Presumably, increased turnouts means it's necessary to forge more votes to win, which means either
(1)fraud will have less effect
(2)fraud will be increased so as to have the ability to effect the election
(2) makes the cons that much more vulnerable to detection, so I'd call it a win-win.
I haven't been sitting around waiting for the public opinion winds to shift.
I've consistantly stated that increasing voter turnout as an end to itself was a bad thing.
I want voting to be hard. Not too hard, but hard. Not hard in a way that makes it harder for some than others, but "hard" the same for everybody.
I want to restrict actual votes to people who care enough about the outcome to at least make SOME degree of effort, over a period of time.
It is a terrible idea to allow people to register and vote within close proximity of the election. It is jsut as bad to allow them to register and vote at the same time way BEFORE the election (using absentee ballots). ALlowing either of these is an invitation to a quick-attack operation where people are incensed, registered, and vote before any cooler heads can prevail.
By making people take action to register, and then LATER making them come back out and vote, you get rid of those people who are so lazy they don't care, but instead will vote by looking at the ballot and thinking "Bush" is such a funny name, but "Gore" sounds like a horror movie; maybe I'll vote "Nadar" because it sounds like "Na Na Na".
I oppose internet voting because, beyond the whole problem of not ensuring people aren't forced to vote against their own wishes, I don't want to allow people who are too lazy to leave their house the ability to vote.
The current system in most states of absentee ballots FOR CAUSE is a good one -- if you are disabled you can get a ballot, but that takes work as well.
Nothing is gained in a democracy if a person can make his vote count 40 times by driving a bus down a street, picking up a bunch of people who have no idea what is happening, and telling them he'll give them each dinner if they will vote the way he tells them to vote (or worse if he says vote the way I tell you because the other people want to round up your children and kill them all).
I'd assume that higher participation would result in less fraud. First, fraudsters would have to manufacture more votes to have the same percentage effect; second, they'd have a smaller base of non-voting registered voters to choose from when manufacturing ballots.
The dumbing down of the registration process unquestionably leads to an increase in the percentage of voters who are complete idiots, which, not coincidently, is good news for Democrats.