Voter fraud and the disenfranchisement of voters

tanyaAMADOR-DAIGLE politics@floridaweekly.com

- Editor's note: Tanya Amador-Daigle is reporting for Florida Weekly on the national primaries until the presidential candidates are chosen this summer. She has a unique perspective on the primaries and the process for choosing a candidate, having traveled the country reporting on primaries and caucuses for the Purple States project. To learn more about Purple States go to www.purplestates.tv.

 

I love the Internet. I recently Googled "voter fraud" and found that there were scores of stories surrounding a very real concern.

What I found was that, in general, Republicans support a system in which voters are required to show a state identification, while Democrats believe that this will disenfranchise certain voters. In April, the Supreme Court voted to uphold a strict Indiana law that requires voters to show a voter ID when they show up to vote at the polls. This signaled a strong setback for Dems whose base holds a significant amount of people who could potentially be barred from voting.

Who are these people you ask? According to opponents of the law, these folks represent minorities, the elderly, the disabled and the poor. These people are less likely to have driver's licenses because they cannot or do not drive. Why can't they get a state ID card you ask? As Hilary Shelton, NAACP director in Washington pointed out, an Indiana state identification card costs $35. I was thinking, perhaps the NAACP should think about petitioning the state to lower that to, say, $10. Also, if they are so concerned about it, why not set up a program that helps those who want to vote get the required identification.

When it comes to the elderly, in many cases, they don't have birth certificates or any way of obtaining them. This was the case in Indiana's primary when a group of about 12 elderly nuns were not allowed to vote because they didn't have ID cards. I can understand that. I don't think my grandmother, god rest her soul, would have been able to find her birth certificate. However, even though she didn't drive she had gotten herself a state ID card years ago. Needless to say my grandma voted in every election. I know because I drove her there after my grandfather passed away.

When I say she was able to vote, clearly I mean when she was alive, right? That doesn't appear to have been the case with Jane Drury who voted last year in Connecticut. Apparently Jane voted from the great beyond, perhaps channeled in by the famous psychic, John Edward, because Jane had been dead for eight years. Many argue that these stories are too few and far between to matter. They may be right. It just depends on your perspective.

A recent investigation, done at the University of Connecticut by 11 students. showed that there were over 8,558 dead folks still registered on the state's polls. Over 300 of these people voted after they had died. The Secretary of State of Connecticut, Susan Bysiewicz, insists that they were simply clerical errors and that none of these people had actually voted. That's a lot of clerical errors. Who is manning the polls over there?

Although I think voter fraud exists, many of these stories may simply be cases of human error. In 2004, in the governor's race in Washington State, 19 dead people cast ballots in a very close race. The problem was that Republican Dino Rossi lost by only 133 votes. Republican presidential candidate, Ron Paul was cheated out of 31 votes in the New Hampshire primary because of a miss-count. That was weird. I can understand a couple of votes not being counted, but 31 seems a little shady to me. In any event, this is why Republicans want people to be carded at the polls. They claim that the potential for fraud is a valid concern.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why each political party has a reason for their stance on this issue. As I said before, Democrats rely very much on votes from those who are less fortunate. Therefore the law in Indiana represents a threat to them and to Senator Obama since, as the NAACP pointed out, it disproportionately affects two of Obama's big supporters, African- Americans and younger voters. Both of these groups are crucial to Obama's campaign.

For Republicans the Indiana law signifies a victory and a step towards taking those same votes away from Democrats. At the moment, 19 other states are contemplating laws that would require voters to show proof of citizenship before they can cast ballots. If this happens before the general election, I wonder how it will affect McCain and Obama. Will it take votes away from Obama and give McCain an edge?

I have rationalized it quite a bit on both sides.

With regards to the elderly who can't find their birth certificates, I understand that they might be deprived unfairly of the right to vote. Also, I'm not really too concerned with illegal immigrants showing up at the polls, they usually try to live under the radar. Here is what I'm confused about: If some of these other "disenfranchised" voters want to vote, how do they get to the polls anyway if they can't even get to the state identification agency to get an ID? In other words, how can it be said that they can get to one place but not to another? Do they really WANT to vote? If I was capable of getting to the grocery store, the bar, or to work, then I think I could probably go get an ID to vote.