the assumption on R.F. Kenedy’s part that the minority voters are “intimidated” or otherwise “prevented” from voting? It is forty plus years after the Civil Rights Era; why should the sight of a poll watcher bring back any sort of “memories” to anyone under retirement age? Or the sight of a policeman worry anyone who doesn’t have outstanding warrants? The idea that (at least) blacks don’t vote because of a nameless dread of the “bad old days” is assinine - and insulting.
Comment by Michael D. Giles — 11/15/2007 @ 11:27 am
Gary D., if you’re going to be taken seriously, you’re going to need to account for both sides of the coin! The minions are going to remember how we complained about the stolen elections of 2000 and 2004! Pretty soon, people will start to realize that when we say “vote fraud”, we mean anyone voting an anti-progressive agenda, and that “hate speech” is saying anything progressives don’t agree with!
Help me help you bro!
Comment by Gary P. — 11/15/2007 @ 11:40 am
The difference to my mind is that fraud consisting of people voting more times that they are supposed to (once if citizen, and generally zero if non-citizen) is hard to achieve in a significant way - voters must be moved from polling place to polling place, and the fraud can leak since so many people are involved.
Voter suppression, on the other hand, is very easy to achieve in a significant way, easily amounting to single-digit percentages, and there is usually no downside since it can be hard to prove and/or have the appearance of legality. Variations in turnout from election to election can be a large number of votes, and substantial suppression can be hidden in these variations.
Post-voting vote fraud by election officials is also supposedly easy to achieve.
As it happens, my only experience with the first sort of election fraud was Republican. As related by my mom, who was working a polling station, as a registered Democrat sitting next to a registered Republican: A small group of Satmar Hasids
The leader told them all to vote row A (Republican in the voting machines used). A young man mentioned that they had been in Brooklyn in the morning and were headed to a town upstate. The two poll workers rolled their eyes. They could do nothing - there was no admission of multiple voting.
I don’t know if this sort of fraud was significant in this particular election. (Probably not.)
Comment by Bill Arnold — 11/15/2007 @ 1:11 pm
[...] The Perils of Voter ID November 15, 2007 — Spag/The CA Right Wing Nuthouse ponders the necessity of requiring proof of identity before voting and the arguments against it: [...]
Pingback by The Perils of Voter ID « THE CONSERVATIVE ALTERNATIVE — 11/15/2007 @ 3:24 pm
Why not make it simple? anyone can vote anywhere,after you cast your vote dip your finger in unremoveable ink,problem solved, purple finger? you allready voted,go home
Comment by Henry Bemis — 11/15/2007 @ 3:30 pm