Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Voter Fraud: As Easy As Taking Candy from a Baby

What kind of country do we live in where one needs to show exactly zero forms of ID when one goes to vote?

(Or is it just a Chicago/Cook County thing?)

4 comments:

chestertonian said...

LOL, John, no, I voted today in
Springfield and had to show zero id as well.

And that isn't all. They moved my voting place to a senior hi-rise, probably a scheme of local dems to get more seniors to vote for dems. Sure enough the place was packed with gum-chomping seasoned citizens with their walkers wheeling about, all confused by the new electronic voting machines.

But they weren't as confused as the election judges. I signed the form and then the woman said, "Your signature doesn't match the one you used last time," I looked and sure enough she had turned to the page with my wife's signature. No, lady, "Sean" does not look like "Julie" any way you slice it. But she got unfuddled soon enough and allowed me to vote. And still didn't ask for my ID.

The Dutchman said...

Identity is verified the old fashioned way, by signature.

As a long time Republican judge of election (probably twenty years now...) I can say the problem is not with people trying to vote someone else's name, it's people who move and fail to re-register at their new address. You have to miss at least two elections before the Board of Election Commissioners tries to verify that you still live in the same place and even then, if you can prove at the polling place that you still live where your inactive registration is, then we have to let you vote.

Yesterday we had one trouble-maker who threw a fit because his registration had lapsed, and one fellow who got violent because the poll sheet recorded him has having voted early (a bad idea all around). Even though we offered to let him cast a provisional ballot (subject to later verification), the second fellow became nasty and insulting, so I had a cop throw him out.

John Jansen said...

Dutchman—

Interesting.

As it happens, I can think of at least two people I know who are currently in possession of voter registration cards for two addresses — one for their current address and one at a former address.

For the record, they're honest folk, so they only vote at their current address; they just haven't gotten around to notifying the Board of Election Commissioners (or maybe they have and the latter haven't gotten around to removing their old records from the system.)

Anonymous said...

It's the same in the village where I vote. Maybe it's because everybody knows everybody else. I don't remember ever presenting any ID card during election time!