September 24, 2012
Voter fraud still occurs today in the United States. Yet there is still resistance to one very simple tool that could help stop it — voter ID.
Some, like The New York Times, even say that voting fraud is a myth, that “there is almost no voting fraud in America.”
But as Heritage Foundation expert Hans von Spakovsky explains, voter fraud is all too common in America today:
The fraud denialists also must have missed the recent news coverage of the double voters in North Carolina and the fraudster in Tunica County, Miss. — a member of the NAACP’s local executive committee — who was sentenced in April to five years in prison for voting in the names of ten voters, including four who were deceased.
And the story of the former deputy chief of staff for Washington mayor Vincent Gray, who was forced to resign after news broke that she had voted illegally in the District of Columbia even though she was a Maryland resident. Perhaps they would like a copy of an order from a federal immigration court in Florida on a Cuban immigrant who came to the U.S. in April 2004 and promptly registered and voted in the November election.
Given the recent examples of voter fraud, and the simple solution of requiring voters to present a valid ID , it’s not surprising that 70 percent of likely U.S. voters believe that voters “should be required to show photo identification such as a driver’s license before being allowed to cast their ballot,” according to a recent Rasmussen poll. Only 22 percent are opposed to the requirement.
Despite the threat of fraud, and despite popular support for voter ID measures, the Department of Justice and Attorney General Eric Holder intend to examine new state voter ID laws for potential racial bias.
Their allegations that voter ID laws suppress minority votes simply aren’t true. In fact, the opposite has occurred. For example, Georgia enacted a photo ID law before the 2008 election, and the number of African American voters increased after the new law went into effect. “According to Census Bureau surveys,” von Spakovsky writes, “65 percent of the black voting-age population voted in the 2008 election, compared with only 54.4 percent in 2004, an increase of more than ten percentage points.”
In addition, Von Spakovsky notes that “every state that has passed a voter ID law has also ensured that the very small percentage of individuals who do not have a photo ID can easily obtain one for free if they cannot afford one.”
The American people value the integrity of their elections. The purpose over voter ID is to make voting easier and cheating harder so we can make sure that election day is as fair, honest and legal as possible.
Do you believe voter ID is a legitimate tool to prevent fraud, or is it a tool to suppress votes, as liberals claim?
Bryan Marcus - September 25, 2012
This is outrageous, and people need to wake up. Our country is going down hill, and WE ARE LETTING IT HAPPEN.