American Values Alliance | Practical voice for progressive valuesAmerican Values Alliance | Practical voice for progressive valuesYesterday The Indianapolis Star gave Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita a one-sided forum to argue the case for his beloved Photo ID Law, now under review by the U.S. Supreme Court.
After instructing his lawyers to fight ferociously to convince the Court not to hear the case, Rokita now says the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the appeal of the 7th Circuit’s decision upholding Rokita’s Law is “great” news for his side and that he is sure the Supreme Court will preserve Indiana’s reputation as a “national leader in election reform”. When asked by The Star why the State never presented evidence of a single person impersonating another voter to cast a fraudulent ballot, Rokita dodged and weaved. Impersonation fraud, he says, is “hard to prove” and the issue is so “politically volatile” that local prosecutors refuse to prosecute such cases. Again, Rokita cites no examples of any local prosecutor refusing to prosecute such a case. His argument, impersonation-fraud-exists-even-though-there-is-no-evidence-to-prove-it, is utterly disingenuous. Rokita knows that if a voter were to forge someone else’s name on the poll book in plain view of precinct officials and watchers he would leave a paper trail and subject himself to serious felony charges. There is a good reason for the lack of evidence of imposter voting—it is utterly implausible to think that it exists anywhere other than in Rokita’s paranoid fantasies.
Let’s imagine for a moment that Moe wants his favored candidate to win so badly that Moe decides to pay his friend Curly to vote twice in person on Election Day, once legally in his own name as Curly, and then a second time fraudulently in the name of a guy named Larry who is registered across town. Even though he’s not the brightest guy in town, Curly isn’t a complete stooge and he expects to be well paid for committing a felony, thus risking a lengthy spell in the slammer. But how can Moe be sure that Curly’s fraudulent vote, cast in-person while masquerading as Larry, would actually be one for his candidate and that that single fraudulent vote would swing the election in favor of his candidate? And is it reasonable to believe that Moe would be willing to pay Curly to commit this felony without at least requiring Curly to prove that he did in fact vote twice for Moe’s favorite candidate? Further, the only way Curly could prove to Moe that he’d voted for Moe’s candidate, thus upholding his end of the bargain, would be for Curly to vote by absentee ballot and show Moe his marked absentee ballot before mailing it in.
Requiring voters to produce a government-issued photo ID for in-person voting will not detect or deter absentee ballot fraud, the one type of voting susceptible to vote-buying and fraud. Do you think that maybe dissenting Judge Evans was possibly onto something when he described Rokita’s Law as a “not-to-thinly-veiled attempt to discourage election-day turnout by certain folks believed to skew Democratic”?
The New York Times last week described the Indiana photo ID case as the case “that will most test the court’s ability to rise above partisanship”. It’s a shame that Secretary Rokita, who this past April told an all-white audience of Republican Party activists that traditional black support for Democrats could be compared to a master-and-slave relationship can’t transcend his own narrow brand of partisanship to see the obvious injustices in this law he boasts of as Indiana’s answer to election “reform”.
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Lalita L. Amos, CRC
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Mr. Rokita would do well to devote his energies to ensuring that on election day all precincts are open, that there are an adequate number of voting officials onsite at those precincts, and that all voting systems are operating properly. That way he’d be addressing problems with voter fraud that actually have occurred in the recent past and could occur again, as opposed to those he only imagines might occur in the future.
In the last few days I watched as a tearful Marion Jones publicly acknowledged that, contrary to years of adamant protestation otherwise, she had in actuality knowingly consumed a banned substance while in training for competition.
It made me think about the whole issue of voter fraud, or the lack thereof, and human nature. For competitive athletes, the temptation to get an edge, any edge, on the competition is seemingly harder and harder to resist. From the Tour de France to MLB to the NFL, there are increasing signs that this kind of behavior is becoming known as commonplace as tests for such behavior become more sophisticated.
More generically, I believe that it is human nature to want an edge on one's competition, sometimes any way one can. Certainly, one can avoid behavior like this by adhering to a personal philosophy of ethical behavior, or personal honor.
Still, I ask any reader whether they have resorted to "taking a Mulligan" while playing golf, or "cheated" while playing Solitaire? How about bumping somebody in a pick up game of basketball, yet not calling a foul on yourself? How about passing test answers back and forth while the proctor is looking? Frankly, I would be amazed if anybody had the sheer audacity, or mendacity to claim they had not.
If this then is a baser, yet common, human trait, what then makes one believe that such behavior might not be occuring in the political realm? Offhand, I think it to be the peak of naivete to propound otherwise.
Just because one hasn't been caught with their hand in the cookie jar doesn't mean that one doesn't have a mouthful of cookies. Historically, I don't think we aren't talking about Curly going across town to vote for Larry either.
I think instead that we are talking about something more systematic and widespread. The New York City Tammany Hall machine commited widespread voter fraud all across the City during every election during its peak in power. If a precinct normally voted about 50% of the registered voters, what could another 20-25% do to the precinct totals? Per precinct, maybe not that much, but across all the City wards, it could make or break an election.
The potential for similar activity is higher now than it has been for decades. Highly organized, tightly-knit political organizations, especially in urban areas, possess the ability to introduce extra-precinct elements where precinct workers are unfamiliar enough with the precinct's registered voters to be unable, or unwilling to challenge people who present themselves demanding to vote.
In my opinion, the real issue isn't whether or not voter fraud exists, but just how easy it is to commit voter fraud under the previous system. To that effect, I still believe that requiring photo I.D. from potential voters is not only a good idea, but that it is a necessity to prevent any possibilty of systemic voter fraud from re-establishing itself in the American electoral process.
To that end, since we disagree, I welcome the Supreme Court review. If it turns out that the Supreme Court decides to reverse the Indiana voter I.D. law, then I would be able to accept that decision, though I suppose Mr. Rokita would not, as I believe that he would get amended legislation reintroduced into the legislature. But that would be a fight for another day.
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