How can voting fraud be better detected and prevented without putting an undue burden on certain voting blocs?

Of course, we must combat fraud, but what if this approach creates unequal restrictions on the most fundamental way we demonstrate that we are all equals, through our vote at the ballot box?

Rather than inspire confidence in elections, the photo ID requirement generates emotional fights and elevates fear over fact. Some facts:

• Current safeguards work. It’s a felony to vote illegally or lie when you sign in to vote. Observers can challenge voters. And an ID and verified address are required to register in the first place. Less than 5 votes per 1,000,000 in NC elections from 2004 to 2010 involved fraud that a photo ID would prevent.
   
• A match of registration rolls to DMV records shows that about 450,000 active registered voters don’t have a current NC drivers’ license or identity card. They’re disproportionately people of color, the elderly and low-income citizens. While African Americans are 22% of NC’s registered voters, they’re 32% of the voters who lack a state ID.
   
• Creating “free” IDs, training poll workers, checking voters and processing provisional ballots will cost millions, cause longer lines and create bureaucratic hassles.
   
• People who vote using mail-in absentee ballots won’t have to show an ID under the Republican’s proposal. But the rate of fraud with NC absentee ballots is 7 times higher than for in-person ballots. Are they exempt because more Republican voters use absentee ballots than Democrats?
   

• Figures reveal that Georgia’s ID law blunted the gain in turnout among African Americans which NC and similar states experienced in 2008. If an ID discourages 1.5% of NC voters, that’s 100,000 people harmed – for what real purpose?

This response to a question about voting fraud by Everything Questioned was submitted by Bob Hall, executive director of Democracy North Carolina. Find the entire question and more views at EQ's homepage, and share your thoughts here and through comments or by submitting a response to Austin Baird.

How can voting fraud be better detected and prevented without putting an undue burden on certain voting blocs? 

There’s no question: We must do more to ensure free and fair elections in North Carolina.

It starts by not cutting corners on democracy. Today, local and state election officials are often forced to work on shoe-string budgets, crippling their efforts to train poll workers, maintain voting machines, investigate voting irregularities and make sure polls run smoothly on Election Day.

Unfortunately, over the last two years North Carolina lawmakers have slashed more than $700,000 from the state election board’s budget – which in turn caused N.C. to lose yet another $4 million in federal funds that could have helped keep our democracy in working order.

Short-changing our elections could affect thousands of voters – and undermines our ability to address real voting problems.

Out of all the election issues we face, voter impersonation is clearly at the bottom of the list. Every credible study has shown that somebody lying about who they are at the polls – a crime which, unlike speeding, is a felony – is about as likely to happen as getting hit by lightning or witnessing an alien abduction.

Just last month, an investigation by Carnegie-Knight reporters into 2,068 cases found only 10 where voter impersonation *might* have happened. The conclusion: Such fraud is "virtually nonexistent."

So here’s the question for North Carolina lawmakers: Why would you entertain spending millions to implement a photo ID law – up to $20 million over three years, according to one estimate – to address a mythical issue, while slashing funds that could lead to real, practical improvements in our state’s elections?

Is it because those who don’t have ID tend to be Democrats – the elderly, the poor, students and African-Americans? Or because the endlessly debunked voter fraud myth excites the Republican base?

We can only speculate. But it’s clear there are better investments we can make to protect our democracy.

This response to a question about voting fraud by Everything Questioned was submitted by Chris Kromm, executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies and publisher of Facing South. Find the entire question and more views at EQ's homepage, and share your thoughts here and through comments or by submitting a response to Austin Baird.

How can voting fraud be better detected and prevented without putting an undue burden on certain voting blocs?

In order to have a discussion on the issue of “in-person voter fraud” and a “photo ID requirement,” it is necessary to agree on the scope of the problem – and that is where the debate gets tricky.

Our current election system makes no attempt to track election irregularities at the county or state level. Counties are responsible for administering local elections and the NC State Board of Elections (SBOE) is responsible for voter files, rule-making and administering the state aspects of elections and campaign finance. But if you ask the SBOE for a record of election-related problems, you will be told to contact all 100 counties, as the SBOE doesn’t track those.

The SBOE refuses to collect and track problems. Any major corporation or organization will tell you, however, that tracking, analyzing and correcting problems is an integral part of systematic improvement.

If an issue should rise to the level that requires state attention, such as dead people voting in Washington County in 2010, the likely verdict will be “administrative error.” After an exhaustive investigation by the challenger, the SBOE cancelled further investigations when a new election was granted. If you check, state officials will tell you that this case of “dead people” voting was simply “administrative error” on the part of election workers.

Fraud can’t be proven or disproven when the SBOE refuses to collect or analyze county-level election problems.

If the state board won’t even collect and report problems – then it appears that there are no problems. But that tells us little or nothing about whether there really are problems.

Proponents of Voter ID first need an honest SBOE that understands data collection is vital not only for the discussion of “voter fraud,” but for improvement of the voting system as a whole.

This response to a question about voting fraud by Everything Questioned was submitted by Susan Myrick, elections analyst for Civitas Insitute. Find the entire question and more views at EQ's homepage, and share your thoughts here and through comments or by submitting a response to Austin Baird.

How can voting fraud be better detected and prevented without putting an undue burden on certain voting blocs?

It makes sense that anyone eligible to vote in North Carolina should have the opportunity to cast a ballot. It also makes sense that people who want to participate in the political process in other ways should be able to enter government buildings to attend meetings or chat with government officials.

So it’s odd that proposals to add a photo identification requirement for voting generate vocal, vehement opposition, while existing photo ID requirements for entry into many government buildings generate … silence.

Voter ID critics hold no news conferences, wave no signs, write no letters to the editor about photo ID barriers to enter office buildings such as the one housing Gov. Beverly Perdue’s staff. Critics also tend to say nothing about photo ID requirements for other basic aspects of life: opening a bank account, boarding a flight, buying certain cold medications.

If instituting an ID requirement would stop thousands of eligible North Carolinians from exercising their right to vote, clearly these same thousands already spend the rest of the year cut off from basic elements of life in today’s modern society.

Critics say voter ID enthusiasts simply want to suppress turnout among certain groups. The truth is that voter ID is designed to stop just one group: ineligible voters. To reassure critics of their good intentions, ID supporters should be willing to work with critics to devise a system in which those who cannot afford other forms of government ID can acquire a voter ID without undue burden.

This idea would involve some cost to taxpayers, but it’s an expense that makes sense — within reason — in the name of promoting integrity within the voting process. If the new ID also can help more people bank, fly, and treat their sniffles, that would be an added bonus.

This response to a question about voting fraud by Everything Questioned was submitted by Mitch Kokai, communications director of the John Locke Foundation. Find the entire question and more views at EQ's homepage, and share your thoughts here and through comments or by submitting a response to Austin Baird.