Posted on 08/13/2012 7:27:13 AM PDT by eagleye85
According to a recent Washington Post poll, there is broad national support for Voter ID legislation despite concerns about voter suppression. “Almost three-quarters of all Americans support the idea that people should have to show photo identification to vote, even though they are nearly as concerned about voter suppression as they are about fraud in presidential elections…” reports the Post on August 11. “A controversy over voter ID laws is a prominent backdrop to this year’s election, with courtroom showdowns in Pennsylvania, Texas and elsewhere over voting rights and otherwise mundane election procedures.”
“About half of those polled see voter fraud — people voting who are not eligible to do so or voters casting multiple ballots — as a ‘major problem’ in presidential elections,” it states.
The same day the Washington Post ran an article under the title “Election Day impersonation, an impetus for voter ID laws, a rarity, data show” which heavily insinuates that because voter impersonation is rare voter ID laws are unnecessary. Although published the same day, this latter article does not refer to the Washington Post’s poll and bears striking similarities to an August 2 article posted by the authors at News21.
“The analysis of 2,068 reported fraud cases by News21, a Carnegie-Knight investigative reporting project, found 10 cases of alleged in-person voter impersonation since 2000, write authors Natasha Khan and Corbin Carson for the Washington Post on August 11. “With 146 million registered voters in the United States, those represent about one for every 15 million prospective voters.” Carson is a student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, which runs the News21 project, according to News21.com. Khan “was an Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation Fellow this summer at News21,” also according to the website.
However, the study may be biased against identifying voter fraud cases. “A key distinction is between voter fraud and election fraud,” states the website.
“News21 started with the definitions offered by Lorraine Minnite, a Rutgers University professor and author of ‘The Myth of Voter Fraud’: ‘Voter fraud is the intentional deceitful corruption of the election process by voters. All other forms of corruption of the electoral process and corruption committed by elected or election officials, candidates, party organizations, advocacy groups or campaign workers falls under the wider definition of election fraud.’ (emphasis added).
Citizens in favor of Voter ID laws may be concerned about election fraud, as defined by News21, as well as election fraud.
The organization parses down voter fraud further into even more minute categories, differentiating between “casting an ineligible vote,” felons casting ineligible votes, non-citizens casting ineligible votes, and double voting. These were not included in the “Election Day impersonation” voter fraud category cited in Khan and Carson’s Washington Post article, which had only 10 results.
You can access their database here.
“Civil rights and voting rights activists condemn the ID laws as a way of disenfranchising minorities, students, senior citizens and the disabled,” write Khan and Carson. They quote Eddie Hailes, managing director and general counsel of the Advancement Project as saying “It’s simply a new big burden on the backs of people who just want to have their voices heard during elections.”
The Advancement Project’s mission stated mission is “To develop, encourage, and widely disseminate innovative ideas, and pioneer models that inspire and mobilize a broad national racial justice movement to achieve universal opportunity and a just democracy!”
However, according to the Washington Post poll, “big majorities of those whom critics see as bearing the brunt of the laws are supportive of them, including about three-quarters of seniors and those with household incomes under $50,000 and two-thirds of non-whites” (emphasis added). In other words, the majority of lower-income households, minorities and seniors surveyed supported Voter ID legislation.
[ According to a recent Washington Post poll, there is broad national support for Voter ID legislation despite concerns about voter suppression. ]
What concerns, other than the left’s concern they can’t win without masive vote fraud?
“despite concerns about voter suppression”
illegal voter suppression = GOOD
legal voter suppression = BAD
The Washington Post poll asked those surveyed whether they were concerned about voter suppression and they said yes. Check out the original article: “Asked to trade off the two, slightly more Americans are concerned with fraud than with voter suppression, although stark partisan and racial differences emerge. Two-thirds of Republicans see voter fraud as a bigger problem; nearly as many Democrats are primarily concerned with denying eligible voters access to the ballot box.”
But, but, the liberals have told us that this is racist and the return of Jim Crow to surpress black (Democrat)voter turnout.
Would the liberals lie????
The communists Democrats both on the street and in politics will always support voter fraud. That is the Democrat Party, win by any means.
PMSNBC reports that America is now a racist country.
that's about the same percentage of Americans that apposed obozo care, we know where that got us. the fact that we have no national Voter ID requirement is another indicator that the halls of congress are in DIRE NEED of a thorough cleaning
This is such BS. If you Want to vote but don’t have a Photo ID then GO GET ONE OR STAY HOME.
The ONLY reason to oppose voter ID laws is because you want to cheat. The DOJ says they are concerned with voter suppression. Maybe we could believe that if they had punished the new black panthers who stood outside of the PA polling place with clubs. It seems they don’t mind suppressing “cracker” votes.
I would like to know where the hell these people vote who don’t have to show their ID? In Missouri, its either you have your voter registration card, I guess, I never take mine, or you have to show your drivers license. Two people verify each step of the registration process, One DIM and one GOP (which makes the process suspect to me anyway) and then you vote. I suppose we must be isolated in South St. Louis County.
This weekend one person complained because it takes time to get an ID. Well, it takes time to register and time to examine the candidates and ballot propositions and it takes time to vote. In fact you'd take more time to do those things well in any one election than you would just getting an ID useable in any election.
I don’t know if you could require voter ID at the federal level. How elections are run is handled state-by-state. Even the Real ID Act was and is controversial.
Here is an analogy for those against Voter I.D.
Suppose you terminated an employee who had keys to the office. During the ‘exit’ interview, you asked for the keys and the employee says they were lost, but if found he would not use them but would, indeed, return them immediately.
Would you trust the situation OR would you change the office locks?
Those against purging invalid voter records, eg, felons, dead people, etc, would fight to keep the office locks unchanged.
Minnesota Leads the Nation in Voter Fraud Convictions
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/minnesota-leads-the-nation-in-voter-fraud-convictions-131782928.html
When 1,099 felons vote in race won by 312 ballots
http://washingtonexaminer.com/york-when-1099-felons-vote-in-race-won-by-312-ballots/article/2504163
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