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Striking a Blow for Common Sense: Justice Stevens, Jimmy Carter Make Powerful Case against Voter Fra
Guest Column | By Joel Himelfarb | May 5, 2008
On
Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 to uphold Indiana’s
voter-identification law requiring voters to present a driver’s license
or other form of photo ID when they go to vote, a decision that has
infuriated many on the Left. The ACLU criticized the ruling, and Sen.
Charles Schumer, New York Democrat, called it “a body blow to what America stands for – equal access to the polls.” This
is nonsense. A careful reading of the majority opinions in the case,
particularly the main one written by liberal Justice John Paul Stevens,
shows that the court carefully considered a variety of factors,
including the paramount interest in insuring the integrity of the
electoral process itself, in making its decision.
Stevens’
opinion (which Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy
also signed) strikes a huge blow for common sense and against the
argument of groups like the ACLU that fighting voter fraud constitutes
an unconstitutional burden on the poor, elderly, minorities, etc.
“We
cannot conclude that the statute imposes ‘excessively burdensome
requirements’ on any class of voters,” Stevens wrote. Stevens noted
that an U.S. Court of Appeals panel which heard the case had not heard
from “any plaintiffs who claimed that the law would deter them from
voting.” From that, the appellate court inferred that reason for the
effort to overturn the Indiana statute, which required voters to
present photo ID at their voting place, was “that the law may require
the Democratic Party and other organizational plaintiffs to work harder
to get every last one of their supporters to the polls,” Stevens said.
Nor
did the evidence presented in U.S. District Court by opponents of the
law provide “any concrete evidence of the burden imposed on voters who
currently lack photo identification,” he added. “The record includes
depositions of two case managers at a day shelter for homeless persons
and the depositions of members of the plaintiff organizations, none of
whom expressed a personal inability to vote under SEA 483 [the Indiana
voter-identification law.]” Moreover: “For most voters who need
[identification], the inconvenience of making a trip to the BMV [Bureau
of Motor Vehicles], gathering the required documents, and posing for a
photograph surely does not qualify as a substantial burden on the right
to vote, or even present a significant increase over the usual burdens
of voting.” Moreover, the law does not apply to absentee voters, and Indiana offers free photo identification to qualified voters able to establish their identity and residence.
Stevens’ opinion at a minimum calls into serious question the argument that Indiana’s
statute imposes an unreasonable burden on some classes of voters. But
if that argument is basically a canard, the state’s legitimate interest
in preventing fraud is serious. Shortly after Indiana
enacted its law, the Commission on Federal Election Reform, chaired by
former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James
Baker, issued a report in 2005 which makes the case for strong
anti-fraud efforts, which Stevens cites in his opinion upholding the
statute:
“A
good registration list will ensure that citizens are only registered in
one place, but election officials still need to make sure that the
person arriving at a polling site is the same one that is named on the
registration list. In the old days and small towns where everyone knows
each other, voters did not need to identify themselves. But in the United States,
where 40 million people move each year, and in urban areas where some
people do not even know the people living in their own apartment
building, let alone their precinct, some form of identification is
needed.” Pointing out that photo identification
cards are currently needed to board a plane, enter federal buildings or
cash a check, the Carter-Baker panel states: “Voting is equally
important.”
Although the commission argues that there is no evidence of “extensive” fraud or of multiple voting in U.S.
elections, it notes that both occur and could affect the outcome of a
close election. Some of the examples cited by Carter and Baker from the
November 2004 elections are disturbing indeed. In the state of Washington, for example, Democrat Christine Gregoire was elected governor by a 129-vote margin; the elections superintendent of King County
testified during a subsequent unsuccessful election challenge that
ineligible former felons had voted and that votes had been cast using
the names of dead persons. But the judge accepted Gregoire’s victory
because with the exception of four ex-felons who admitted to voting for
Republican Dino Rossi, authorities could not determine who the rest of
the illegal voters cast their ballots for. (Some conservative local
bloggers, convinced that the Democrat’s victory in the gubernatorial
race was due to vote fraud, have taken to referring to Gregoire as
“Governor Fraud-oire.”) In Milwaukee,
investigators said they found clear evidence of fraud, which included
more than 200 cases of felons voting illegally and more than 100 people
who voted twice, used fake names or false addresses, or voted using the
name of a dead person.
Another
potential problem is the presence of “inactive” or ineligible voters
who remain on voter registration lists. “By one estimate, for example,
there were over 181,000 dead people listed on the voter roles in six
swing states in the November 2004 elections, including almost 65,000
dead people listed on the voter rolls in Florida,” the commission found.
Perhaps
the most egregious recent example of possible fraud (not mentioned in
Stevens’ opinion) occurred in South Dakota in 2002, where there were
dramatic improprieties surrounding Democrat Sen. Tim Johnson’s 524-vote
victory Republican challenger John Thune, particularly with the
Democrats’ voter-mobilization efforts on Indian reservations. Byron
York of National Review and John Fund of the Wall Street Journal have written extensively about the problems in that election. “Many
polling-place officials on the reservations used extraordinarily
lenient standards to determine the names of people who arrived to
vote,” York
wrote. To cite but one of many examples: “In Shannon County, home of
the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, [one] observer noticed that when
election officials could not find a voter’s name on the voter list,
according to an affidavit, ‘The official and the voter would then
discuss aliases – all the while as the voter had full view of the names
listed in the registered voter book. These voters would eventually
agree that one of the names was in fact such voter’s name.’ ”
Laws like the one in Indiana
won’t prevent every case of election fraud – particularly when corrupt
officials who are supposed to be neutral are determined to tip the
balance in favor of one side or the other. But such statutes make
cheating more difficult to do, and with six months until our next
national election, Americans should be grateful that Justice Stevens
made the point so clearly in Monday’s opinion.
FamilySecurityMatters.org contributing editor Joel Himelfarb is the assistant editor of the editorial page of the Washington Times.
Guest columns do not necessarily reflect the views of Accuracy in Media or its staff.
4 Comments | Post a Comment
People from ACORN which is a Democrat arm, have been convicted in the Kansas City area for fraud, too. This area squeaked by victories for Sen. Claire McCaskill and embryonic stem cell research, both supported by liberals. Yet no one would aloow a closer look to be taken at these. Face it Democrats are willing to win by hook or crook and don’t care if they have to steal an election as long as the liberal agenda gets pushed forward.
We ought to sue to have Voting Day declared a national federal holiday because of the burden it puts on the working class to get to the polls. Before I could afford a car, I had to travel on a bus each way to work for 1 1/2 hours. That gave me maybe 30 minutes to get to a poll and vote before or after work.
As a poll judge, I was not allowed to ask for identification. I could only ask for name, address, & birth date. If the person was not found on the rolls for that polling place, they could fill out a provisional ballot that was to be opened and evaluated after polls closed.
Even when a person offered identification instead of responding to our question, we were not told what form of id was valid, nor were we expected to look for forgeries. The Democrats in my state rammed in legislation that accepts garbage like utility bills as “proof” of id. They made sure that dead people and illegal aliens were given a vote.
May 6 at 11:53 am | #1 | Link
Amen, being from WA state I watched with anger at the frauds of the recounts. The Democrat party method is count till you win which allows time to “find” as many misplaced votes as required to win.
This fraud has resulted in some 100,000 (I think that was the number bantered around) names being purged from the voting rolls.