Voter Fraud
I confess that I really cannot feel much sympathy for those criticizing a new Arizona law that requires proof of citizenship in order to register. Really, if we were designing a voting system from scratch today, would we design it without such a requirement? If only citizens are supposed to vote, then the most effective way to make sure that happens is to let only citizens register and have ballots.
As usual, we get the human interest angle in the first paragraph of the New York Times story:
Eva Charlene Steele, a recent transplant from Missouri, has no driver’s license or other form of state identification. So after voting all her adult life, Mrs. Steele will not be voting in November because of an Arizona law that requires proof of citizenship to register.
“I have mixed emotions,” said Mrs. Steele, 57, who uses a wheelchair and lives in a small room in an assisted-living center. “I could see where you would want to keep people who don’t belong in the country from voting, but there has to be an easier way.”
And, as usual, we find that easier way in the last few paragraphs of the story:
Deborah Lopez, a Democratic political consultant in Phoenix, said that the once simple matter of registering voters at a rally or a fiesta now required labor-intensive door-to-door visits.
It was during a registration drive at her assisted-living center, Desert Palms, that Mrs. Steele learned she could not vote. Disabled, with a son, an Army staff sergeant, on active duty, she left Missouri recently to stay with her brother and subsequently moved into the center.
Lacking a driver’s license, she could get a new state identity card, but she said she had neither the $12 to pay for it nor, because she uses a wheelchair, the transportation to pick it up.
“It makes me a little angry because my son is fighting now in Iraq for others to have the right to vote, and I can’t,” said Mrs. Steele, who submitted an affidavit in the suit against the Arizona law.
So all this is because $12 and a ride to the town hall are somehow too complicated to arrange for Mrs. Steele, even though folks like Ms. Lopez routinely handle such logisitics to get people to the polls on Election Day. And because of that, the state of Arizona is supposed to allow for the possibility of voter fraud on a large scale. Ridiculous.
11 comments:
Yeah, cool. We can keep people for whom $12 is a significant amount of money (perhaps those on a fixed income) from voting.
I'm in favor of disenfranchising them also.
It is time for a National ID card.
It would contain this data or links to a database with this data:
* citizenship data
* photo
* address of permanent residence
* automatic voter registration based upon address
A useful card which could have numerous OPTIONAL additional uses:
* link to Living Will
* organ donor
* key medical history - for emergency care: diabetic, blood type etc,
* religious preferences - "contact my minister if I an unable to speak"
* Passport for travel
* Driving license
* Insurance - medical, car, whatever
BUT NOT a card that could be read remotely by radio waves.(e.g. NOT like the RFID chip they plan to put in Passports --> yikes that will be a mess)
Such a National ID would nicely solve two persistent problems in the USA.
1. Folks being disenfranchised.
2. Failure to have the ID may be a good way to sort out illegal immigrants.
This post is right on. The Arizona law needs to be applied on a national scale for all the reasons the post stated. The cost-benefit analysis could not be more clear-cut.
Yeah, cool. We can keep people for whom $12 is a significant amount of money (perhaps those on a fixed income) from voting.
I'm in favor of disenfranchising them also.
Best analysis of this issue I have ever seen.
Does our good host have a rejoiner?
This is Anonymous of 12:47 9/26 again
What I meant by:
"Such a National ID would nicely solve two persistent problems in the USA.
1. Folks being disenfranchised."
Problem: folks being denied their right to vote.
IF there is a National ID card it will give the poor and meek the ability to vote.
Why?
Today someone can get registered but if they move or xxx they may lose registration and the effort to register has to be done again.
Once there is a National Card and online confirmation they could be registered forever -- as long as they can verify their residency address at each election.
The point about the ID having to be free of charge if it is a requirement of voting is a valid one, and I do think it should be free. I would have agreed with Ms. Lopez if she had made that point.
You are right that "possibility" was chosen deliberately. We do know that there are a large number of non-citizens living in the area.
Anon 9/26 @10:41 here...
yes bibamus, that was dark humor ;)
National ID cards sound like a great idea... until you get on a gov't blacklist, AKA No-Fly list, Terrorist enabler (registered democrat), etc.
Forget ID cards. Tighten the penalty for voting fraud.
Short of an armed coup, there is not any higher crime than plotting to takeover the U.S. government by organized fraud.
This kind of fraud potentially harms more people in a democratic republic than kingpins now eligible for the death penalty under U.S. racketeering influence and corrupt organization laws do. Likewise, it should no longer be considered a mischievious, white-collar crime or misdemeanor.
Organizers of voter fraud should by hanged publicly, in my opinion, regardless of political party or other affiliation.
Nice post! Of course, the "human interest angle" is inherent to the liberal, multicultural inclusion agenda. And Bibamus, the $12.00 is not a "tax on voting," but simply the fee for the ID card. If I lose my driver's license, I need to pay a replacement fee, whether I'm going to vote or not. As for the cost/benefit goobledegook? Enforcement of any public policy is not free. Look at the cost of housing prisoners. Some states are releasing prisoners becaue they can't afford to incarcerate them. How does that cost/benefit logic play to the victims of crime? Besides, the place to begin minimizing fraud in voting is requiring proof of citizenship. All this debate about national identification -- blah, blah -- is meaningless until Americans get serious about the political, economic, and cultural onslaught we're facing from massive, sustained immigration.
Burkean Reflections
A system for a National ID Card is already in place: US Passport. All US Citizends should be required to maintain a US Passport and should be required to present it for any State transactions. Voting, US Drivers License applications, Public school registration. STOP THE UNDOCUMENTED PEOPLES FROM BLEEDING OUR ECONOMY!!!
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