The Pied Piper of Voter Fraud

One of the current hot button issues in Minnesota is Voter ID. There are bills in the state house and the state senate which would modernize registration and record keeping, and require photo identification at the polls. Critics of the plan speculate it may disenfranchise voters in peculiar situations, such as women living in domestic violence shelters.

Such criticism only accounts for one kind of disenfranchisement, access to the polls in unusual circumstances. It ignores the extent to which voters are currently disenfranchised by the fraud enabled by the system.

In Minnesota, we have an unholy trinity of provisions which invite fraud. We do not require photo identification at the polls. We have same-day registration which may not get verified for up to six months after an election. Perhaps most egregious, we let each voter who is registered vouch for up to 15 who are not.

In defense of such vouching, State Senator Steve Simon (DFL) evokes the scenario of group homes and senior communities where residents are not always in possession of identification or have not registered to vote. These people, Simon argues, may be disenfranchised if the staff at those facilities are not able to vouch for them.

This raises a question which must be expressed delicately. If people are not possessed of the cognition, motivation, and foresight to obtain identification and register to vote, how can they choose which candidate to vote for?

This question was highlighted on Tuesday by a report of alleged misconduct in a Minnesota group home. A mentally disabled resident was exploited in order to commit voter fraud, according to an affidavit signed by his father...

Yeah, and here in Georgia, where we're still subject to the "Voter Rights Act of 1965" because of disenfranchisement more than 45 years ago, we require photo ID of every voter, registration 30-days prior, and won't even allow poll workers to "vouch" for their neighbors identity. Which state looks like the backwards, fraud-filled place to vote? (Hint: It ain't Georgia ;-)

In 2000, I walked into my local polling place, a middle-school gymnasium. I approached the registrtion table and noticed that two of the ‘officials’ were wearing DFL lapel pins. I found the person in charge and had them removed.

Not the pins. The people wearing them.

Same polling place, 2006 primaries.

I approach the registration table across the empty gym floor (it’s a primary, nobody ever shows up).

The ‘official’ behind the desk sees me coming and is already paging through ‘the book’ to find my name. He’s early 20’s, long snaggy hair in a ponytail, tattered cutoffs with a piece of rope for a belt, tanktop, barefoot with Birkenstocks.

He spins the book around and tells me to sign in.

I tell him that my last name doesn’t begin with ‘M’.

He says, and I quote: “Aww, dude, you look just like my old neighbor...”

I made some sort of comment about how voter fraud works and he snatches the book, turns around so I can’t see it and asks me my name. And my address. And for my photo ID.

He turns back around, obviously pissed off and tells me again to sign after my name.

I lean over the table and gaze at the book. He says: “Now, what’s wrong?!?”

I asked him if he realized that there is an oath to be read before you sign stating that you are actually the person that you say you are.

He’s really not happy now.

I sign, I vote.

And I had his ass removed, as well.

Folks, you gotta stand up and call these criminals out.

Rosemare Guttormsson, with the Duluth League of Women Voters said, “people want to come in, do their duty and go home. They don’t want to have another line to stand in, or another piece of identification to be verified.”

http://www.wdio.com/article/stories/S2052372.shtml?cat=10349

No, we want to make sure as long as we’re going through the trouble to vote, our legally cast vote is not cancelled by a fraudulently cast vote.

No, we want to make sure as long as we’re going through the trouble to vote, our legally cast vote is not canceled by a fraudulently cast vote.

It's hard to imagine that a member of a group like the LWV, whose foundation was based on helping women make their vote count, would not recognize the importance of counting only the ballots of valid voters. My experience, working in elections since we enacted the photo ID laws here, is that perhaps 1 in 10,000 voters express any real complaint about showing their ID. Some may grumble or even make jokes about it, but they all seem to recognize that this important (and common sense) procedure helps make sure that their vote is protected. Ms. Guttormsson has, I suspect, another agenda ;-)

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