The Voter ID Thing

By Alan Caruba

On September 25th, according to Congressional Black Caucus Chairman, Emmanuel Cleaver, “we cannot even find an instance of voter fraud” but the NAACP would disagree as it strives to keep Voter ID laws from being passed.

The NAACP is so concerned about voter rights that it has taken its case to the United Nations, claiming that “Millions of United States citizens are denied the right to vote because they have been previously convicted to a felony offense.

At a NAACP-sponsored panel, a member of its board of directors, Lorraine Miller, called upon the UN Special Rappateour “to investigate racially discriminatory elections laws” given that many felons are black and many states deny voting rights to convicted felons. The NAACP is on a tear to defeat Voter ID laws, claiming they are racially based.

At this point, between thirty-one and thirty-three States have enacted laws that require all voters to show an ID at the polls in November, depending on whether the laws are declared strict or not.

Rep. Cleaver is, shall we say, misinformed. According to a Justice Department fact sheet dated July 2, 2008, more than 140 individuals have been charged with election fraud offenses and more than a hundred have been convicted since the Attorney General’s Ballot Access and Voting initiative was launched in 2002. This is, in actuality, a fairly pathetic enforcement record.

On September 19, one day after being sued over a controversial ballot box citizenship question, Michigan Secretary of State, Ruth Johnson, said there were an estimated 4,000 non-citizens on its voter rolls of the estimated 305,000 non-citizens that live there. This is why Ms. Johnson is insisting that Michigan’s 7.34 million registered voters be asked to confirm they are citizens on Election Day in November.

The election outcome in 2000 had to be decided by the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore and this initiated efforts to avoid a repeat by tightening voter laws to avoid all manner of fraud.

In their book, “Who’s Counting: How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk”, authors John Fund and Hans Von Spakovsky, say that “Election fraud, whether it’s phony voter registrations, illegal absentee ballots, vote-buying, shady recounts, or old-fashioned ballot-box stuffing, can be found in every part of the United States, although it is probably spreading because of the ever-so-close tight red state/blue state divisions that have polarized the country and created so many close elections of late.”

“In 2012, the voter rolls in many American cities include more names than the U.S. Census listed as the total number of residents over age 18. Philadelphia’s voter rolls, for instance, have increased dramatically as the city’s population has declined.”

In 2008, following the election of Barack Obama, ACORN which engaged in widespread voter fraud had its operatives indicted in fifteen States. “At least 54 individuals who worked for ACORN have been convicted of voter fraud or related activities,” noted Fund and Von Spakovsky. It did not go unnoticed that ACORN had earlier hired Obama as a “community organizer.”

But Benjamin Jealous, the president of the NAACP asserts that blacks are the victims of “the greatest assault on voting rights…since the days of Jim Crow.” As noted, the NAACP has gone to the United Nations claiming Voter ID laws are a violation of human rights.” This is absurd. The former civil rights organization has devolved into little more than a stooge for the Democratic Party.

As Fund and Vop Spakovsky point out, “The evidence from academic studies and actual turnout in elections is overwhelming that—contrary to the shrill claims of opponents—voter ID does not suppress turnout, including among the ranks of minority, poor, and elderly voters.”

It has broad implications for the passage of laws such as Obamacare that was imposed by the slimmest majority in the Senate in 2009. In August 2009, Bill Frezza, writing in Forbes, noted that “The latest revelations that illegal votes may have given Al Franken (D-Minn) his 312-vote margin of victory in his 2008 Senate race—out of the nearly 3 million votes cast—gives one pause.” Franken’s vote was critical to its passage.

“Despite this,” noted Frezza, “Eric Holder’s Justice Department is pulling out all the stops to defeat the passage of voter ID laws, arguing that they place an undue burden that could result in some eligible voters being disenfranchised.”

How absurd is this? Valid ID’s are required by the DMV, airports, hospitals, pharmacies, when donating blood, by banks, gun shops, adoption agencies, the Social Security Office, pawn shops, courts, union elections and, yes, when voting in local, state, and national elections.

Voter fraud is not a racial issue. It is the central issue of the republic to ensure the accuracy and credibility of the election process and is crucial to the outcome of the forthcoming elections that will determine which party controls Congress and who will be President in the coming four years.

© Alan Caruba, 2012