it comes in pints?

In defense of vote fraud

Not me. I'm opposed. But apparently Patt Morrison at the LA Times wants to defend it. Specifically, he opposes efforts to eradicate it.

Patt Morrison: Memo to Congress -- Voting Is a Right

What's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah. Duh.

The rush to pass voter ID laws proves that the biggest threats to fair elections are elected officials.

Really? Not the felons illegally on the rolls in Florida? Not the thousands of people double registered in two states? Not the people in St. Louis who kept the polls open (in Democratic precincts only) after they were supposed to close? Not the dead people still voting in Chicago? Not the bums bribed by Democrats?

[Much irrelevant stuff deleted]

Now that Americans are wise to electronic voting machines' paperless vulnerability, Republicans have come up with a new way to fiddle the vote. The House just muscled through...

"Muscled through"? How, exactly, does a governmental body "muscle" itself? By voting on it as Congress is supposed to do?

...a bill requiring voters to show government-issued photo ID proving citizenship — something like a passport, which about four out of five Americans don't have.

Or a driver's license, which lots of Americans have. Or a state ID card, which lots of Americans who don't drive have. I mean seriously, couldn't you find an even unlikelier example than passport?

And some states have taken up this voter suppression tactic for themselves.

You read that right. Requiring an ID to demonstrate that you are who you say you are is a "voter suppression tactic".

So, right now, can you prove you're an American citizen?

Uh, yeah. I have a driver's license. And a passport. And a valid copy of my birth certificate. It just isn't that tough.

And by the way, some years back I was required to prove citizenship to keep a job. Talk about supression

Ike Skelton couldn't.

Then Ike Skelton is probably an idiot.

He's the Democratic congressman...

But I repeat myself...

...from Missouri who showed how preposterous his own state's law was. He tried to get a voter ID without a driver's license or passport.

But I repeat myself...

He did have a birth certificate, but it was only a photocopy, not the requisite certified, gold-seal kind.

The kind demonstrably valid, unlike a photocopy which even my meager photoshopping skills could probably dummy up.

Even his congressional photo ID card wasn't good enough. If Missouri's law hadn't been thrown out, the 15-term congressman, Eagle Scout and church elder couldn't even have voted for himself.

At first, I though Skelton was just doing a stunt to make a point. Turns out, maybe he is an idiot.

Arizona requires photo proof of citizenship, so this November, thousands of longtime voters will get booted off the voter rolls, including Navajos, the old, the crippled and the poor.

So Mr. Morrison's public position is that the old, the poor, and Navajos in general are too stupid or incompetent to get an ID card.

As for cripples [Ed.: I thought crippled was a forbidden word. When did that change?] I think that if you're capable of filling out a ballot, you're capable of getting an ID card. It's just not that tough.

Texas can prosecute someone just for dropping an absentee ballot in the mailbox to help, say, a shut-in neighbor.

Can anyone in Texas confirm this? I really find it hard to believe provided, of course, that the person dropping off the ballot didn't fill it out himself.

Before Florida's voter law was thrown out last month, the League of Women Voters had stopped registering voters for fear of punishing fines if they didn't file the registration forms within 10 days — come alligators, hurricanes or death.

Alligators? The LWV is afraid that a friggin' alligator might hold up filing?

Mockery of Mr. Morrison's ludicrous hyperbole aside, I don't know the specifics of the Florida law but it doesn't strike me as unreasonable to require that registration forms be filed in some reasonable time. And, without having the time to deg really deep, I suspect that stopping registration was done more for publicity than out of any real fear.

Long before Georgia's photo ID law was tossed out by a judge, Gov. Sonny Perdue told National Public Radio that "we can't get on a commercial airliner" without photo ID. The law's cheerleaders like to say that just cashing a check or renting a movie requires photo ID.

Maybe these people need a refresher course in civics. Getting on an airplane is a privilege. Renting a movie is a privilege. Voting is a right. Period. They're confusing commerce with citizenship.

Well, leaving aside the historical observation that voting has never been a right on the same level as, say, free speech, the right to keep and bear arms is also a right. Period. It's even mentioned in the Bill of Rights, unlike the "right to vote". Yet I am required to do a lot more than just show an ID to exercise it. I suspect Mr. Morrison isn't terribly bothered by that.

Beyond that, the "right to vote" necessarily includes the right to know that my vote isn't cancelled out by fraud. Voter IDs don't just prove eligibility (which is more than mere citizenship). They prove you are who you say you are so you can't vote twice (or more in some areas). Seriously, except in those precincts (like mine) where the poll workers personally know many of the locals, it is dangerously easy to vote fraudulently. Just pick a name on the roll, which is usually right in front of you (yeah, you have to read upside down but that ain't so hard). If the worker knows neither you nor the name on their list, how do they stop you from stealing someone else's vote? And doing so again in the next precinct over?

I've said it all before.

Voter ID laws are a bogus solution in search of a problem. Where are the numbers?

Well, I don't recall the exact numbers but it was many thousands of felons illegally registered in Florida, and thousand more double registered in both New York and Florida. Can't say for sure how many thousands of dead Chicagoans still cast their vote each year.

Where is the massive voter fraud by noncitizens?

Well, maybe if we start requiring identification we'll find out. I think we would also find that voter fraud by noncitizens is dwarfed by voter fraud by citizens. We should stop that too.

The New York Times says that out of 2.7 million registered Arizona voters, only four noncitizens may have voted. And that's over 10 years.

And we all know how credible a source the NYT is these days. Still, I wonder how they would determine that, since the Arizona law only went into effect after the 2004 elections.

There's no more evidence of fraud in other states with voter ID laws.

Hmm. No mention of fraud in states without them. Perhaps that means that "voter ID = no fraud"?

Now, compare those paltry numbers to more than 400,000 complaints to a voter hotline in 2004 alone:

And how many of those complaints were valid?

Thousands of legitimate voters still waiting in line when polls closed. Myriad voters who gave up and left because there weren't enough voting machines in some Democratic precincts.

Well, since Democrats typically control such things in Democratic precincts, perhaps you should take it up with them.

Voters whose provisional ballots were wrongly disqualified, or whose names were wrongly scrubbed from voter rolls.

You mean, "claimed" to be wrongly disqualified. No idea how many of these complaints were valid.

These ID laws are a cynical backdoor route to the exclusion tactics that were outlawed by the 1970s. Blacks who wanted to vote in 1965 Alabama first faced such questions as, "Does enumeration affect the income tax levied on citizens in various states?" and "Who passes laws dealing with piracy?" (Um, Capt. Jack Sparrow?)

What? No Hitler reference? Dude, your liberals creds are slipping. Everyone knows that driver's license = Jim Crow = Hitler.

The honorable congressmen insist that it's about guaranteeing the integrity of the political process. You want to restore integrity to the political process? How about starting by restoring integrity to the politicians?

Well actually, I agree with that sentiment. But I suggest we start by guaranteeing that those politicians are at least elected honestly.

Posted by Ken S at September 28, 2006 08:49 AM | TrackBack (0) |