In the wake of a controversial Supreme Court decision to back Indiana’s strict voter id law, which requires current, government-issued, photo id to vote, Mass State Rep. Karyn Polito is pushing to change Massachusetts laws to match.
At MassVOTE, we believe this would be a mistake. The penalties for voter fraud are high: 5 years and/or $10,000 per offense. For several years, the Justice Department under Alberto Gonzalez engaged in a wild goose chase scouring the nation for voter fraud cases, often with the intent of harassing voter registration efforts conducted by groups like ACORN and the League of Women Voters. In a 3 year period, bringing the full power of the Justice Department, they were able to make only 9 charges of multiple voting, resulting in just 5 convictions. Mr. Gonzalez’s partisan efforts were a national disgrace.
A new, strict voter ID law for Massachusetts is unnecessary. It would slow down the flow of people through the polls on Election Day. Worse, some people without ID — or those who rarely use it and may not know where it is, including, for example, many elderly citizens who do not drive — will be turned away. We can do better.
For more info, watch Professor Lorraine Minnite testify about the ‘voter fraud fraud’ before Congress over on YouTube.
The efforts to require voter ID at the voting booth are purely partisan maneuvers. Republicans in Indiana new that 22% of African American voters lacked proper government issued IDs, compared to 16% of white voters; and 21% of those earning less than $40K a year lacked ID, compared to 13% of those earning more than $40K. The unsubstantiated claims of in-person voting fraud are designed to disenfranchise Democratic constituencies.
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p>On a somewhat related note, Avi, do you know the status of how provisional ballots are to be counted when cast in the wrong polling location? At one point, I believe Galvin took the strict interpretation that they aren’t to be counted at all, bucking the trend of most Democratic Secretaries of State, most of whom said they should be counted for the offices in which that voter was eligible to cast a ballot. I believe the head of Boston elections ignored Galvin’s interpretation and counted them anyway, against Galvin’s instruction. Do you know the current state of how those ballots are counted?
I’m not sure how provisional ballots are counted in MA. I do know they are a huge bureaucratic mess and a headache, and that many end up not being counted. Speaking for myself, I would argue that the creation of provisional ballots in 2002 Help America Vote Act was a mistake.
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p>Good national legislation around voter registration is long over due. One possibility might be to repeal “Motor Voter,” (which has actually been reasonably costly to implement, often poorly implemented and minimally enforced) and replace it with a national Election Day Registration law (with ID required of new registrants only, as is now the case in HAVA). Election Day Registration would virtually eliminate the need for provisional ballots.
if you think about it for a second. The ID check in that case only applies to new registrants not existing voters. You would still be able to register without an ID prior to the election.
has been pushing the measure in the Senate, too.
The Indiana law which was upheld has several provisions – if you do not have a photo ID, driver’s license, etc., a voting ID must be provided for you by the state free of charge (Galvin can use HAVA money for this as they do in other states). There are exemptions for those who are in nursing homes, and cannot go get an ID. Etc. Etc. Etc.
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p>To me, the implication that African-Americans are incapable of getting a free ID if they need one is incredibly racist. Shame on BMG.
From someone in a party that has relied on black voter suppression for years and years, that’s rich.
And please remember – the only black Senator – or congressman – Mass. ever elected was a Republican. We have always had excellent black voter participation here. Maybe not in Democrat Southie, but in other places…you guys have gotta get out of the city more.
Who besides me even REMEMBERS Ed Brooke?
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p>And yet, moments after posting this, my portable thingy announces that Barbara Walters TODAY on Oprah announces she had an affair with him in the 1970’s. Exciting, brilliant man, yadda, yadda…
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p>Ah well – he’s STILL our only black Federal elected official – in fact, our ONLY statewide blace official until Deval.
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p>Consider this a pre-emptive disclosure, before you begin mocking him.
I wasn’t old enough to vote, but I’m not that young either. My dad thought he was great, talked about him a great deal. Don’t sell the guy short, he was the first African American to be elected by popular vote to the Senate.
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p>But that has nothing to do with this issue, unless you point out that the people voting for him were Democrats, you are not winning an election with just Republican votes are you? That Tsongas guy who later won wasn’t bad either.
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p>So how does this relate to voter suppression again?
Peter, you’re conflating two activities: voter fraud and electoral fraud.
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p>We have plenty of evidence of people trying to commit electoral fraud: voter caging, absentee ballot manipulation, deliberate misinformation campaigns to targeted constituencies, denying sufficient voting machines to particular precincts. These activities exist and are documented, Ohio and elsewhere, and they are of serious concern to Democrats and others.
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p>What is not supported by any evidence is voter fraud at the polling location — that is, someone deliberately trying to pass themselves off as another voter or deliberately trying to vote twice. These cases are vanishingly rare in practice. Requiring voter ID to combat these hypotheticals is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. Well, actually, it’s partisan maneuvering, but done in the name of solving a non-existent problem.
But unless I walk into a polling place and claim to be the person who is checking people in, odds are I’m not getting caught. 9 Charges of multiple voting? I wonder what the numbers would look like is 100% of the registered voters actually voted and we did do voter ID checks….
To me it would seem laughingly easy to vote multiple times w/o showing ID. You’re standing right there looking at the voter lists in plain sight, with no verification that you are who say you are. Does make it seem a little too easy to pull off (and who and how are they going to be able to check or catch you unless you somehow manage to pick someone known to the poll worker).
You usually have to tell them your address first, so what do you do when they turn to that page and find that everyone at that address has already voted? You also have to be really good at reading upside down.
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p>Obviously, this is not an impossible thing to do, but why would anyone take the risk when it would be easier and safer to file bogus absentee ballots.
1) You are likely to get caught if you claim to be someone who they already check off as having voted.
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p>2) Many polling places are manned by police officers. You have to have to be pretty brazen to walk up to a police officer and tell them you are someone you are not just in order to vote twice.
1) During special elections and non-presidential year races, the turnout is so low, you have a damn good chance of picking a person who hasn’t voted.
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p>2) I’ve never seen a cop at my polling place, but I have seen old women.
“old women” is the best cover cops have ever devised, imo. glad to know it fools even smart young brains like yours. đŸ˜€
I’ve never not seen a cop at a polling place- and that’s having voted in six different cities in four different states. (Not in the same election, of course…)
The Dana Perino of Shrewsbury. If there’s a way to exploit a non-issue, she’s on top of it. If there’s a way to minimize a serious issue, she’s on top of that, too.
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p>Mission Accomplished.
that Karen Polito is a top? hm. now there’s an interesting picture.
This is plain pandering! Local poll workers often know voters and use election day as a time to say “hi” to their neighbors. This law is just unnecessary!
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p>If there were any question about identity, the person could show some proof of residence and ID, sign an affidavit, or cast a provisional ballot.
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p>Voting is a serious responsibility. We should not let Polito turn it into a prop for her stunt.
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p>Polito deserves an award for pandering!
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This is plain pandering! Local poll workers often know voters and use election day as a time to say “hi” to their neighbors. This law is just unnecessary!
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p>If there were any question about identity, the person could show some proof of residence and ID, sign an affidavit, or cast a provisional ballot.
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p>Voting is a serious responsibility. We should not let Polito turn it into a prop for her stunt.
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p>Polito deserves an award for pandering!
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I moved into my current home 8 years ago. For 3 or 4 years whenever I went to vote I would go up to the table, they would ask what street and address, I would answer, they would look at their sheet then look up and say John?. I’d say no he doesn’t live there anymore at which point they would look a few lines further down and guess my name. I guess they were able to tell at a glance I was not Donna. The polls ars staffed by volunteers and I recognized the same person a number of years in a row. I guess I didn’t stand out among the parade of faces they saw because they didn’t remember me. I need to show my ID to fly, to buy beer or to buy cigarettes(if I smoked) I don’t get how it’s a racist plot to have to show an ID to vote.
If you said your name was “John”, you may have very well had to produce proof of residency, because it’s likely this John failed to fill out his census form and was thus labeled an inactive voter. The Mass voters list contains a number of “inactive” voters who must produce proof of residency in order to reactivate themselves and cast a ballot.
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p>But, besides that, the point is that despite whatever potential double-voting opportunity you thought you had, you didn’t take it. That’s been our exact point all along: in practice, these things don’t happen with any measurable frequency.
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p>Why don’t they happen? Because it’s a lot of risk — big fines and jail time — all for one additional vote. Actually having an impact would require a larger, more coordinated effort, bringing a lot more risk relative to the likelihood of success. Point me to any evidence that it actually happens in practice and I may reconsider.
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p>Also, no one called it a “racist plot”. I called the effort “partisan”, not “racist”.
Here’s a story about the chairman of the San Diego County Republican Party, who just happens to have a background in cracking software.
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p>Relevance? This is the area that allowed poll workers to take home voting machines, unsupervised, in advance of an election.
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p>I am personally much more concerned about hackable voting machines and insufficient auditing policies than I am about voter fraud.
that one of those things isn’t really a problem, but is being used by pols for cheap mileage and partisan favoritism. đŸ™‚
Those are all issues of a similar scale (global).
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p>I would argue that the ability to covertly alter 1000’s of ballots is a lot more worrisome than a few people voting under other people’s names, and/or in multiple locations, which is demonstrably not a significant issue.
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p>And frankly, this should be a bipartisan issue; there are plenty of liberals with hacking skills as well.