The issue: A GOP bill would require identification to vote in N.C. While some see it as an assault on voting rights, others hail it as an important step toward combating voter fraud.
It’s idealistic, albeit naive, to think that voter fraud is non-existent, rare or inconsequential, especially when the legitimacy of our representative republic is at stake.
We are long past the days when election board members in less populated areas knew all the people in their precinct. Who or what is stopping voter fraud? Implementation of a proven impersonation detection method is essential.
North Carolinians should be required to show government issued photo identification to register and cast their ballots. A 2011 N.C. Civitas Institute survey revealed that only roughly one percent of registered voters do not have a photo ID. Identification is required to prove one’s age, board an aircraft and enter a government building, so why shouldn’t voter integrity, under the American value of democracy, be protected as well?
Opponents of such legislation have suggested that accusations of voter fraud lack credible evidence. Democratic political pundits seem to fall back on accusations that voter fraud is merely right-wing propaganda, constructed fallaciously and aimed at invoking an element of fear in the minds of the public.
Perhaps they are unaware of the decision in the 2008 Supreme Court case Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, in which the court stated that voter fraud issues “have been documented throughout this Nation’s history by respected historians and journalists.” Far from lacking, the evidence is astounding.
For example, it was “estimated that at least 100,000 fraudulent votes out of 1 million (10 percent of the city’s population) had been cast” for the 1982 Illinois governor’s race in Chicago, according to the Heritage Foundation.
Both a 2003 mayoral election in Indiana and a 2005 state senate race in Tennessee were invalidated due to voter impersonation and fraud. As recently as 2009, ACORN submitted up to 400,000 phony voter registration forms — including one for the late actor Paul Newman and another for Mickey Mouse.
Even with the implosion of leftist voter registration organizations such as ACORN, many voters are still concerned about voter fraud, especially in N.C., which President Barack Obama carried to victory in 2008 by less than 15,000 votes. A small number of votes have the capacity to make or break an election.
