No fraud related to ID? C'mon ...

quote:

California has been home to some of the most brazen recent examples of voter fraud. The state is one of the few to make it illegal for poll workers to demand identification from any voter, thus creating a breeding ground for corruption. In 1997, a House investigation concluded that several hundred illegal votes were cast in the close Orange County congressional race between defeated Republican incumbent Robert Dornan and Democratic challenger Loretta Sanchez. But investigators couldn't prove there were enough phony votes to overturn the election.

Just last year, evidence surfaced that more than 1,300 irregular votes might have been cast in an Assembly election in Bakersfield, Calif., that Democrat Nicole Parra won by 266 votes. An investigation by losing GOP candidate Dean Gardner turned up written admissions by 76 people that they were not citizens but had nonetheless voted. Another 49 admitted that they were not registered at their correct address. A total of 69 voters admitted that they had voted twice. The evidence of this and other irregularities was turned over earlier this year to Kern County District Attorney Ed Jagels, who has yet to act on them. Mr. Gardner notes that Mr. Jagels's budget is controlled by the Kern County Board of Supervisors, whose chairman is Pete Parra, Assemblywoman Parra's father.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110004084

I also took the time to read the California voter ID requirements here.

Seems mighty dicey to me ... but then I'm no expert. I particularly liked this sentence:

quote:

If an applicant for voter registration has not been issued either a current and valid driver’s license or a social security number, the state shall assign the voter a unique number, which shall serve to identify the voter for registration purposes.

I'm hard pressed to think of ANY reason ANY citizen would not have a valid social security number. Maybe someone can help me on that?

If one was of my grandfather's generation, it's entirely possible not to have a SSN or birth certificate and be a citizen. My grandfather finally got one when he enlisted in the Army, (he never got a BC, however) but several civilian relatives went without an SSN for decades. Race was a factor in attaining these- his white neighbors had much less of a problem certifying their birth and had fewer problems obtaining an SSN.

quote:

Originally posted by sweetsuds:
If one was of my grandfather's generation, it's entirely possible not to have a SSN or birth certificate and be a citizen. My grandfather finally got one when he enlisted in the Army, (he never got a BC, however) but several civilian relatives went without an SSN for decades. Race was a factor in attaining these- his white neighbors had much less of a problem certifying their birth and had fewer problems obtaining an SSN.

And your grandfather enlisted ... when? As you note, he got one. Social Security and Medicare both tie to that magic number ... and my question stands though I guess if there are some old timers out there that left the work force before the advent of SS/Medicare and who have chosen not to apply for them, you MAY have a weak example. BTW, having a social security number is NOT proof of citizenship ... another questionable in the CA voter registration requirements.

quote:

Originally posted by Jade_Gate:

quote:

Originally posted by sweetsuds:
If one was of my grandfather's generation, it's entirely possible not to have a SSN or birth certificate and be a citizen. My grandfather finally got one when he enlisted in the Army, (he never got a BC, however) but several civilian relatives went without an SSN for decades. Race was a factor in attaining these- his white neighbors had much less of a problem certifying their birth and had fewer problems obtaining an SSN.

And your grandfather enlisted ... when? As you note, he got one. Social Security and Medicare both tie to that magic number ... and my question stands though I guess if there are some old timers out there that left the work force before the advent of SS/Medicare and who have chosen not to apply for them, you MAY have a weak example. BTW, having a social security number is NOT proof of citizenship ... another questionable in the CA voter registration requirements.

I'm not exactly sure when my grandfather enlisted, but he served in WWI. And for those in his hometown, getting those documents was not always an issue of declining to apply for them, but being outright denied them. My grandfather was denied a BC, and I've relatives who were denied an SSN. The resources we take for granted haven't always been available to all. I do know those who are technically citizens who currently lack an SSN and have not bothered to get one, but they don't participate in this government as a general rule.

quote:

Originally posted by sweetsuds:

quote:

Originally posted by Jade_Gate:

quote:

Originally posted by sweetsuds:
If one was of my grandfather's generation, it's entirely possible not to have a SSN or birth certificate and be a citizen. My grandfather finally got one when he enlisted in the Army, (he never got a BC, however) but several civilian relatives went without an SSN for decades. Race was a factor in attaining these- his white neighbors had much less of a problem certifying their birth and had fewer problems obtaining an SSN.

And your grandfather enlisted ... when? As you note, he got one. Social Security and Medicare both tie to that magic number ... and my question stands though I guess if there are some old timers out there that left the work force before the advent of SS/Medicare and who have chosen not to apply for them, you MAY have a weak example. BTW, having a social security number is NOT proof of citizenship ... another questionable in the CA voter registration requirements.

I'm not exactly sure when my grandfather enlisted, but he served in WWI. And for those in his hometown, getting those documents was not always an issue of declining to apply for them, but being outright denied them. My grandfather was denied a BC, and I've relatives who were denied an SSN. The resources we take for granted haven't always been available to all. I do know those who are technically citizens who currently lack an SSN and have not bothered to get one, but they don't participate in this government as a general rule.

Not to doubt your memory but if he served in WWI, there were no social security numbers ... they first came into being in Nov 1936 ... and it was not until Oct 1961 when Kennedy signed PL 97-397 that the number became inextricably linked with tax identification.

Typo, WWII. Sorry.

quote:

Originally posted by SeaWitch1220:

quote:

Originally posted by outlaws93:
no id no votie...regardless of who they are.... sea you being a polling official should know that... god i hope you arent letting people vote without first showing an id.....

California does not require that ID be presented at the polls except under very particular circumstances, so yes, I'm letting people vote in a precinct (or my poll workers are at any rate) without showing ID. I might add that there have been no incidents of voter fraud that would have been prevented by ID requirements at the polls.

How would you even know such a thing? If anyone can vote I guess there can not be voter fraud. In any event just the mention of "California" says volumes.

Perhaps she's speaking of her own experience.

The Republicans party is famous for Voter Suppression and 527 Slander Campaigns. It’s the only chance they have of winning most of the elections there are in is to cheat.

Does anyone know if they have counted ALL the Florida votes from 2000 yet? Oh that’s right Daddy Bushes friends on the Supreme Court ruled that counting ALL of the votes was Un-Constitutional?

How Republicans Quietly Hijacked the Justice Department to Swing Elections

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Jim Crow has returned to American elections, only in the twenty-first century, instead of men in white robes or a barrel-chested sheriff menacingly patrolling voting precincts, we are more likely to see a lawyer carrying a folder filled with briefing papers and proposed legislation about "voter fraud" and other measures to supposedly protect the sanctity of the vote.

Since the 2004 election, activist lawyers with ties to the Republican Party and its presidential campaigns, Republican legislators, and even the Supreme Court -- in a largely unnoticed ruling in 2006 -- have been aggressively regulating most aspects of the voting process. Collectively, these efforts are undoing the gains of the civil rights era that brought voting rights to minorities and the poor, groups that tend to support Democrats.

In addition, the Department of Justice (DOJ), which for decades had fought to ensure that all eligible citizens could vote, now encourages states to take steps in the opposite direction. Political appointees who advocate for stringent requirements before ballots are cast and votes are counted have driven much of the DOJ's Voting Section's recent agenda. As a result, the Department has pushed states to purge voter lists, and to adopt newly restrictive voter ID and provisional ballot laws. In addition, during most of George W. Bush's tenure, the DOJ has stopped enforcing federal laws designed to aid registration, such as the requirement that state welfare offices offer public aid recipients the opportunity to register to vote.

The Department's political appointees have also pressured federal prosecutors to pursue "voter fraud" cases against the Bush administration's perceived opponents, such as ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which conduct mass registration drives among populations that tend to vote Democratic. Two former federal prosecutors have said they believe that they lost their positions for refusing to pursue these cases.

The proponents of this renewed impetus to police voters comes from a powerful and well-connected wing of the Republican Party that believes steps are needed to protect elections from Democratic-leaning groups that are fabricating voter registrations en masse and impersonating voters. Royal Masset, the former political director of the Republican Party of Texas, said in 2007 that is an "article of religious faith that voter fraud is causing us to lose elections." While Masset himself didn't agree with that assertion, he did believe "that requiring photo IDs could cause enough of a drop off in legitimate Democratic voting to add 3 percent to the Republican vote."

While voter fraud and voter suppression have a long history in American politics, registration abuses and instances of people voting more than once are rare today, as federal officials convicted only twenty-four people of illegal voting between 2002 and 2005. Moreover, modern voter fraud, when it occurs, has involved partisans from both parties, although it is rarely on a scale that overturns elections. In contrast, new voter registration restrictions, such as requiring voters to show a government-issued photo ID, are of a scale that can affect election outcomes.

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School has found that 25% of adult African-Americans, 15% of adults earning below $35,000 annually, and 18% of seniors over sixty-five do not possess government-issued photo ID. While various studies -- such as a 2006 Election Assistance Commission report by Tova Andrea Wang and Job Serebrov, and a 2007 study by Lorraine Minnite of Barnard College -- have found modern claims of a voter fraud "crisis" to be unfounded, that has not stopped states from adopting remedies that impose burdens across their electorate and on voter registration organizations. "Across the country, voter identification laws have become a partisan mess," Loyola University Law Professor Richard Hasen said in an Oct. 24, 2006 Slate.com column, speaking of one such remedy. "Republican-dominated legislatures have been enacting voter identification laws in the name of preventing fraud, and Democrats have opposed such laws in the name of protecting potentially disenfranchised voters." Hasen was commenting on a little-noticed 2006 Supreme Court ruling, Purcell v. Gonzales, which upheld Arizona's new voter ID law. The court unanimously affirmed the state's 2004 law, writing that, "Voter fraud drives honest citizens out of the democratic process and breeds distrust of our government. Voters who fear their legitimate votes will be outweighed by fraudulent ones will feel disenfranchised."

Hasen said that while the ruling "seem[ed] reasonable enough" at first glance, it actually was deeply troubling, as the Court never investigated if there was evidence of widespread voter fraud, and never examined "how onerous are such [voter ID] laws." Instead, it adopted the Republican rhetoric on the issue "without any proof whatsoever." Hasen then quoted Harvard University History Professor Alexander Keyssar on the Court's rationale. "FEEL disenfranchised? Is that the same as 'being disenfranchised?' So if I might 'feel' disenfranchised, I have a right to make it harder for you to vote? What on Earth is going on here?"

The Republican campaign to suppress the Black vote

quote:

The Republican Party and the right wing are waging a well-financed campaign to weaken and destroy the impact of the African American vote. This campaign is in direct violation of the Voting Rights Act (1965) and the principle of one person, one vote.

quote:

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris hired Database Technologies (DBT) of Boca Raton to purge at least 90,000 people from the state’s voter rolls, falsely identifying them as “convicted felons.” DBT was paid more than $1 million in taxpayer money to carry out this operation, in flagrant violation of the Voting Rights Act. Of those removed, 80 percent were not felons.

State police roadblocks prevented mainly Black voters from getting to the polls. At the polls, additional pieces of photo identification were demanded of Black voters. Leaflets were distributed with the wrong date for Election Day, and with warnings that people with outstanding parking tickets or tax problems might get in trouble if they voted. Problem voting machines were concentrated in the Black and Democratic districts.

quote:

There are reports that Vice President Dick Cheney has set aside $750,000 to hire professional thugs from the Vance International to go into voting places in working-class and nonwhite neighborhoods this November. Fortunately a lot of voters are aware of what happened in 2000 and are determined that it not happen again.

The Republican War on Voting

quote:

The Republican Party is trying to suppress low-income minority votes by propagating the myth of voter fraud.

quote:

One week before the close of voter registration in Kentucky last fall, in an election that culminated with the victory of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Steve Beshear, Johanna Sharrard, a fresh-faced 26-year-old national organizer for the low-income advocacy group ACORN, gathered her canvassers in a run-down Louisville office and told them some good news: "We got 396 people yesterday -- that's really great!" Then she added what could have seemed a jarringly discordant note: "We know it's getting harder to reach people with the cards in this area. It's really important that you guys are not slipping up and turning to filling out your own applications or other fraudulent activity. Just yesterday we had to let another person go because she did not follow protocols." Sharrard continued sternly, "What's important is that we get 15,000 new voters. We're not out there to get 10,000 new voters and 5,000 false applications."

Indeed, the voter registration waged by ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) in Kentucky was also an effort to test the group's new system for rooting out any fraud. The organization is readying itself for the challenges to voter participation that the poor and minorities -- and Democrats -- are sure to face in 2008.

Sharrard's cautionary tone was a response to the Republican Party's ongoing nationwide campaign to suppress the low-income minority vote by propagating the myth of voter fraud. Using various tactics -- including media smears, bogus lawsuits, restrictive new voting laws and policies, and flimsy prosecutions -- Republican operatives, election officials, and the GOP-controlled Justice Department have limited voting access and gone after voter-registration groups such as ACORN. Which should come as no surprise: In building support for initiatives raising the minimum wage and kindred ballot measures, ACORN has registered, in partnership with Project Vote, 1.6 million largely Democratic-leaning voters since 2004. All told, non-profit groups registered over three million new voters in 2004, about the same time that Republican and Justice Department efforts to publicize voter fraud and limit voting access became more widespread. And attacking ACORN has been a central element of a systematic GOP disenfranchisement agenda to undermine Democratic prospects before each Election Day.

Revelations that U.S. attorneys were fired for their failure to successfully prosecute voter fraud have revealed how fictitious the allegations of widespread fraud actually were -- but the allegations haven't gone away. They live on in all the vote-suppressing laws and regulations that will likely affect this year's election, in GOP rhetoric and, most recently, in the arguments presented by champions of Indiana's restrictive voter-identification law in a case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Unfortunately, progressives have tended to pay more attention to Election Day dirty tricks and to electronic voting machines than to a more systemic threat: the Republican campaign to suppress the votes of low-income, young, and minority voters through restrictive legislation and rulings, all based on the mythic specter of voter fraud. Those relatively transient voters, drawn to the polls this year by the Obama and Clinton campaigns, could find themselves thwarted in November and thereafter by the GOP-driven regime of voting restrictions -- particularly if, as many observers believe, the Court upholds Indiana's restrictive law before it adjourns this June.

Voter fraud is actually less likely to occur than lightning striking a person, according to data compiled by New York University's Brennan Center for Justice. As Lorraine Minnite, a Columbia University professor, observed in the Project Vote report, The Politics of Voter Fraud, "The claim that voter fraud threatens the integrity of American elections is itself a fraud." In October 2002, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft launched an intensive "Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Initiative" that required all U.S. attorney offices to coordinate with local officials in combating voter fraud. Yet even after the Justice Department declared the war against voter fraud a "high priority," only 24 people were convicted of illegal voting in federal elections between 2002 and 2005 -- and nobody was even charged by Justice with impersonating another voter. (The Justice Department declined to answer questions about more recent fraud prosecutions.) And despite the anti-immigrant frenzy fueling photo-ID laws, only 14 noncitizens were convicted of illegally voting in federal elections from 2002 through 2005 -- mostly because of their ignorance of election law.

quote:

Originally posted by sweetsuds:

quote:

Originally posted by SeaWitch1220:

quote:

Originally posted by outlaws93:
you would think being such a concern citizen you would id them.... you know keep those that arnt suppose to vote from voting also keeping dems from voting gop and gop from voting dem..... but whatever...

{Sigh}Okay, I'll try to make this REALLY EASY for YOU to understand...California is NOT, I repeat, NOT a voter ID state. Do you get that? It means that Election Officers in California precincts do not and CANNOT ask a voter for their ID in the polling place. Got that? There is a single, rare circumstance where an Election Officer (Poll Worker) will have to ask a voter for their ID. That voter will be specially identified in the Roster. SIMPLE enough for you now?

You can lead outlaw to facts, but you can't make him think, SW. Also, a question: how did you get your current position?

oh like you have a lot of room to talk....

quote:

Originally posted by Raunchy:

quote:

Originally posted by SeaWitch1220:

quote:

Originally posted by outlaws93:
no id no votie...regardless of who they are.... sea you being a polling official should know that... god i hope you arent letting people vote without first showing an id.....

California does not require that ID be presented at the polls except under very particular circumstances, so yes, I'm letting people vote in a precinct (or my poll workers are at any rate) without showing ID. I might add that there have been no incidents of voter fraud that would have been prevented by ID requirements at the polls.

How would you even know such a thing? If anyone can vote I guess there can not be voter fraud. In any event just the mention of "California" says volumes.

yea no joke and here i though sea was a leader against voter fraud.... cant do that if you arnt checking out the people voting making sure the correct people are voting for the correct party....... but oh well i guess...

[QUOTE]Originally posted by RetiredSailor1:
The Republicans party is famous for Voter Suppression and 527 Slander Campaigns.
Boy are we lucky Moveon.org doesn't take advantage of 527's
It’s the only chance they have of winning most of the elections there are in is to cheat.
Ya mean that all these years I have been thinking the Voter Fraud capital of the world, Chicago, has really been all republicans? Why that would give Mayor Daly a bad case of the vapors.

Does anyone know if they have counted ALL the Florida votes from 2000 yet? Oh that’s right Daddy Bushes friends on the Supreme Court ruled that counting ALL of the votes was Un-Constitutional?

The above brought to you courtesy of the "I can't get past the 2000 election" branch of the Union of Tin Foil Cap Workers Loco 12.

You are a real piece of work RS, but none the less fun to have around. Kinda like the Court Jester.

quote:

Originally posted by sweetsuds:
You can lead outlaw to facts, but you can't make him think, SW. Also, a question: how did you get your current position?

I applied for it. It was advertised on the local county job bulletin. I was already employed by the county working in the Welfare Fraud division; I simply transferred over to the Elections Department. Best move EVER. I love my job!!

quote:

Originally posted by Tomcatt:
really? and you know this how?

Well, the SCOTUS said it for one and we have had no reports of it. When a person registers in California they provide either a California Drivers License number or the last four of their Social Security Number. This is then verified through the Secretary of State and then the voter’s status is changed from “Hold” to “Active”. Once they are “Active”, they get to vote, their name will be in the Roster or they will receive their Vote-by-Mail ballot if that is how they are registered or if they are in a Mail Ballot precinct (no polling place).

quote:

Originally posted by Jade_Gate:
No fraud related to ID? C'mon ...

And what followed was an opinion piece. Talk about “c’mon”…

I was speaking, specifically, to MY County and that I have heard of no incidents of voter fraud that an ID would have prevented. Remember, the Supreme Court itself said that there were no identifiable incidents of voter fraud that presenting an ID at the polls would have prevented.

quote:

If an applicant for voter registration has not been issued either a current and valid driver’s license or a social security number, the state shall assign the voter a unique number, which shall serve to identify the voter for registration purposes.

And I have YET to come across a voter with one of these. It might be more common in Oakland or in areas where you have a greater number of older people who may not posses either a SSN because there didn’t used to be such a requirement or a Drivers License. I could FULLY get behind voter ID laws if they were 100% guaranteed not to disenfranchise a SINGLE voter, otherwise the cost is too great.

When a person signs a roster or a Vote-by-Mail envelope they are SWEARING that they are who they say they are and live where they say they live. Violations of this can land them in jail and they will face a hefty fine. That isn’t enough of a deterrent?

quote:

And what followed was an opinion piece.

So refute it ... if you can. It cited verifiable information.

As to disenfranchising a single voter ... I generally agree with that ... but these 12 nuns aren't a valid example.

SW: I asked about your current position b/c I've seen similar positions being filled in different ways, so I was just curious about how it works in your neck of the woods.
And Jade, unless you can come up with some objective reasons why the situation of these nuns is invalid, you are also offering opinion- no more, but certainly no less.

The momentum is on the right side.

Voter ID Battle Shifts to Proof of Citizenship

The battle over voting rights will expand this week as lawmakers in Missouri are expected to support a proposed constitutional amendment to enable election officials to require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote.

The measure would allow far more rigorous demands than the voter ID requirement recently upheld by the Supreme Court, in which voters had to prove their identity with a government-issued card.

Sponsors of the amendment — which requires the approval of voters to go into effect, possibly in an August referendum — say it is part of an effort to prevent illegal immigrants from affecting the political process. Critics say the measure could lead to the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of legal residents who would find it difficult to prove their citizenship.

Voting experts say the Missouri amendment represents the next logical step for those who have supported stronger voter ID requirements and the next battleground in how elections are conducted. Similar measures requiring proof of citizenship are being considered in at least 19 state legislatures. Bills in Florida, Kansas, Oklahoma and South Carolina have strong support. But only in Missouri does the requirement have a chance of taking effect before the presidential election.

In Arizona, the only state that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote, more than 38,000 voter registration applications have been thrown out since the state adopted its measure in 2004. That number was included in election data obtained through a lawsuit filed by voting rights advocates and provided to The New York Times. More than 70 percent of those registrations came from people who stated under oath that they were born in the United States, the data showed.

Already, 25 states, including Missouri, require some form of identification at the polls. Seven of those states require or can request photo ID. More states may soon decide to require photo ID now that the Supreme Court has upheld the practice. Democrats have already criticized these requirements as implicitly intended to keep lower-income voters from the polls, and are likely to fight even more fiercely now that the requirements are expanding to include immigration status.

“Three forces are converging on the issue: security, immigration and election verification,” said Dr. Robert A. Pastor, co-director of the Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University in Washington. This convergence, he said, partly explains why such measures are likely to become more popular and why they will make election administration, which is already a highly partisan issue, even more heated and litigious.

The Missouri secretary of state, Robin Carnahan, a Democrat who opposes the measure, estimated that it could disenfranchise up to 240,000 registered voters who would be unable to prove their citizenship.

In most of the states that require identification, voters can use utility bills, paychecks, driver’s licenses or student or military ID cards to prove their identity. In the Democratic primary election last week in Indiana, several nuns were denied ballots because they lacked the required photo IDs.

Measures requiring proof of citizenship raise the bar higher because they offer fewer options for documentation. In most cases, aspiring voters would have to produce an original birth certificate, naturalization papers or a passport. Arizona and Missouri, along with some other states, now show whether a driver is a citizen on the face of a driver’s license, and within a few years all states will be required by the federal government to restrict licenses to legal residents.

Critics say that when this level of documentation is applied to voting, it becomes more difficult for the poor, disabled, elderly and minorities to participate in the political process.

“Everyone has been focusing on voter ID laws generally, but the most pernicious measures and the ones that really promise to prevent the most eligible voters from voting is what we see in Arizona and now in Missouri,” said Jon Greenbaum, a former voting rights official at the Department of Justice and now the director of the voting rights project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a liberal advocacy group.

Aside from its immediacy, the action by Missouri is important because it has been a crucial swing state in recent presidential elections, with outcomes often decided by a razor-thin margin.

Supporters of the measures cite growing concerns that illegal immigrants will try to vote. They say proof of citizenship measures are an important way to improve the accuracy of registration rolls and the overall voter confidence in the process.

State Representative Stanley Cox, a Republican from Sedalia and the sponsor of the amendment, said that the Missouri Constitution already required voters to be citizens and that his amendment was simply meant to better enforce that requirement.

“The requirements we have right now are totally inadequate,” Mr. Cox said. “You can present a utility bill, and that doesn’t prove anything. I could sit here with my nice photocopier and create a thousand utility bills with different names on them.”

From October 2002 to September 2005, the Justice Department indicted 40 voters for registration fraud or illegal voting, 21 of whom were noncitizens, according to department records.

In 2006, the Missouri legislature passed a photo identification bill that the State Supreme Court later ruled unconstitutional because it placed too much of a burden on voters. It was that ruling that has spurred state lawmakers to try to change the constitution.

The proposed amendment does not require the signature of the governor but would need to be approved by the voters in the state’s August primary in the governor’s race to take effect before the presidential election.

If passed this week, the amendment clears the way for a pending bill that would require some kind of identification in order to prove citizenship and to register to vote. But many questions about the bill — like whether current registered voters will have to obtain a new form of identification — have not been resolved.

Lillie Lewis, a voter who lives in St. Louis and spoke at a news conference last week organized to oppose the amendment, said she already had a difficult time trying to get a photo ID from the state, which asked her for a birth certificate.