Photo ID Only First Step in Fighting Voter Fraud
A solution in search of a problem? A modern-day poll tax? The rhetoric of the Democrats in Pennsylvania and elsewhere with regards to photo identification requirements on Election Day is absurdist. Those in favor of a requirement to show photo identification at the polls are being labeled evil Republicans seeking to suppress turnout, discriminate against the elderly, and racists. Are we tired of this yet?
However, does anyone really believe that requiring a photo id on Election Day is going to change the outcome of the election in, say, Philadelphia? Barack Obama will win Philadelphia in 2012 and fraudulent votes will still be cast, even with a photo ID requirement.
This isn’t to say I oppose the photo ID requirement; quite the contrary. I show an ID to board an airplane, return goods to certain stores, and to go to the doctor’s office. Why wouldn’t people want to take steps to eliminate any possibility of fraud at our sacred voting process? The argument that people don’t have identification strikes me as rather suspect: how can one function in society without some form of photo identification? And even if there was someone, somewhere, without one, Pennsylvania and other states have offered to provide them — for free.
The critics also contend that voter fraud doesn’t exist because there haven’t been “many” prosecutions. First of all, there have been many prosecutions. There are websites and individuals dedicated to tracking such prosecutions across the country. These stories are rarely reported, but they do exist.
Further, do the frequency of prosecutions necessarily correlate to the frequency at which crimes occur? Have you ever driven your car over the speed limit and not been caught? Because you weren’t caught, does that mean that you didn’t break the law?
Also: voter fraud prosecution is only as good as the witness who testifies and the prosecutor who prosecutes. The district attorneys in Pennsylvania are elected: isn’t it feasible that there are situations where investigating and prosecuting the fraud would not be in the self-interest of the prosecutor?
Is there any doubt about what is going on? The ACORNers (or, whatever they call themselves today), the SEIUers and other assorted union thugs, Marxists and anti-Americans KNOW that the only prayer they have in November is to steal as many close elections as possible. Holder has their backs!
Of course, Texas is trying to limit Hispanic voters, those Hispanics who are illegal aliens, here only because the feds have refused to meet their constitutional obligation to defend our borders. Hispanic Americans will vote, Mexicans should not be able to vote for Obama.
Every dem voice that whines in opposition to voter ID laws is clearly explaining that they are encouraging fraud. There is NO OTHER explanation!!
Just stick their fingers in a dye like they do in third world countries that cheat at the polls.
Ms. Marrone,
Do you have any evidence that voter “fraud” accounts for any more than a fraction of 1% of all voting activity? If you do not and cannot find such evidence, then isn’t your entire article a red herring?
If it isn’t close, they can’t get away with cheating. In close elections, a fraud rate of less than 1% is plenty. That’s how Al Franken won his senate race. That’s how JFK won the presidency in 1960. That’s how that Sheriff in West Virginia “won” his election.
Election fraud has happened. Those who oppose actions to reduce election fraud likely do so because they benefit from it.
Not to mention, that is how Bob Dornan lost his seat to Loretta Sanchez; to add insult to injury the votes were from illegal aliens!!!!
Aren’t you really just another idiot lefty trying to pass yourself off as an independent? There are no prosecutions because the fraud is committed in places run by Democrats who are invested in the fraud. There was no meaningful federal enforcement in the GWB years because GWB only very late in the Administration discovered that US Attornies really could affect things and he really could fire them at will. Of course, the Lefties all screamed bloody murder and the nice Republicans backed off.
As the writer says, Comrade Obama will carry cesspools like Philly no matter what, fraud or no fraud, but that isn’t why they commit fraud in the cesspool cities. They committ fraud in the cesspools to run up the vote totals to offset the votes for the Republican in the civilized and productive parts of states, and thus deprive all of us who don’t live in the cesspools of our vote.
Mr. Independent – how much voter fraud are you alright with. If not 1%, perhaps .8%, .4, or .01? What is your threshold where you are perfectly comfortable and suggest nothing be done about it. Once you reach your answer, and if it is greater than zero, tell us what legitimate voter is ok with having their legal vote dilluted.
That is the conundrum for the Right. Even though there is legitimacy in thinking Democrats have probably cause for voter fraud regarding illegal immigrants – Democrats have typically supported amnesty for illegals, illegals could legitimately vote themselves into legal status – conservative leaders can’t say outright that this is necessary BECAUSE of illegal immigrants, because of the politics and the political correctness involved. For some reason, the left, which prides itself on being all smart and stuff, cannot be told the plain truth about such matters or risk flying into rages and tantrums about racism, and human rights. So, although it works to contain much of that, this is not really about dead people, or fictitious people who find a way to vote. It is about the illegal immigrant. What is it, 12 million was the last estimate I heard. What is it now? It has to be something like 20 million. Illegal votes. Mickey Mouse eat your heart out.
Yes, in some places it is about illegals, but in many others not. They don’t need illegals in any Blue or Doughnut city. Since Motor Voter, the lists are so dirty that there are all sorts of names on the list that don’t exist, don’t live in the district, aren’t eligible to vote for various reasons, aren’t competent to vote (nursing home residents, etc.). All they need is to know those who haven’t voted yet; there’s a reason they always run out of ballots or have a power outage that causes the polls to be held open. If they have a name that hasn’t voted yet, and their poll watchers can provide that list, they just saddle up and ride to the sound of the voting machines. They give some guy from the union or the shelter a few bucks, some smokes, some booze or drugs, and tell him the name he’s to vote under. In the places Democrats control, they have no fear about this, so they just go from polling place to polling place and rack up as many Democrat votes as possible to offset the onslaught of votes from sane people in the ‘burbs and rural areas of a state.
Yeah, theyre still making up excuses for a precinct in Philly a few years back that had 2000 D votes on the machine 30 seconds after it was plugged in.
I’ve worked at the polls for several years and I, and the bipartisan folks who work the poll with me, are convinced the least effective way to fraudulently affect an election is by sending fake voters to a polling location to cast votes. The reason is that there are just so many steps in the check in process already, that it’s incredibly unlikely that a statisticcally significant number of bad votes can get cast. Of course some elections swing on small number of votes, but most are decided by significant margins. The risk that we’re most frightened by is that our computerized election booths could be hacked. The poll workers would have no way of knowing whether there was a hack under most circumstances, and large numbers of votes could be cast or changed in secret.
That said, I’m perplexed at all the efforts to pass legislation designed to tackle the least likely method of stealing an election. Is voter fraud really that prevalent that it warrants the legislation? I’m not being coy. I really don’t know of cases of voter fraud at the polls (as opposed to fake identities on voter registration lists). I was disappointed that Ms. Marrone, a former DOJ employee, didn’t cite any actual cases. Some commenters have mentioned cases, but are those cases where a court threw out votes as a result of voter fraud? A citation to sources would be appreciated.
You and Mr. Indy need to get a room.
Ah yes, the old “site your source” response. I used to believe in that as a reasonable rejoinder. Until I noticed that step two is always, “deny the legitimacy of the source sited”. Followed by step three, “repeat talking points ad nauseum”. And when all else fails, “Racism! Racism!”.
With the exception of “racism!”, that’s almost exactly the same response Big Foot believers give when asked for evidence to support their beliefs.
I think I said there could be a problem with voting fraud, but that I see the greater threat as coming from computer manipulation (not to mention improper absentee ballots, buying votes, setting up temporary residence in a voting district for controlled votes, intimidating/misinforming voters, and manipulating legitimately cast votes–none of which would be prevented by voter ID laws). So why aren’t more resources and protective legislation directed toward those threats? If its because there’s actually a lot of fake voters lining up and casting votes at the polls, where are the law suits?
It’s not enough to say these cases aren’t litigated because the prosecutor might be complicit. The candidates and the political committees can bring suits, too, and certainly have an interest and the money to uncover fraud (http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/19/us/vote-fraud-ruling-shifts-pennsylvania-senate.html). And hand waving and claiming “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” doesn’t cut it here. It’s a valid rule when the question is “where are the the supposed transitional fossils?” No one possesses the knowledge in question, and future discoveries may (or may not) supply definitive answers. But here, people know whether they cast fraudulent votes, statistics reveal abnormal voting patterns, and there are significant incentives to challenge an election if there’s evidence to overturn it. So where are these cases?
I don’t think there are many cases of ballot stuffing that voter ID laws would prevent. And certainly no one seems willing to point me to any except with vague references to alleged incidents and speculations. Someone needs to prove that voter ID laws will stop a REAL problem. Otherwise I’m left wondering whether absence of evidence is evidence of unnecessary legislation.
Are you a total dipsh$t or just galatically stupid? Did you even read the words that were written?
I give up. Do you white progressives really want to lose this nation to the marxist policies of ‘The Won’ and his marxist sychophants? I am sure you are white so I ask you, what will become of you when you are a minority in 25 years and the elite marxists throw you under the bus?
No election or voting fraud? Really??
He wasn’t arguing against the existence of voter fraud, merely asking for some kind of citation or evidence that it exists. So far, none has been provided.
Mr. Independent, voter fraud is voter fraud no matter what the final numbers are. It appears to me that you are willing to accept less than honest elections which is why; I suspect you voted for Obama, would you please go back to reading your Huffing Post now.. Thank you.
Voter fraud at the polls is just ONE component of the war.
They own the media. They own the schools. They own the courts. They own the fears of “racism” and “bias” in every city. They have a green light or at worst, a kid-gloves level of resistance to most of their nefarious activities…
Witness the supposed “uproar” over the Black Panthers at the Philly polls…That guy may have been invited to the WHITE HOUSE several times since then, and to mention him in the media tarnishes the MESSENGER as a “racist”, not the president.
They are practicing “death by a thousand cuts” , no one single thing is going to make or break them, but the accumulation of so much BS we’re afraid to call by its Real Name, is like resisting the tides with a broom.
Its a war on multiple fronts, we havent been waging it since the 60′s like they have.
I’m thinking you willfully didn’t read the article. How can one document what isn’t looked for? And your side is VERY BUSY not looking – except for the next trunkload of ‘found’ ballots.
Next, please.
How can such evidence exist, in the absences of voter ID?
The Democrats argue that only a tiny handful of people are prosecuted for vote fraud in the US each year, as if that proved anything. I think it only proves that vote fraud is a very difficult crime to catch.
It is not uncommon to have precincts which record more ballots cast than there are registered voters. We cannot know which of those ballots are fraudulent, so we cannot convict anyone, but it is very obvious that fraud is taking place in these cases. By a strange coincidence the precincts which have more ballots cast than voters are always Democratic precincts.
I’m sorry, SteveM, but your logic reminds me again of the Big Foot analogy I alluded to earlier. “The scientists claim there’s no photographic evidence of Big Foot, as if that proves anything. It only proves Big Foot is very hard to photograph.” I’m kidding, but I suspect voter fraud leaves evidence in the form of statistical annomolies in the poll results if it’s significant enough to swing an election. So doesn’t that solve the problem of finding evidence of the fraud? And you’ve also alluded to some Democratic polling sites where ballot stuffing was found. Where? When? Was the election over turned? Does Ms. Marrone know?
I refer you to the old axiom,,, “it’s the guilty dog who barks first”.
Of course election fraud exists, and it exists for the purpose of electing the fraud. Al Franken is your prime example.
There was an article last week about massive voter fraud in Harris County Texas, the county that has a district where Sheila Jackson Lee is the representative. In her area there were something like 20,000 potentially fraudulent registrations. These included dead registrants, multiple registrations, and registrations where the address was a business or vacant lot. The other Rep’s districts in Harris county had a far,far, lower incidence of suspicious registrations, if memory serves, somewhere between 3 and 6 thousand.
It is interesting to note that producing ID at the polls is quite popular with both democrats and republicans, a recent survey showing 63% of dems and more than 80% of republicans in favor of ID production. The only group stridently opposed is the hard core leftys, who have to rely on fraud to win.
Voter ID, an idea whose time has come.
Big picture, please. Enforcing the law is NOT a separate problem. It’s the same problem. The problem is that our elections are being compromised by the lying left. The unAmerican, Constitution-hating Left has to be stopped and removed from power. Think cancer.
Folks – Nicole Marrone is a welcome addition to PJ Media. Like me, Nicole served in the Voting Section at the United States Department of Justice. She is truly an expert in election and the mechanics of elections, and more importantly, where they can be penetrated with illegal activities. Having Nicole Marrone and Hans von Spakovsky writing articles at this at PJ Media truly makes PJ stocked up on more election process experts and DOJ issues than any other media resource – dead trees or electronic. She knows of what she speaks, or in this case, writes.
“Having Nicole Marrone and Hans von Spakovsky writing articles at this at PJ Media truly makes PJ stocked up on more election process experts and DOJ issues than any other media resource – dead trees or electronic. ”
Shouldn’t that include the current DOJ as well as the media sources as far as experts go?
Welcome Nicole, glad to have you join the team.
Simple, if you can’t ask for ID, just fingerprint and photo all that vote unless they voluntarily show an ID. That will make them run…………
Rosco – Genius! Shear genius!
The only reason why far left liberal Democrats don’t want the photo I.D. is because it would help destroy organizations like ACORN that allow people to vote more than once in an election. If you take voter fraud out of the elections, you take away the very reason for organizations like ACORN to exist. Also, unions, known for their way to get union members to vote more than once, would be devestated too. So now you know why the liberals are fighting this so much. The photo I.D. may actually lead to fair elections, and the liberals certainly can’t have that.
obviously fraudulent birth documents.
obviously fraudulent selective service registration
using fraudulent SS # of a dead man born in 1890′s conn.
acorn x-employees involved. community organizers. affirmative action educated.
i expect the whole thing to somehow blow up in the dem’s face, and soon. heck, holder and company are completely incompetent. they couldn’t even sell weapons to murdering drug cartels without screwing that up. even screwed up the cover up. name something they haven’t screwed up. wait until Americans find out all the hidden taxes involved with obamacare, like the new 3.8% tax on home sales, to take effect after the next election.
Supreme Court upholds voter ID law. Stevens: Law justified to protect integrity, reliability of electoral process. Evan Vucci / AP file Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher succeeded in proving his voter ID case to the U.S. Supreme Court, with the court’s ruling coming just one week before his state’s primary vote. 4/28/2008
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24351798/ns/politics/t/supreme-court-upholds-voter-id-law/
Where valid ID’s are required (Hint: Not when voting) FEBRUARY 21, 2012
http://www.mrconservative.com/2012/02/2072-where-valid-ids-are-required-hint-not-when-voting/
We should require IDs *and* ink-stains, and then end early and mail-in voting. I can imagine a boom industry in fake IDs if we just go with an ID requirement.
Oh, and the only way you should be allowed to vote absentee is if you’re in the service and have been ordered overseas.
Voter fraud involves two parties, the voter, and the political machine that induces the voter to cast an illegal ballot. The prevention solution is simple; show a valid Photo ID at the polling place, or sign a statement that you agree to be finger printed, and are aware of legal sanctions for illegal voting. Add to this, criminal sanctions for the candidate, who knowingly benefits from the illegal ballots. Candidates who encourage illegal voting should be disqualified from taking their office. The oath of office should demand a statement that no illegal ballots were cast under the direction of the person. If this is subsequently proven to be both a fraud and lie, the official would be liable to capital punishment.
Why do we kill the Taliban? Because they are a direct threat to our society. So is electing crooks.
Ms. Marrone, thank you for bringing your elections expertise to PJ Media, and for highlighting a couple of points that can’t be stated often enough:
> The number of voter fraud convictions is not equivalent to the number of fraud occurrences – absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Even conscientious poll workers are unlikely to detect impersonation fraud without an ID requirement (as Project Veritas just proved in NH and VT), and by definition the perpetrator has used a false identity and can’t be traced. (Nor can that fraudulent vote be “taken back” once it’s cast.)
> Even WITH an ID requirement, fraud can and will occur at the polls if enforcement is lax or poll workers are corrupt. The solutions you suggest – cleaning up voter rolls and having bipartisan poll workers and watchers at every polling location – are at the heart of the True The Vote initiative in Texas and affiliated groups nationwide. TTV helps recruit and train volunteers to work at the polls as election workers and poll watchers, and is also facilitating review of voter rolls.
I would encourage anyone concerned about voter fraud and election integrity to step up and be part of the process. Elections rely on citizen volunteers, and all the election laws in the world can’t prevent fraud unless the people running the elections and working at the polls are honest actors who follow the law. The best way to be certain that is happening is to be there.
This is about voter fraud, but more specificlly, illegal immigrant voter fraud. Actual warm bodies, not fictitious names or dead people. Democrats are drooling over that prospect. There’s only so much fakery you can get away with without those warm bodies.
Yuh, Yuh. …. Requiring a pitcher-ID is Racist, Immaterial and Fattening.
Gotta let’m vote.
Uh, … about Obamie Kare —
Doctors here ALWAYS ask for your insurance card (natch) AND … AND …. why, a Driver’s License with a Pitcher-ID on it. Guess too many people were using a friend’s card if it had better coverage.
So, does that mean all the deserving, struggling poor, inner city, elderly, etc cannot have Obamie Kare, since they can’t get into see the doc without a Pitcher-ID?
Just askin’
.
This is a bad year to force photo id. The federal government has changed the law and now require people to verify their id. In Florida you must bring in all your documents to renew your license. If you lost your birth certificate and your license has expired your are sol. It requires a valid license to get a copy of your birth certificate. But it requires a birth certificate to get a license.
My grandfather no longer drives and lost his documents in hurricane Andrew. Which means he will likely not vote. With so many hurricanes over the last 50 years, many people may be in this position. But at least we now have a national id card, oh wait that is terrible.
Real ID laws are gonna cause issues in Florida.
You are right. Hindsight is 20/20. It should have been brought out as soon as the mid-terms were over. Two years is enough time where there would be no excuse to get yourself situated to vote. Now it’s a few months and either won’t be possible to execute this law in time – for a very crucial election, and the reason such a law needs to be in place – or would be seen has having an actual negative impact on voter turn out (making Dems seem like they were right). Best case scenario is the bill becomes law in time for the mid-terms and conservatives still have life to take both houses if Obama manages to stay in office.
What is needed is for conservative task forces to be out on election day watching the polls with cameras.
On my ‘confirmation’ of appointment call to have a cable tv installer come out from Charter and install my cable I have been informed by a robot voice that someone has to be here who has a government issued photo ID !!! In a nation where the current administration is demanding NO Photo ID for voters, so they can gin up there vote tally with repeats, dead voters and illegals.. I, on the other hand, have to have photo ID to get cable TV installed
I’ll go you one better than that. I once signed up for cable when I moved to a new apartment and they offered me a free digital box for a month, just to try it. They were simply going to bring the digital box with them when they installed the cable. I was interested but I was also working full time and they would not commit to doing the installation at a time that I could make. As luck would have it, a friend was available and offered to wait for the installer at a time they found convenient. I left her a letter in which I said that she was monitoring the installation of the cable on my behalf and that I was authorizing her to receive the digital box. I signed the letter with my proper signature but realized they had no idea what my signature looked like so I left a piece of signed ID – I think it was driver’s licence – in my name. The signature on the ID matched the signature on the letter.
Much to my surprise, they installed the cable, apparently considering my friend perfectly adequate proof for that purpose, but refused to give her the digital box despite my signed letter and ID, insisting that they could only leave the digital box with the subscriber, not someone he delegated.
But, until recently, people in burqas could vote in our elections – I’m Canadian – _without_ even having to open the burqa enough to prove that they were the person who they said they were.
Strangely enough, sometimes the government is far more lax about things than the private sector.
Maybe we have to think about contracting out elections to companies that have a strong vested interest in ensuring that they are run honestly and fairly. If an organization assigned to count votes could lose money and/or face other penalties for every illegal vote they permitted, they’d have a lot of incentive to ensure only legitimate voters cast ballots.
And yes, I can imagine the Leftists having fits at the very idea of a private company collecting votes!
Ever been to DisneyWorld? When you buy your ticket they do a biometric scan of your thumbprint which links to your ticket. To get in, your ticket and thumbprint must match. This, of course, keeps people from buying one ticket and passing it around by just having their friends reach through the gates. I’m sure the main gates at DisneyWorld handle far more people on a summer day than any one border gate. Just gotta wonder why we don’t have that technology both for immigration control and for voter ID.
I’m reticent about compelling people to have biometric ID or submit to background checks, etc., but if you’re in an occupation that requires constant travel, especially air travel and cross-border travel, stronger ID sure makes your life easier. Even though I have a DL and a Passport, I usually just flash my TWIC and Merchant Mariner’s Credential and avoid a lot of hassle.
I worked the polls on super Tuesday in Ohio. I was motivated to do something having visited and joined True the Vote. I was assigned to an inner city precinct and I was the only Republican there despite the requirements that 2 R’s and 2 D’s be present. When the poll workers went to sign in that day, a 24 year old unemployed African American signed his name and put D next to it and the Poll Judge told him to change it to R as he was representing R’s that day.
As this election was primarily about the Republican primary, turnout in the precinct was roughly 8% despite more local Dem races on the ballot (few R’s run locally in this area). If I hadn’t been there no Republican’s would have been there. The only way to stop Dem’s from stealing elections is to volunteer to work the election and police it yourself. It only takes 1 day of your time. I wrote a more detailed assessment of my day on my blog.
The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say) By James Bamford Email Author March 15, 2012
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1
It appears as though the Republicans are in need of 1,687 volunteers to stand outside EVERY polling station in the city of Philadelphia and count the number of people who enter to vote and then use this number to compare against the total number of votes credited to that polling station. Of course the numbers are not going to match up exactly because not everyone who enters is going to vote for various reasons but, the numbers can be compared to see if there is enough of a disparity that might indicate the possibility of voter fraud.
1 case of voter fraud is enough to make a mockery of an election.
If a person shows one case, I will bet dollars to donuts that more cases exist.
Did they not check the voter rolls and find multiple people living in a single address that could not possibly house that many people.
Did they not check the voter rolls nd find people registered to vote at addresses that were vacant lots?
If Discover and Visa, can track millions/billions of transactions a day, and correlate all transactions to the proper peopel for billing purposes, one would think that we should be able to track and confirm voting with social security numbers, and tax rolls to start with.
But who is actively fighting to stop voter ID, isn’t that the same man who had no interest to prosecute voter intimidation. Enough sad, case closed.
Voter fraud steals democracy. It perverts the great system of citizen rule in the USA. Sadly, Americans have tolerated and winked at voter fraud and the political corruption that goes with it for far too long.
Part of the solution is the voter ID card; picture ID’s are on most states’ drver’s licenses and other documents, some credit card issuers print the named party’s photo on the card, why not photo ID voter cards?
Another part of the solution to voter fraud is swift prosecution of offenders and sentencing the guilty to long, hard prison sentences. The guilty shouldn’t find themselves in a “country club” “correctional facility” for a few months; give ‘em hard time.
Just one more comment, executive clemency should not be available to criminals found guilty of election fraud or political corruption, they must serve their whole sentences without parole. Maybe that would set an example.
Let’s see how long Rod Blagojevich (hope that’s correct) remains behind bars after the November elections…