[EL] Interview request
David Adamany
adamany at temple.edu
Thu Jan 12 08:50:34 PST 2012
I don't know what personal experience means in this discussion of birth certificates as a barrier to voter registration. But I'm 75 years old and have been asked to present my birth certificate just once in my life--in applying for a passport with visa privileges to a tightly restrictive middleastern country. I have been a resident of six American jurisdictions during my career, voted in every election during my residency in each, and have never been asked for a birth certificate to become a registered voter in any of them. So presenting a birth certificate is a highly unusual requirement, and access to birth certificates--both my parents were immigrants--could be quite restrictive. In going through my parents papers upon their deaths, I do not remember seeing either of their citizenship papers either. So any assertion that birth certificates are commonly held by citizens or are frequently used for official purposes seems vastly at odds with my own experience. Requiring someone to present such a document would, in many cases, be a substantial barrier and probably would discourage a great many willing, but not passionate, voters to simply forego registration.
To add a note: I served as chair of the Wisconsin Elections Board in the years immediately after Wisconsin adopted same-day voter registration. I also served as an appointed state official in that jurisdiction. Since the 1970s when that law was enacted there have been allegations in many elections of in-person voter fraud. The actual number of cases in which anyone was convicted over those four decades was, if memory serves, less than a dozen. This is an entirely inconsequential rate of voter fraud and vastly less than other mistakes commonly made in election administration that no one is proposing be cured by drastic remedies.
The idea that nuns should simply "hitch a ride" to a local government office to obtain a necessary birth certificate or other certification reflects a misunderstanding of the burdens imposed, the concern that many sheltered people feel about interactions with government, the ease of obtaining transporation and alternative documentation, and the priorities that should be given respectively to encouraging citizens to vote and discouraging a very rare (and mostly unproven) danger to the integrity of the vote.
In short, without substantial additional evidence that in-person voter fraud exists on some large scale, the consequence (whether or not intentional) of laws requiring official documents as a precondition to register is to suppress the the vote. This seems to me an odd position for those who argue for more and more populism and less and less government.
David Adamany
Laura Carnell Professor of Law
and Political Science, and
Chancellor
1810 Liacouras Walk, Ste 330
Temple University
Philadelphia, PA 19122
(215) 204-9278
________________________________
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] on behalf of Rick Hasen [rhasen at law.uci.edu]
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2012 11:20 AM
To: JBoppjr at aol.com
Cc: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Interview request
If you cannot afford a copy (and the state won't pay for the copy) or you were never issued one (as is true with some people who lack birth certificates) the unusual burden can be more severe than you recognize. As I've argued, for these groups of people, at least, the state should have to offer an alternative means of voting. And I take it that six of the Justices in Crawford would agree with me.
On 1/12/2012 8:17 AM, JBoppjr at aol.com<mailto:JBoppjr at aol.com> wrote:
There are a lot of reasons why someone needs a birth certificate. I had to present one when I was 15 and registering for social security and when I was 18 registering for the draft. I had to present one to get a passport. I think I had to present one to get a marriage licence 29 years ago. So one needs a birth certificate for many things and it is hardly an unusual burden. Jim
In a message dated 1/12/2012 11:11:31 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu> writes:
And for those who don't have a birth certificate, the costs are
considerably higher.
On 1/12/2012 5:47 AM, Douglas Carver wrote:
> In other words, all the nuns have to do is jump over a barrier that
> has no business being there in the first place -- sorry nuns, and
> anyone else who has to make that jump.
>
> It always strikes me as curious that conservatives go ape over
> anything approaching gun control because "some day the government will
> take all of our guns", yet they are quite happy with incremental
> barriers to restrictions on voting. Anyone who has looked at how
> voting rights were stripped from black Americans at the end of the
> nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century should be
> aware that small barriers have a way of becoming big ones.
>
> Douglas Carver
> Albuquerque, NM
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 6:38 AM,<JBoppjr at aol.com><mailto:JBoppjr at aol.com> wrote:
>> All the nuns have to do is hitch a ride to the nearest licence branch and
>> get a free identification card. They don't have to get a driver's licence.
>> Really hard! Jim Bopp
>>
>> In a message dated 1/11/2012 8:16:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
>> wgroth at fdgtlaborlaw.com<mailto:wgroth at fdgtlaborlaw.com> writes:
>>
>> As one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs who challenged Indiana's photo
>> ID law in the Crawford case, the assertion that the Indiana nuns in South
>> Bend were engaged in a premeditated publicity stunt or were deliberately
>> making a "political statement" is unfounded and simply absurd. After the
>> incident was reported in the media, we made repeated efforts to speak with
>> these nuns and were rebuffed. Their subsequent reticence to speak with
>> anyone about their experience attempting to vote without ID belies any claim
>> that they had a political motive. And these nuns, who I recall were all in
>> their 70s, 80s and 90s, were non-drivers for whom obtaining required ID
>> would have been anything but easy.
>>
>> Bill Groth
>>
>> ------- Original Message ------- On 1/12/2012 12:08 AM Justin Levitt wrote:
>> I have a different recollection about the Indiana nuns --
>> including whether the IDs were actually"readily attainable"
>> for 98-year-old non-drivers. And as I recall, the majority of nuns in
>> the convent were dissuaded from showing up at the polls when they heard
>> about their fellow sisters being turned away, which seems like a
>> particularly poorly executed publicity exercise. But I also wasn't
>> on-site. And I have no doubt that some on-site thought it was a
>> publicity stunt, and some did not, which does little to resolve the
>> issue.
>>
>> Moreover, it's a fair point that Brad makes about generally
>> responding to the substance ... though I don't think the substance
>> of the"experiment" is worth all that much in reflecting on the
>> policy.
>>
>> My problem with the substance of the"experiment" (beyond
>> its potential illegality) is that it to the extent it is intended to be
>> relevant to the debate over restrictive voter ID laws, it encourages
>> uninformed policymaking by unrepresentative anecdote. (When you go
>> looking for actual dead voters, you more often find this.)
>>
>> The more thoughtful discussions about ID are -- as I think you've
>> pointed out, Brad -- driven by data. They're debates about costs
>> and benefits, including different ways in which states may ask voters to
>> identify themselves, and different ways in which those methods of
>> identification impact the electorate. The"experiment" does
>> little to tease out whether asking someone to sign in is different from
>> asking them to show some form of documentation is different from asking
>> them to show one or two state-specified cards. It does nothing to
>> identify the relative impact of any of those rules on real individuals.
>> And it does nothing to identify whether plugging the potential security
>> breach is worth the demonstrated cost. The video isn't intended to
>> do any of those things -- it's intended to sensationalize one aspect
>> of the problem. Mr. O'Keefe has shown a talent at succeeding at
>> this part
>> icular goal. But I'm not sure that calls for a"substantive"
>> response from opponents of ID laws. If anything, it would call for
>> sensationalism in return. And I don't see how that helps anyone
>> other than the sensationalists.
>>
>>
>> Put differently: if I manufacture a fake photo ID and sign in at the
>> polls using that fake photo ID, would the fact that I've
>> surreptitiously videotaped it demand a substantive response from those
>> who favor ID laws? Or would that particular criminal act be not
>> terribly representative of how the system normally works?
>>
>> Justin
>>
>> On 1/11/2012 3:35 PM, Smith, Brad wrote:
>> Perhaps prosecutors should investigate and prosecute (and perhaps
>> not, if cooler heads prevail); but does that say anything one way or
>> the other about the, what should we call it,
>> "experiment"? If O'Keefe's experiment is correct
>> and it is easy to pull the names of recently deceased voters, and
>> then to send people in to vote them, that would seem to be pretty
>> relevant to the debate over voter ID (at least demanding a
>> substantive response from opponents of ID laws) and simply urging
>> that the testers be prosecuted without that substantive response
>> seems an awful lot like an effort to change the subject.
>> If I recall, in 2008, a bunch of nuns in Indiana, rather
>> than get IDs which were readily attainable, made a big point
>> of going down to vote without getting IDs, basically to make a
>> political PR statement. O'Keefe's actions (or those of the
>> people requesting ballots in his scheme) may have been illegal (I
>> don't know on the question of voting the ballots), but in
>> spirit strike me as little different from the actions of the nuns.
>> A bit of theater to make a point, but no actual harm to the
>> integrity of any election results done. While I don't
>> encourage that (perhaps a small fine would be appropriate), it
>> seems a bit churlish to demand prosecutions but not to address the
>> issue the may have been exposed.
>>
>>
>>
>> Bradley A. Smith
>>
>> Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault
>>
>> Professor of Law
>>
>> Capital University Law School
>>
>> 303 E. Broad St.
>>
>> Columbus, OH 43215
>>
>> 614.236.6317
>>
>> http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx
>> From:
>> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>
>> [law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>] on behalf of
>> Rick Hasen [rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>]
>> Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 6:13 PM
>> To: Justin Levitt
>> Cc: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
>> Subject: Re: [EL] Interview request
>>
>> I never said there was no crime. I'm with
>> Justin. And I've urged prosecutors to
>> investigate, which they now
>> apparently are.
>>
>>
>> On 1/11/2012 3:09 PM, Justin Levitt wrote: Are
>> we sure?
>>
>> Federal law prohibits fraudulently
>> "procuring" ballots in addition to"casting" them,
>> which might indicate that a crime is complete even if the
>> ballot is not voted.
>> And state law similarly prohibits
>> "applying for" a ballot in a name other than your
>> own, in addition to"voting".
>>
>> I don't know whether either of those provisions have
>> ever been enforced, much less construed, for ballots
>> that have not been voted, and to me, the more natural
>> reading is to construe them so as to apply to procuring
>> ballots for other people to vote them. But I could
>> understand an alternative view. And as I keep hearing with
>> respect to this issue, whether the provision has been
>> enforced in such circumstances isn't a particularly good
>> gauge of whether criminal activity has occurred.
>>
>> Justin
>>
>> On 1/11/2012 2:46 PM, Frank Askin wrote:
>> I agree with Rick Hasen. It appears that none of
>> O'keefe's actors was stupid enough to actually vote and risk a
>> 5-year jail sentence. I wish they had.... Also, it is unclear whether a
>> voter in New Hampshire has to sign in before voting. When I go to vote, no
>> one asks me for ID but I have to sign the register so my signature can be
>> compared with the one in the book. FRANK Prof. Frank Askin
>> Distinguished Professor of Law and Director Constitutional Litigation
>> Clinic Rutgers Law School/Newark (973) 353-5687>>> Scott Bieniek
>> 1/11/2012 4:53 PM>>>“Who in their right mind would risk a
>> felony conviction for this? And who would be able to do this in large enough
>> numbers to (1) affect the outcome of the election and (2) remain
>> undetected?” Hasen wrote. I'm not buying this argument. You could
>> make the same argument against quid-pro-quo c
>> orruption, and the need for contribution limits and compelled disclosure.
>> Quid-pro-quo corruption is typically a felony, and yet we have contribution
>> limits and compelled disclosure, in part, because the risk of prosecution is
>> deemed insufficient to deter the conduct, or at least prevent the appearance
>> thereof in the eyes of the public. If the appearance of corruption is
>> sufficient to support contribution limits and compelled public disclosure,
>> why isn't the appearance of in-person voter fraud sufficient to justify
>> voter ID? In return for Voter ID, we get: 1. Restored public confidence
>> that it is harder for O'Keefe and others to pull off a stunt like this.
>> 2. A method of detecting in-person voter fraud at the time of the crime.
>> And because wagers are all the rage this cycle, I'd be willing to wager
>> that a higher percentage of the public believe that Voter ID prevents
>> in-person fraud than those that believe limits or disclosure prevent
>> corruption. Scott Bieni!
>> ek On Jan 11, 2012, at 12:54 PM,"Ryan J. Reilly" wrote:
>> I'm writing a story about James O'Keefe's new video in which his
>> associates obtained ballots using the names of recently deceased New
>> Hampshire voters and was hoping someone would be available for an interview
>> on short notice. As far as I can tell this is the largest coordinated
>> attempt at in-person voter impersonation fraud, and it was conducted by a
>> group to show why voter ID laws were necessary. I'm at 202-527-9261.
>> Here's the video:
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-uVhhIlPk0&feature=player_embedded#!
>> Thanks,
>> -- Justin Levitt Associate Professor of Law Loyola Law
>> School | Los Angeles 919 Albany St. Los Angeles, CA 90015 213-736-7417
>> justin.levitt at lls.edu<mailto:justin.levitt at lls.edu> ssrn.com/author=698321
>> --
>> Rick Hasen
>> Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
>>
>> UC Irvine School of Law
>> 401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
>> Irvine, CA 92697-8000
>> 949.824.3072 - office
>> 949.824.0495 - fax
>> rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>
>> http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
>> http://electionlawblog.org
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________ Law-election mailing
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>> -- Justin Levitt Associate Professor of Law Loyola Law School | Los
>> Angeles 919 Albany St. Los Angeles, CA 90015 213-736-7417
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> --
> Dilexi iustitiam et odivi iniquitatem, propterea morior in exilio.
>
> (I have loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore I die in exile.)
>
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Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
949.824.0495 - fax
rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>
http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org
--
Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
949.824.0495 - fax
rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>
http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org
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