Is it really that hard to ask for ID?
A year ago I speculated about how one could commit voting fraud. This scheme would have worked at my polling station today, too. Not good.
Comments
Comment from david
Time November 4, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Thanks for the additional info and commentary. Very useful, as always.
I don’t think people should be required to provide proof of current address when voting. The registration process ought to take care of that. But something ought to be done to prevent a single human being from voting multiple times. Maybe we should just go for the tried-and-true inked finger procedure. I’m pretty sure people with purple fingers in this country would not be targeted for assassination.
Comment from Michael Pahre
Time November 4, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Such a requirement for ID would disenfranchise a large number of voters, particularly those who are poor and/or minorities.
As many as 10% of eligible voters do not have a valid ID, according to the Brennan Center for Social Justice. The disparities are worse among sub-classes: 36% of elderly over 75-years-old don’t have a driver’s license; as many as 97% of [college] students may have a license with an out-of-date address; 22% of black men ages 18-24 don’t have a license; etc.
Current laws vary from state-to-state, especially since the Help America Vote Act was passed. Massachusetts will generally only ask for ID for first-time registered voters who did not provide proof of their residency with their voter registration materials. My understanding is that alternate documents — such as gas, electricity, water, or cable TV bills — are also accepted to identify a voter. I also believe it to be illegal in Massachusetts to ask for an ID outside of this case — so it is not an issue of elections workers choosing not to ask for an ID, but rather being trained and required not to do so.
I take it as a point of principle never to show my ID at the polls, although I was asked several times to do so back when I lived in California.
One of the messy things about requiring a voter ID is that many people move often, such that their driver’s license does not contain their current home address. Proposed ID checks (and Georgia’s upheld law) invariably require a match not only of the voter’s name but also their address for their registration.
There are so many people who have a strong reaction against the federal government issuing a single, common ID card, yet such a thing — if done free of cost to the citizen based on uniform, country-wide databases — could go a long way towards providing the basis for requiring an ID at the time of voting. We already have a centralized ID system: passports. Unfortunately, most of the people complaining against the idea of a nationwide ID card also complain about potential voter fraud.
The good news: such voter fraud is rare. Or, at least, rarely caught.
The easier way to commit voter fraud (than your method) is to use the well-known “graveyard vote”: find freshly-dug plots at the local cemetery, note the names of the new occcupants, and vote in their place.