The GOP’s Crime Against Voters
WASHINGTON — Spare us any more hooey about “preventing fraud” and “protecting the integrity of the ballot box.” The Republican-led crusade for voter ID laws is revealed as a cynical ploy to disenfranchise as many likely Democratic voters as possible, with poor people and minorities the main targets.
Recent developments in Pennsylvania — one of more than a dozen states where voting rights are under siege — should be enough to erase any lingering doubt: The GOP is trying to pull off an unconscionable crime.
Late last month, the majority leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Mike Turzai, was addressing a meeting of the Republican State Committee. He must have felt at ease among friends because he spoke a bit too frankly.
Ticking off a list of recent accomplishments by the GOP-controlled Legislature, he mentioned the new law forcing voters to show a photo ID at the polls. Said Turzai, with more than a hint of triumph: “Voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania — done.”
That’s not even slightly ambiguous. The Democratic presidential candidate has won Pennsylvania in every election since 1992. But now the top Republican in the Pennsylvania House is boasting that because of the new voter ID law, Mitt Romney will defy history and capture the state’s 20 electoral votes in November.
Why on earth would Turzai imagine such a result? After all, the law applies to all voters, regardless of party affiliation. It is ostensibly meant only to safeguard the electoral process and eliminate fraud. Why would a neutral law have such partisan impact?
Thanks to figures released last week by state officials, we know the answer. It turns out that 758,939 registered Pennsylvania voters do not have the most easily obtained and widely used photo ID, a state driver’s license. That’s an incredible 9.2 percent of the registered electorate.
Most of the voters without driver’s licenses live in urban areas — which just happen to be places where poor people and minorities tend to live. More than 185,000 of these voters without licenses, about one-fourth of the total, live in Philadelphia — which just happens to be a Democratic stronghold where African-Americans are a plurality.
Could suppressing the urban minority vote really give Pennsylvania to Romney? It probably wouldn’t have made a difference in 2008, when Obama trounced John McCain handily. But the statewide contest is often much closer — and turnout in Philadelphia typically is key to a Democratic candidate’s prospects. In 2004, for example, John Kerry’s margin over George W. Bush in the state was a mere 144,248.
Perhaps these numbers are so intoxicating that Turzai forgot the cover story about how voter ID is supposed to protect the franchise rather than selectively restrict it. His spokesman later explained that Turzai meant “the Republican presidential candidate will be on a more even keel thanks to voter ID” — in other words, there will be a level playing field once the new law eliminates all that pesky voter fraud.
That might be reasonable, except for one fact: There’s no fraud to eliminate.
Prodded by GOP political activists, the Justice Department under Bush conducted an extensive, nationwide, five-year probe of voter fraud — and ended up convicting a grand total of 86 individuals, according to a 2007 New York Times report. Most of the cases involved felons or immigrants who may not have known they were ineligible to vote
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Not one case involved the only kind of fraud that voter ID could theoretically prevent: impersonation of a registered voter by someone else. Pennsylvania and other voter ID states have, in a sense, passed laws that will be highly effective in eradicating unicorns.
The Pennsylvania law and others like it are under attack in the courts; this week, a federal three-judge panel in Washington is hearing arguments on Texas’ year-old law, with a ruling expected next month. Meanwhile, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a conservative Republican, broke with orthodoxy last week and vetoed bills that would have toughened an existing voter ID statute. Maybe the tide is turning. If it doesn’t, these laws will potentially disenfranchise or discourage millions of qualified voters.
In a previous column I wrote that voter ID was a solution in search of a problem. I was wrong: The problem seems to be that too many of the wrong kind of voters — low-income, urban, African-American, Hispanic — are showing up at the polls. Republican candidates have been vowing to “take back” the country.
Now we know how.
Eugene Robinson’s email address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com. (c) 2012, Washington Post Writers Group
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How many of those voters could be expected to vote? How many have other forms of ID? Truth is the figures were not who didn’t have id’s but rather who did have PennDot ID’s. There is no way of telling from this info how many people have other ID’s and there is the fact that well of 20% of those have been inactive of over 4 years….
Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/Pa-says-758-000-plus-voters-lack-PennDOT-photo-ID-3683988.php#ixzz20DjylWME
There is also the effort to insure that everyone who wants to vote can. All the voters without PennDOT ID will be sent letters this summer notifying them about the new law, listing the types of ID that can be used to vote in November and how to obtain suitable ID if needed.
Honestly there may be some idiots who think these voter laws will restrict voting and make some big difference, on both sides. Those that ignore facts for partisan rhetoric. For the most part the only effect the laws will have is there use as talking points for those who couldn’t care less about what is real just what something can be used for.
The Justice Department is investigating possible Voter Rights Act violations in the voter ID programs and a court is determining any violations in recent redistricting. Whether they will be successful before the election is the question. It’s up to us citizens to see that these efforts to suppress voting fail. And this is not a “they all do it” problem, this is a democracy problem and we all need to be involved, right, left, center and red white and blue.
I see lots of claims that voter ID is a solution in search of a problem, based on the low level of conviction for voter fraud….what i don’t understand is how the crime of voting fraud can possibly be prosecuted without more vigorous voter ID requirements in place.
Particularly since i recall a lot of people acknowledging that voter registration fraud does occur but that this supposedly does not relate to vote fraud at all (i remember hearing that a lot when the AcCORN controversy heated up.)
If there are fraudulent registrations, then:
1) how do we know how many of the 750,000 registered names in PA which don’t match up to DMV records are actual persons?
2) what stops anyone from voting fraudulently? How could this be detected, and if it can’t be than why assume that low conviction rates are evidence that it doesn’t happen?
I’m asking sincerely. My preference would be to enact voter ID laws but then offer provisional ballots to anyone who shows up on election day without an ID….and snap a photo of the person, which will then be made into an ID and mailed to the address of record if the data checks out.
There’s clearly some cost in implementing that, but it would eliminate any complaints of gaming the system by either side. No one would be disenfranchised and no one could cheat. As for cost, i don’t see how we can afford not to safegaurd the integrity of elections when there is so much distrust. We’re rapidly getting to the point that partisans of each side will refuse to accept losses.
Voter disenfranchisement and suppression has always been the real problem. Fraud, with a few exceptions, is mostly a problem of republican willingness to believe their own propaganda. This business in Pennsylvania is only the most recent evidence that the GOP will do anything it can to discourage voting among groups it perceives as being more likely to vote for democrats. This is nothing new in their history and btw, spare me the “both sides do it” kneejerking.
zephyr? How could we possibly know if voter fraud occurs if no one checks the identity of people who cast ballots?
CStan as usual you bring up some valid points. I guess on this I just have to say it doesn’t pass the smell test. And that was BEFORE that guy in PA basically admitted that this was going to ensure that Romney takes PA’s electoral votes because of this measure. Smell test isn’t valid data, but I think it is pretty clear at this point that the motivation for these ID laws is in fact generated by the GOP wishing to keep democratic leaning voters away from the polls. The fact they are basing the argument on something that right now can’t be proved either way is just extremely convenient for them.
Anyone who recognizes that artificially inflated voter registration lists can lead to fraud though, sees two possible interpretations of that statement about voter ID helping Romney. The first interpretation is the one that you and many liberals see….that this shows that the GOP is planning to disenfranchise people who are likely Obama voters. The other interpretation is that Romney’s chances of winning are dependent on prevention of fraudulent votes which might t the balance to Obama.
I accept rhat you don’t believe that the latter is happening, but surely you see that the potential at least is there and that this is why no one on the GOP side found that statement to be scandalous (it was just an expression of the belief that fraud can and probably does occur if there is no safeguard against it, and we can’t prove otherwise unless we start checking…because as you just acknowledged, we really have no way of knowing.)
Also, my feeling is that it is perfectly possible for the issue of vote fraud to be legit as well as the fct that GOP might exploit it. That’s why i proposed something that would adress the problem but also prevent abuse.
And one more thing, slamfu…regarding smell tests….Most conservatives feel the same about Dem efforts to block voter ID laws. It seems that the concern over disenfranchisement is bogus because no matter how easy you make it for people to get IDs, it’s never good enough. So why would we not be suspicious that the real concern is that some close elections might be lost if there wasn’t any way to pad the vote count?
I have to say that the claim doesn’t pass the “flip” test. If a Democrat claimed that stopping Republican voter ID efforts was going to “allow” Obama to win, I would be willing to believe his intent was that preventing “unfair” methods would keep them from preventing “not allowing” Obama’s victory, rather than assuming he meant it would give Obama an unfair advantage.
Now I know it is required in come circles to assume that Republicans don’t actually believe the positions they take and, so, they must not really believe that voter fraud is a problem, but absent already assuming they are bent on evil, you can’t _have_ to take the statement the way it is claimed.
CS
Where is the voter fraud like Daley’s machine in Chicago in the 1960′s. Let’s go with retinal scans and DNA testing. Voter turnout without this suppression is terrible compared to the rest of the West. maybe only wealthy landowners from the Hamptons should be the only ones to vote. Let the peasants eat cake…
Still not answering my question, rudi….how would we know if there was voter fraud? It’s like giving stuff away on the honor system, asking everyone to please take only one item….and then claiming there’s no evidence that anyone took more than one. How would wnyone ever be able to check?
If you actually listen to the GOP point of view, rather than demonize it, this goes to the heart of what they are saying and I think many sincerely believe that Democrats are “cheating”. OTOH, I understand African American sensitivity on this issue given history. So what we need is an objective look at how much fraud there is and how laws to prevent fraud impact the voting rights of legitimate voters. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how our partisan system can accomplish such a task.
CS
From an article outlining the background of charging voter fraud when there is none. It gives the genesis of the Republican efforts to promote the fallacy of voter fraud (which is against the law) and posits the idea that anyone who would wish to subject themselves to a felony charge to cast one fraudulent vote, which is all a photo ID would allow (unless they have dozens of fraudulent photo IDs?), is ludicrous. That a photo ID requirement would eliminate many qualified voters is not, however, ridiculous.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/voter-suppression-kevin-drum
[One key detail: The best-publicized fraud cases involve either absentee ballots or voter registration fraud (for example, paid signature gatherers filling in "Mary Poppins" on the forms, a form of cheating that's routinely caught by registrars already). But photo ID laws can't stop that: They only affect people actually trying to impersonate someone else at the polling place. And there's virtually no record, either now or in the past, of this happening on a large scale.]
TO, while i also doubt that any individual would simply take a chance at a felony conviction by voting twice, it wouldn’t be very difficult to divise a scheme using people who can’t legally vote going to the polls and using fictitious names, or names of people who legitimately could vote but are known to be incapacitated (nursihome residents and such.) Could it be done on a scale that would tip an election, and still fly under the radar? Well, that would depend on a number of factors. The voter rolls have to be kept as clean as possible, and there should be vigorous checks in place for absentee ballots (i think the trend toward encouraging mail in voting is a potential problem, for instance.) Other factors include the closeness of elections and the ability of campaign staff to figure out which key districts might only need to swing by a few hundred votes, in order to carry something like this off.
I guess what I’m saying is that i agree that fraud would be more likely with mail in ballots than in person, the combination of potentially fraudulent registrations getting missed along with potential for both mail in and in person fraud (where there are no ID requirements) is at least a potential crime that could go undetected….and that’s leaving aside the additional potential for conspiracy in cities where corruption exists and could cause election oversight to be lax or even complicit.
CS
Would it surprise you to know that here in Georgia the only recent cases of voter fraud that resulted in convictions were actually committed by Republicans and involved not people who misrepresented themselves at the poll but people who applied for and received absentee bailouts in the names of inactive, sometimes dead voters. And the very law passed by the Republicans in Georgia that brought in the voter ID law also made the absentee ballot scam easier by allowing one person to pick up multiple ballots at one time, without any IDs at all? I question their motives when they make your maybe, sometimes, possible fraud a small bit harder in a way that denies many Democratic leaning voters their vote while making the type of fraud that they have been caught doing easier. Or maybe you have some answer to that too?
Conservatives are taught from childhood that the evil Chicago machine of Mayor Daily stole the presidency from Richard Nixon and handed it to John Kennedy by the use of voter fraud. Therefore Watergate and any other frauds committed by Republicans for anytime now or in the future are justified.
But as in most things they are completely wrong. The loss of Illinois wouldn’t have cost Kennedy the election, Kentucky and Texas gave him enough electoral votes even without Illinois. And we know that electoral votes are the only ones that are important to Republicans, don’t we. Also there was a recount for the statewide Senate election. And there was a considerable amount of voter fraud found in the results. But it wasn’t in Chicago, it was in the downstate, Republican dominated rural areas. When the fraudulent votes for the Republican were thrown out the Democrat won easily.
CS
I assume you have voted at some time in your life as I have. And I assume you showed your voter ID card so they could look you up on their voting rolls. If you have a voter ID card why would you need a photo ID as well? If you voted, you are marked off on the voting rolls and can’t vote again no matter how many items of identification you have. And no one can later fraudulently vote in your name no matter how many photo IDs they have.
If you read the article (did you read it?), you know how all this fake concern started. As the article said, to do what you suggest, and be effective, would take a massive operation, including finding the eligible but non-voting people, making up many voter ID cards (with a signature that is different from all the other voter ID cards), and getting all those names on the voting rolls; and that large an operation would surely come to light before being executed. Just the logistics rule it out. Nor do I believe any Republican governor believes it’s a real problem.
You seem worrying about a chimera and would do better to worry about the real problem of eligible voters being disenfranchised. I assume you are at least as concerned about the hundreds of thousands of people who may be unable to vote in this election as I am.
CStanley…
Do you doubt that there are legitimate voters to whom the burden of going through the process of getting a picture ID is an arduous task? For example, the couple that until 3 years or so ago lived next door but one to me did not have valid picture IDs (I know, because I asked) The husband (now sadly deceased) was a WW2 vet with 29 bombing missions over Japan. If he ever had a birth certificate I would be astonished if he still had it after 92 years. I don’t know what his politics were but I’d be quite surprised if he was a democrat. I do know that it was rare for him to leave the house but he went to lengths to travel the mile and a half to the elementary school to go vote. He couldn’t walk more than a few yards and neither he nor his wife had driven for at least 20 years so he had to get someone to give him a ride.
If it were to be proposed that anyone who doesn’t have ID who is nevertheless willing to leave a thumbprint, or even a drop of blood, on the signature spot on the polling log should be allowed to vote, no further questions asked unless irregularity is later alleged, I’m sure that he and many similarly disadvantaged legitimate voters would have been prepared to suffer a little further inconvenience or discomfort in order to avoid being unjustly disenfranchised.
If the proponents of the voter-ID laws that have sprung up all over the country were sincere in their assertion that this is all about preventing fraud, and not at all about suppressing the votes of those who are less likely to be on their side, then they would have no problem with solutions that accomplish the former, but not the latter.
… but of course, that’s not the objective at all, and everyone knows it.
Merkin-
Can you provide a link or further info on the GA convictions you refer to? The only instance i know of involved 12 Democrats in Brooks county. Personally the party affiliatin doesn’t matter, i feel the same either way- but your allegation that this was somehow relates to GOP pushing for the law change with a loopholenformthis kind of fraud doesn’t fit then.
Epiphyte, likewise, my proposal solves both problems but i don’t hear of any Democrats proposing that…instead they insist that no ID should be required. Why is it that you assume GOP wouldn’t support a balanced approach but you ignore that Dema won’t either?
If a system is proposed and funded that would make a real effort at equity such as CS proposed I’ll believe that the Republicans mean it and aren’t shooting for voter suppression in their Voter ID laws. Until then I just don’t buy it.
CStanley –
No. Your proposal assumes that the government gets to determine who is a legitimate voter. Mine assumes that a voter is legitimate until proved otherwise. The distinction between the two is, well, the difference between democracy and despotism.
I don’t see the difference between requiring proof at the polls and requiring proof to registr to vote – or doouoppose that as well?
One of the biggest issues is one that has not been addressed. It’s true that that in most national elections the possible voter fraud just wouldn’t make a difference. But not all elections are typical and not all are national. Franken ended being elected by , what, 337 votes? That number is well within the range that the election could of been effected by fraud. The way the systems are not the fraud would most likely be absentee ballot which Voter ID laws don’t effect but still the concerns about fraud are obvious in a close race. What voter ID laws can do is lessen the possibility of one type of fraud and instill a bit more confidence in our system. That effect alone, call it a placebo effect, is worth having voter ID laws.
Also in this particular case picture ID is not an absolute requirement. Any govt ID state or fed works. Epiphyte your old neighbor most likely would of had an ID because the VA would of required such also does medicare card count as id? If so it would also qualify. Even if he did not any bill, bank records, SS check stub, can be used if it has name and address you just have to do an affidavit there at the polls. Now even with all of that if you go in and say you are homeless then you still can cast a provisional ballot. If on comparison to the persons voter reg the signatures match and there were no absentee ballots cast by that person then they will count the vote.
So tell me who the heck would be allowed to vote under this law? Who will be disenfranchised. If they are then it’s something they did to themselves because this law just doesn’t do it any rational, conceivable way. s
CStanley:
“I don’t see the difference between requiring proof at the polls and requiring proof to registr to vote – or doouoppose that as well?”
Yes, I do. The penalty for voting when ineligible should be severe, the burden of proof should be on the government and the only avenue to de-legitimize a registered voter should be through the courts. Giving the executive the ability to choose it’s own electors is un-american.