[EL] Voter Fraud

[Hess, Doug]

Jim,

There is an important policy difference between hazards and risks. Hazards lurk everywhere. There are chemicals in most homes that could be MacGyvered into something dangerous to the public, for instance. However, the risk of that happening is low because the probability of somebody doing that is low (for various reasons) and the harm to banning lots of cleaning agents would be larger than the harm prevented with such a ban. (However, large scale purchases of some chemicals are tracked, etc.)

Thus, Jim, you need to show that the risk (not hazard) of harm from the voter fraud of the kind you mention is greater than the risk of harm from the proposed solution. This is the collar of the criteria you put forth. Right?

It seems to me that the number of legitimate votes prevented by strict ID policy would be far larger than the number of illegal votes it would prevent. 

Make sense? 

(P.S. This issue has been discussed ad nauseam on this list.)

Douglas R Hess
Assistant Professor of Political Science
 
On research leave for Fall Semester 2016.
http://www.douglasrhess.com 

Grinnell College
1210 Park Street, Carnegie Hall #309
Grinnell, IA 50112 
--------------------
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2016 12:21:43 -0400
From: JBoppjr at aol.com
To: Kevin.Greenberg at flastergreenberg.com
Cc: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Voter Fraud
Message-ID: <30f311.189bd16c.4523df96 at aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

As a general matter, we need to ensure that every vote counts.  This  has two aspects, in my view, that are of equal weight and  consequence.  The right to vote is violated by either (1) unreasonably  preventing an eligible person from voting or (2) by canceling out an  eligible person's vote by an ineligible person voting.  Liberals focus on  (1) and, in my view, pay little attention to (2).
 
In my post, I did not focus on "in person voter ID requirements," but raised the general issue of voter fraud since I think voter fraud is a serious violation of a person's right to vote.  And certainly there are many different ways that this problem is and can be dealt with.
 
Obviously, at this point, registration fraud is most likely to be the focus  of attention, since voting, by in large, is not occurring.  The voter registration process was created as a principal means to prevent voter fraud itself since prior registration provides a reasonable time to verify whether a  particular person, who has registered to vote, is in fact eligible to vote. And  if someone is not registered, the person cannot vote. Same day registration,  that many liberal advocate, would remove this time-tested and effective voter  fraud prevention measure.
 
Of course, no one in their right mind would commit voter registration fraud  without having in mind, and without having a plan, to convert that registered  voter into an actual vote.  The vote is the payoff, not the registration  itself. So it is irrelevant that there is no proven voter fraud yet, since  registration fraud is just the first step to voter fraud.
 
And as to your question,  it is perfectly obvious to me that  an in person voter ID requirement is a substantial impediment to someone  voting a fraudulently registered voter. The person would need to not only  fraudulently register a person but also create a phony ID to vote that  person.
 
So my view is that we need to strike a reasonable balance  between two concerns that are of equal weight. First, all eligible  voters must have a reasonable opportunity to vote.  And second we must  take reasonable efforts to make sure that all ineligible voters do not vote. I  understand that striking that balance is difficult and is often a subjective  judgment.  But I rarely see liberals doing anything other than disparaging  and denigrating those that raise one valid side of this issue. And usually it  entails what you resorted to, claims that these are but " efforts to suppress  the votes of the poor, old, and young without any basis in fact" or is just  "fact-free hysteria" ie, nonexistent, which was mild actually since liberal  usually just call it "racist."

[Snipped]