The Pros And Cons Of The Voting System
According to John H. Fund in Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy, voting irregularities cover a lengthy history dating back to the infancy of our nation (8). As detailed by William Bird in Vote: The Machinery of Democracy, whether it was in the earliest elections that were conducted by a voice vote, on hand-written paper ballots (votes), or on party tickets, which only listed the names from one political faction, instead of two or three, there have been frequent attempts to take advantage of the voting system in place (1). Whereas today, when an election is imminent and the airways are filled with candidate endorsements, the subject of voter identification usually steps into the public eye. Although a few states passed
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laws in recent years requiring its citizens to provide a photo ID (identification), most states still rely on proof of signature, which can be easily forged. To ensure the integrity of the election process, voters should be required to present a photo ID at the polls. It appears to be a straight forward process to go to the polls on an election day and cast your vote, but there are some requirements that must be met. You must be a citizen of the United States who is eighteen years old, or older, before the date of the election in which you wish to vote. According to the Shelby County Election Commission, you cannot be a convicted felon, but if you were found guilty of a felony and have received a pardon, or subsequently had your full rights of citizenship restored, then you are allowed full voting privileges just as other citizens without a criminal record. You can’t just show up at the polls and expect to be allowed to vote without prior authorization from your voting district. In order to partake as a qualified voter, you must become properly registered within your jurisdiction, which is the area of the city where you reside, no later than thirty days before the election. In most states, and in Tennessee, you can register at the election commission in your county of residence, the motor vehicle office, a public library, and many other designated government offices. You must present a valid photo ID and proof of residence when you register in person to establish your identity and the voting precinct to which you will be assigned. When you complete the enrollment process, a voter registration card is mailed to your residence. Hence, the thirty day requirement mentioned earlier allows the processing of your application, the verification of your identity, and mailing time to receive the voter registration card. If you register to vote by mail, and the postmarked envelope proves the thirty day obligation has been met, your enrollment will be processed in the same way, although there is a little divergence for voters who register by mail. You cannot request to cast your ballot as an absentee voter in the first election in which you will participate. You must report to the polls to vote for the very first time after becoming registered, and you are required to show your voter registration card or another piece of qualified proof of identity. These are reasonable requests since the mail-in application didn’t require a photo ID and most people provide their drivers license to complete the requirement when they arrive at the polls, although there are many other forms of easily attainable ID that would be accepted. The enrollment form did necessitate the disclosure of the applicant’s social security number so that it could be checked against the records of the driver’s license bureau or the social security administration for authentication. This ensures the application wasn’t an attempt to fraudulently register somebody who was ineligible.
According to the Shelby County Election Commission, people who have voted in a previous election “must only present evidence of their signature or sign an Affidavit of Identity.” Some people are in disbelief when they learn that a photo ID is not required to vote and others will insist they were required to show their state drivers license, but that is not the case in most states. Proof of your identity was provided during the registration process, so a photo ID isn’t required again when you arrive to cast your ballot. The poll worker usually frames a simple request for proof of your signature and most people automatically respond by removing their license from their wallet or purse. The driver’s license is the ID we use multiple times every day to verify our identities when making purchases or using credit cards and is usually the most accessible for us to retrieve, so why would we balk at presenting it once more? Any card or document that has the name and signature of the voter on it would satisfy the request, such as a social security card, credit card, or passport, and except for the passport, most people carry these ID’s on their person every day. The poll worker cannot require you to present your driver’s license or state issued photo ID card and it’s at this moment of the electoral process that we have a great deal of disagreement. Advocates for the photo ID requirement argue that fraud can be committed unless you compel the voters to verify their identity with a photo ID. Voter fraud is defined by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 as the act of an “individual appearing at a polling station, providing identification bearing a false name, and casting a ballot” (Wikipedia). Spencer Overton’s detailed research, as published by The Michigan Law Review Association, shows that as of 2006, only three states, Missouri, Georgia, and Indiana, required some sort of photo ID to vote upon arrival at the polls (639). He also inventoried the requirements at the polls for the remaining states, and they fell into four universal categories: 1. no documentary identification required; 2. documentary identification requested, not required; 3. photo identification requested, not required; and 4. documentary identification required (640-41). The first three categories basically have no steadfast requirements and the states that utilize these standards attempt to confirm voter’s identities in the most minimal of methods. The fourth category prefers a photo ID, but accepts non-photo identification such as a utility bill or a bank statement. A few less than a dozen states follow this documentation procedure which is only slightly better than the others at preventing fraud in the voter booth. Overton’s research describes other acts of voter fraud that have been formally prosecuted as impersonating a deceased voter, falsifying the initial voter registration information, concealing felon status, casting multiple votes, buying votes, and voting inappropriately by a non-citizen voting (654). He concedes that unfortunately, since 2002, only eighty-nine individuals have been charged (654).
The concept of voting originates from England where landowners had met with their leaders to consult over local matters since the Magna Carta was signed in 1215. The Magna Carta was a charter of laws protecting the rights of all subjects, whether noblemen or ordinary Englishmen, and their communities (Wikipedia, “Magna”). The settlers of the thirteen original colonies wanted to claim these traditional English rights and establish their own representatives by creating the “first popularly elected legislature in the New World” in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619 and calling it the House of Burgesses (U.S. History Online Textbook). This evolved into the Continental Congress, “a convention of delegates…from the thirteen colonies” which met in 1774 at the suggestion of Benjamin Franklin, to discuss independence and a halt to the tyranny of England’s rule (Wikipedia, “Congress”). Collectively, they wrote the Articles of Confederation, which was the “first written constitution of the United States of America” and they detailed how the new government was going to function (Wikipedia, “Congress”). They ultimately drafted an entirely new constitution in 1787 and how the delegates should be elected, either directly by the people or by the state legislators, was among the primary matters to decide. Adopting that elections should be decided by the people, the Congress created two articles concerning legislative and executive power and they define the basic fundamentals of how federal elections are to be held. The Constitution’s basic premises have stood the test of time, but in 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified to protect the rights of all United States citizens and to prohibit denying the right to vote of any person, by any State, based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (slavery) (United States, “Constitution”). Intimidation efforts by groups like the Ku Klux Klan, an organized collection of white men who felt superior to black men, were now supposed to be supported by the government and suppressed by federal troops, but almost all Southern males were disenfranchised, or deprived of their right to vote. Virtually all black males were denied because they were ex-slaves and white males who had participated with the South in the war effort were also excluded. From 1890 to 1908, many Southern states enacted eligibility laws that they believed were reasonable, including literacy tests and “poll taxes of one or two dollars,” and some states made it even difficult to register to vote (Overton 636). In early litigation, through around 1904, the Supreme Court upheld that state provisions applied to all voters, but in the early twentieth century, it began to find “such provisions unconstitutional” because of cases brought by poor whites and African Americans (United States, “Voting”). It wasn’t until the Twenty-fourth Amendment was proposed in 1962 that these limitations of poll taxes on citizens were addressed, even though the Nineteenth Amendment to assure women the right to vote was passed in 1920. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act passed as a landmark example of national legislation and “outlawed discriminatory voting practices” that the Southern states had been using to disenfranchise African Americans (United States, “Voting”). Although it repeated the language that is found in the Fifteenth Amendment, the Voting Rights Act prohibits individual states from “imposing any qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure” which would deny or alter any citizen of the United States the right to vote because of race or color (United States, “Voting”). The purpose of the passage of the Act by Congress was to specifically put an end to the practice of requiring otherwise eligible voters to pass a test that exhibited their ability to read in order to register which essentially ended the atmosphere of suppression that had existed since after the Civil War.
Some type of election fraud “can be found in every part of the United States,” whether it’s bogus, duplicate, or non-citizen voter registrations, illegal and unsubstantiated absentee ballots, an unqualified convicted felon, or shady recounts. It is probably on the rise because of the almost non-existence of voter identification (ID) enforcement. Votes provide a measurement of the public opinion regarding a candidate. However, election law involves competing values, such as access and integrity. With its hanging chads and intervention by the Supreme Court, the Florida voting debacle of the 2000 Presidential election compelled the United States “to confront an ugly reality: …we have the modern world’s sloppiest electoral” system (Fund 1). Scrutinizing our own electoral process, in just the way we have traditionally examined voting in other countries, is a stride in the right direction. Before we can improve our laws with more precise wording and better protections, we should institute a standardized national voting system to deal with fraud and voter mishaps. As John H. Fund states, “we have to get a sense of the magnitude of the problem we face” in order to be able to correct it (Fund 9).
To ensure the integrity of the election process, voters should be required to present a photo ID at the polls.
In most states, current standards are too lax and it is possible for anyone to go vote in person for somebody else, as long as they can pass for the gender indicated by the name of that other person. According to the Shelby County Election Commission, whose rules are similar to most found across the United States, “persons that registered to vote in person or have voted in a previous election are only required to present evidence of their signature or sign an Affidavit of Identity” (Shelby). Possessing another person’s proper name and their home address enables someone to easily determine the voting district and specific precinct for that person by checking with the website of the local election commission. Theoretically, a person could appear at the designated precinct on Election Day and cast a vote for that other person by signing an Affidavit of Identity, which is a sworn statement used to verify a signature. Spencer Overton states that the affidavit’s signature is supposed to be compared with the one provided when the person originally registered, which could have been up to decades earlier, but there is no assessment of the extent to which this procedure is followed, either by poll workers at the time of voting, or later by election officials, to possibly detect fraudulent signatures (679). Efforts to discern how this situation would be handled by the Shelby County Election Commission required numerous calls and messages until an answer was received: the signatures are not verified. Signatures are on file at the election offices in Memphis, and Richard Holden, the Administrator of Elections, revealed they don’t have enough staff to verify them (Holden). Signing an affidavit provides no verifiable evidence that a person is actually who they claim to be. If a friend requested another person to go vote for them because they are unexpectedly out of town, ill, or in the hospital, and they believe it’s alright to exercise their vote in this manner, the fraud would not be detected.
Voting for a deceased person, whose name has not been removed from the poll book, could be done by rogue poll workers or others who have been paid or bribed to do it. Tales of this type of fraud flourish, but there isn’t any known database that records investigations, charges, or convictions (Overton 654). People assume it couldn’t possibly be that easy to claim the identity of someone else because everyone must supply credentials constantly during normal daily business and personal transactions. Since certifiable ID is required when cashing a check, boarding an airplane, entering a Federal building, registering for college or a hotel room, and purchasing alcohol or tobacco products, certainly the criteria for voting should also include the same substantiation.
If the conventional voter registration rules aren’t amended to include presentation of a photo ID at the polls, voter fraud will continue and increase. For the same reason, Spencer Overton states “Polls show that eighty-one percent of Americans favor or strongly favor requiring voters to produce photo-identification cards before voting” (634). Because people must frequently present their ID in order to conduct ordinary activities, most individuals already possess one and have it readily available in their wallet or purse, and therefore shouldn’t have a problem whisking it out one more time when they go to vote. Using the ID already held and used as proof of identity is a logical solution and would negate any discussion concerning the need for instigating a picture voter card to be used specifically for voting privileges only. Requiring and implementing such a card, even at no cost to voters, would only put an undue burden on local municipalities and taxpayers, even though it would most likely replace the current voter registration card in use (Overton 675).
In his research for 2005, Spencer Overton maintains that two-thirds of the population of the whole United States lived in the bulk of states that didn’t require identification or documentation evidence at the time of voting “beyond federal requirements for first-time voters” (640). In these locations, election commission officials check the name a person gives upon arrival and compares it to a preprinted roll of registered voters. To confirm their identity, voters can choose between several methods, such as “signing an affidavit under penalty of perjury, stating their name, taking an oral oath reciting their birth date and address to the poll worker, or signing a poll book that is compared to the signature on the voter 's file (Overton 640). Although similar to the requirements mentioned earlier, the person wishing to vote has the additional option of taking an oral oath and reciting their date of birth, along with their address, to the poll worker as a means of identity verification. In this situation, not only would the imposter need the birth date, but they would also have to appear as the approximate age of the person for whom they are pretending to be.
Although this adds another facet of safety to the standards, it would be in the hands of the poll worker to execute some basic steps of verification. The date of birth is on the poll books, but not the age (Shelby). Holden stated that workers in Shelby County are trained to check the date when the need arises, but maintained that it could just as easily be overlooked (Holden). If it was checked, a quick mental computation would be needed to arrive at an approximate age for the voter and then a comparison of the age to the person standing there to recognize whether it seemed to be a match. This process would need to be performed in a matter of seconds in order to keep the voting lines moving, so fraudulent voting would still be a possibility if only because of the inability of the worker to perform the steps quickly and adequately. Requiring a photo ID would reduce, or entirely eliminate, these widely accepted methods of confirming identity at the polls. Opponents who contend a segment of voters would be disenfranchised by the ID obligation would need to use some common sense and realize that people live in a world that can produce results instantaneously over emails, texts, and apps. Utilizing modern day technology, ordering and obtaining an ID can be done in a matter of seconds, by most people. Of course, others could still procure one using traditional means. Claims of the abundant existence of citizens without a photo ID in their possession doesn’t ring true in the present day.
A person must either be a citizen born in the United States, or naturalized, to vote in an election. Article I, Section 2 of The Constitution of the United States includes phrasing that the House of Representatives should be organized of members who were chosen by the people of several states (United States). When reading the original Constitution, those words are about as close as any that can be found that relate to requiring citizenship for voting privileges. People could search those Articles of 1787 in vain and never find a concrete definition regarding who should have the right to vote. Citizenship is considered the most hard and fast rule for authorization to vote and is regulated at the state level by the legislature. The intent of the authors of the Constitution appears to have been to leave the decision to the states since an explicit declaration relating to citizenship wasn’t included.
In contrast, Section 1 of the 14th Amendment makes a far-reaching statement that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside” (United States). This decree was so broad that further clarification would later be written, but naturalization is basically the achievement of citizenship by somebody who was not born in the United States. The applicant for naturalization must meet basic stipulations and promise to uphold the laws of the country by pledging their allegiance. The process entails a minimum residency requirement of fourteen years and would seem to be cost prohibitive since the aid of an attorney is almost always required (Wikipedia). The phrase “all persons born” seems straightforward and unable to be open for any further discussion, but there would also be many facets of clarification attached to it. One of the most common pertains to United States citizens who give birth while in another country. Their infant is automatically granted citizenship as long as the parents had retained their own and formed no allegiance to the foreign country (Wikipedia). Other common cases which were addressed because of some minor controversy concerning eligibility pertaining to birth included the birth of a child by citizens in Washington, D.C. and the adoption of an infant from another country by United States citizens (Wikipedia).
It is necessary to determine the percentage of fraudulent votes among the millions cast, in order to be able to reach a majority decision on whether a photo ID should be required. Per Spencer Overton, “to date, no systematic, empirical study of voter fraud has been conducted at either the national or the state level” which implies the scope and nature of voter fraud is an estimated assessment open to unconfirmed anecdotes as well as facts (653). Tales of fraud at the polls thrive within the political parties and candidates would often use it as a part of their platform to get voters riled up and motivated. Any politician knows that an energetic supporter will work harder for the cause at hand. Mixing some documented fraud cases with misleading generalizations would combine to benefit the contender while skewing the actual data that could be accumulated to form new regulations.
As a result of the 2000 Presidential election, and its ensuing decision by the Supreme Court, the writer John H.
Fund declared that our country had only been surviving instead of confronting the dreadful reality that our election process could be breached (11). Reform is easy to speak about, but difficult to bring about. For reasons mostly related to ineffectual balloting systems, about two percent of all votes cast nationwide in the 2000 presidential contest weren’t counted (Fund 2). According to a poll done in July 2004 by John Zogby, nearly ten percent of all Americans doubt their votes have been counted accurately (Fund 2). Widely publicizing such information could lower voter participation, already a prevalent problem, which is evidenced by the generally low percentage of participation versus voters registered during elections. New and improving technology should be utilized to upgrade subpar voting methods still operated in rural areas. The enhancements of voting equipment would assist in the accuracy of election results and help eliminate costly lawsuits, appeals, and recounts. Anything that would further discourage voter turnout would be in direct opposition of the intent of any future legislation that would be passed in order to help in the process of determining fraud. Voting irregularities are commonplace, but many prosecutors linger in attempting to intervene because convictions for fraud are almost non-existent (Overton 654). They would be inclined to protect their job since they are politically appointed and it would be easier to downplay the election process incompetence. Legislative committees assigned to study the issue would need better data about documented fraud cases to perform statistical analysis and fully understand whether there would be significant gains with the institution of a photo
ID.
Works Cited
“Continental Congress.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 29 Mar. 2011. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.
Fund, John H. Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2004. Web. 11 Apr. 2011.
"Help America Vote Act." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.10 Mar. 2011. Web. 22 Mar. 2011.
Holden, Richard. Personal interview. 8 Apr. 2011.
“Magna Carta.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 1 Apr. 2011. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.
"Naturalization." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 29 Mar. 2011. Web. 12 Apr. 2011.
Overton, Spencer. “Voter Identification.” Michigan Law Review 105.4 (2007): 631-81. Web. 11 Apr. 2011.
Tennessee. Department of State Division of Elections. Shelby County Election Commission. Web. 9 Apr. 2011.
“The House of Burgesses.” U.S. History Online Textbook. Independence Hall Association in Philadelphia, 2011. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.
United States. The U.S. National Archives and Records Association. Constitution of the United States. 105th Cong., 1st sess. Washington: GPO. Web. 9 Apr. 2011..
United States. The U.S. National Archives and Records Association. Voting Rights Act. 89th Cong., 1st sess. Washington: GPO. Web. 4 Apr. 2011.
laws in recent years requiring its citizens to provide a photo ID (identification), most states still rely on proof of signature, which can be easily forged. To ensure the integrity of the election process, voters should be required to present a photo ID at the polls. It appears to be a straight forward process to go to the polls on an election day and cast your vote, but there are some requirements that must be met. You must be a citizen of the United States who is eighteen years old, or older, before the date of the election in which you wish to vote. According to the Shelby County Election Commission, you cannot be a convicted felon, but if you were found guilty of a felony and have received a pardon, or subsequently had your full rights of citizenship restored, then you are allowed full voting privileges just as other citizens without a criminal record. You can’t just show up at the polls and expect to be allowed to vote without prior authorization from your voting district. In order to partake as a qualified voter, you must become properly registered within your jurisdiction, which is the area of the city where you reside, no later than thirty days before the election. In most states, and in Tennessee, you can register at the election commission in your county of residence, the motor vehicle office, a public library, and many other designated government offices. You must present a valid photo ID and proof of residence when you register in person to establish your identity and the voting precinct to which you will be assigned. When you complete the enrollment process, a voter registration card is mailed to your residence. Hence, the thirty day requirement mentioned earlier allows the processing of your application, the verification of your identity, and mailing time to receive the voter registration card. If you register to vote by mail, and the postmarked envelope proves the thirty day obligation has been met, your enrollment will be processed in the same way, although there is a little divergence for voters who register by mail. You cannot request to cast your ballot as an absentee voter in the first election in which you will participate. You must report to the polls to vote for the very first time after becoming registered, and you are required to show your voter registration card or another piece of qualified proof of identity. These are reasonable requests since the mail-in application didn’t require a photo ID and most people provide their drivers license to complete the requirement when they arrive at the polls, although there are many other forms of easily attainable ID that would be accepted. The enrollment form did necessitate the disclosure of the applicant’s social security number so that it could be checked against the records of the driver’s license bureau or the social security administration for authentication. This ensures the application wasn’t an attempt to fraudulently register somebody who was ineligible.
According to the Shelby County Election Commission, people who have voted in a previous election “must only present evidence of their signature or sign an Affidavit of Identity.” Some people are in disbelief when they learn that a photo ID is not required to vote and others will insist they were required to show their state drivers license, but that is not the case in most states. Proof of your identity was provided during the registration process, so a photo ID isn’t required again when you arrive to cast your ballot. The poll worker usually frames a simple request for proof of your signature and most people automatically respond by removing their license from their wallet or purse. The driver’s license is the ID we use multiple times every day to verify our identities when making purchases or using credit cards and is usually the most accessible for us to retrieve, so why would we balk at presenting it once more? Any card or document that has the name and signature of the voter on it would satisfy the request, such as a social security card, credit card, or passport, and except for the passport, most people carry these ID’s on their person every day. The poll worker cannot require you to present your driver’s license or state issued photo ID card and it’s at this moment of the electoral process that we have a great deal of disagreement. Advocates for the photo ID requirement argue that fraud can be committed unless you compel the voters to verify their identity with a photo ID. Voter fraud is defined by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 as the act of an “individual appearing at a polling station, providing identification bearing a false name, and casting a ballot” (Wikipedia). Spencer Overton’s detailed research, as published by The Michigan Law Review Association, shows that as of 2006, only three states, Missouri, Georgia, and Indiana, required some sort of photo ID to vote upon arrival at the polls (639). He also inventoried the requirements at the polls for the remaining states, and they fell into four universal categories: 1. no documentary identification required; 2. documentary identification requested, not required; 3. photo identification requested, not required; and 4. documentary identification required (640-41). The first three categories basically have no steadfast requirements and the states that utilize these standards attempt to confirm voter’s identities in the most minimal of methods. The fourth category prefers a photo ID, but accepts non-photo identification such as a utility bill or a bank statement. A few less than a dozen states follow this documentation procedure which is only slightly better than the others at preventing fraud in the voter booth. Overton’s research describes other acts of voter fraud that have been formally prosecuted as impersonating a deceased voter, falsifying the initial voter registration information, concealing felon status, casting multiple votes, buying votes, and voting inappropriately by a non-citizen voting (654). He concedes that unfortunately, since 2002, only eighty-nine individuals have been charged (654).
The concept of voting originates from England where landowners had met with their leaders to consult over local matters since the Magna Carta was signed in 1215. The Magna Carta was a charter of laws protecting the rights of all subjects, whether noblemen or ordinary Englishmen, and their communities (Wikipedia, “Magna”). The settlers of the thirteen original colonies wanted to claim these traditional English rights and establish their own representatives by creating the “first popularly elected legislature in the New World” in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619 and calling it the House of Burgesses (U.S. History Online Textbook). This evolved into the Continental Congress, “a convention of delegates…from the thirteen colonies” which met in 1774 at the suggestion of Benjamin Franklin, to discuss independence and a halt to the tyranny of England’s rule (Wikipedia, “Congress”). Collectively, they wrote the Articles of Confederation, which was the “first written constitution of the United States of America” and they detailed how the new government was going to function (Wikipedia, “Congress”). They ultimately drafted an entirely new constitution in 1787 and how the delegates should be elected, either directly by the people or by the state legislators, was among the primary matters to decide. Adopting that elections should be decided by the people, the Congress created two articles concerning legislative and executive power and they define the basic fundamentals of how federal elections are to be held. The Constitution’s basic premises have stood the test of time, but in 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified to protect the rights of all United States citizens and to prohibit denying the right to vote of any person, by any State, based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (slavery) (United States, “Constitution”). Intimidation efforts by groups like the Ku Klux Klan, an organized collection of white men who felt superior to black men, were now supposed to be supported by the government and suppressed by federal troops, but almost all Southern males were disenfranchised, or deprived of their right to vote. Virtually all black males were denied because they were ex-slaves and white males who had participated with the South in the war effort were also excluded. From 1890 to 1908, many Southern states enacted eligibility laws that they believed were reasonable, including literacy tests and “poll taxes of one or two dollars,” and some states made it even difficult to register to vote (Overton 636). In early litigation, through around 1904, the Supreme Court upheld that state provisions applied to all voters, but in the early twentieth century, it began to find “such provisions unconstitutional” because of cases brought by poor whites and African Americans (United States, “Voting”). It wasn’t until the Twenty-fourth Amendment was proposed in 1962 that these limitations of poll taxes on citizens were addressed, even though the Nineteenth Amendment to assure women the right to vote was passed in 1920. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act passed as a landmark example of national legislation and “outlawed discriminatory voting practices” that the Southern states had been using to disenfranchise African Americans (United States, “Voting”). Although it repeated the language that is found in the Fifteenth Amendment, the Voting Rights Act prohibits individual states from “imposing any qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure” which would deny or alter any citizen of the United States the right to vote because of race or color (United States, “Voting”). The purpose of the passage of the Act by Congress was to specifically put an end to the practice of requiring otherwise eligible voters to pass a test that exhibited their ability to read in order to register which essentially ended the atmosphere of suppression that had existed since after the Civil War.
Some type of election fraud “can be found in every part of the United States,” whether it’s bogus, duplicate, or non-citizen voter registrations, illegal and unsubstantiated absentee ballots, an unqualified convicted felon, or shady recounts. It is probably on the rise because of the almost non-existence of voter identification (ID) enforcement. Votes provide a measurement of the public opinion regarding a candidate. However, election law involves competing values, such as access and integrity. With its hanging chads and intervention by the Supreme Court, the Florida voting debacle of the 2000 Presidential election compelled the United States “to confront an ugly reality: …we have the modern world’s sloppiest electoral” system (Fund 1). Scrutinizing our own electoral process, in just the way we have traditionally examined voting in other countries, is a stride in the right direction. Before we can improve our laws with more precise wording and better protections, we should institute a standardized national voting system to deal with fraud and voter mishaps. As John H. Fund states, “we have to get a sense of the magnitude of the problem we face” in order to be able to correct it (Fund 9).
To ensure the integrity of the election process, voters should be required to present a photo ID at the polls.
In most states, current standards are too lax and it is possible for anyone to go vote in person for somebody else, as long as they can pass for the gender indicated by the name of that other person. According to the Shelby County Election Commission, whose rules are similar to most found across the United States, “persons that registered to vote in person or have voted in a previous election are only required to present evidence of their signature or sign an Affidavit of Identity” (Shelby). Possessing another person’s proper name and their home address enables someone to easily determine the voting district and specific precinct for that person by checking with the website of the local election commission. Theoretically, a person could appear at the designated precinct on Election Day and cast a vote for that other person by signing an Affidavit of Identity, which is a sworn statement used to verify a signature. Spencer Overton states that the affidavit’s signature is supposed to be compared with the one provided when the person originally registered, which could have been up to decades earlier, but there is no assessment of the extent to which this procedure is followed, either by poll workers at the time of voting, or later by election officials, to possibly detect fraudulent signatures (679). Efforts to discern how this situation would be handled by the Shelby County Election Commission required numerous calls and messages until an answer was received: the signatures are not verified. Signatures are on file at the election offices in Memphis, and Richard Holden, the Administrator of Elections, revealed they don’t have enough staff to verify them (Holden). Signing an affidavit provides no verifiable evidence that a person is actually who they claim to be. If a friend requested another person to go vote for them because they are unexpectedly out of town, ill, or in the hospital, and they believe it’s alright to exercise their vote in this manner, the fraud would not be detected.
Voting for a deceased person, whose name has not been removed from the poll book, could be done by rogue poll workers or others who have been paid or bribed to do it. Tales of this type of fraud flourish, but there isn’t any known database that records investigations, charges, or convictions (Overton 654). People assume it couldn’t possibly be that easy to claim the identity of someone else because everyone must supply credentials constantly during normal daily business and personal transactions. Since certifiable ID is required when cashing a check, boarding an airplane, entering a Federal building, registering for college or a hotel room, and purchasing alcohol or tobacco products, certainly the criteria for voting should also include the same substantiation.
If the conventional voter registration rules aren’t amended to include presentation of a photo ID at the polls, voter fraud will continue and increase. For the same reason, Spencer Overton states “Polls show that eighty-one percent of Americans favor or strongly favor requiring voters to produce photo-identification cards before voting” (634). Because people must frequently present their ID in order to conduct ordinary activities, most individuals already possess one and have it readily available in their wallet or purse, and therefore shouldn’t have a problem whisking it out one more time when they go to vote. Using the ID already held and used as proof of identity is a logical solution and would negate any discussion concerning the need for instigating a picture voter card to be used specifically for voting privileges only. Requiring and implementing such a card, even at no cost to voters, would only put an undue burden on local municipalities and taxpayers, even though it would most likely replace the current voter registration card in use (Overton 675).
In his research for 2005, Spencer Overton maintains that two-thirds of the population of the whole United States lived in the bulk of states that didn’t require identification or documentation evidence at the time of voting “beyond federal requirements for first-time voters” (640). In these locations, election commission officials check the name a person gives upon arrival and compares it to a preprinted roll of registered voters. To confirm their identity, voters can choose between several methods, such as “signing an affidavit under penalty of perjury, stating their name, taking an oral oath reciting their birth date and address to the poll worker, or signing a poll book that is compared to the signature on the voter 's file (Overton 640). Although similar to the requirements mentioned earlier, the person wishing to vote has the additional option of taking an oral oath and reciting their date of birth, along with their address, to the poll worker as a means of identity verification. In this situation, not only would the imposter need the birth date, but they would also have to appear as the approximate age of the person for whom they are pretending to be.
Although this adds another facet of safety to the standards, it would be in the hands of the poll worker to execute some basic steps of verification. The date of birth is on the poll books, but not the age (Shelby). Holden stated that workers in Shelby County are trained to check the date when the need arises, but maintained that it could just as easily be overlooked (Holden). If it was checked, a quick mental computation would be needed to arrive at an approximate age for the voter and then a comparison of the age to the person standing there to recognize whether it seemed to be a match. This process would need to be performed in a matter of seconds in order to keep the voting lines moving, so fraudulent voting would still be a possibility if only because of the inability of the worker to perform the steps quickly and adequately. Requiring a photo ID would reduce, or entirely eliminate, these widely accepted methods of confirming identity at the polls. Opponents who contend a segment of voters would be disenfranchised by the ID obligation would need to use some common sense and realize that people live in a world that can produce results instantaneously over emails, texts, and apps. Utilizing modern day technology, ordering and obtaining an ID can be done in a matter of seconds, by most people. Of course, others could still procure one using traditional means. Claims of the abundant existence of citizens without a photo ID in their possession doesn’t ring true in the present day.
A person must either be a citizen born in the United States, or naturalized, to vote in an election. Article I, Section 2 of The Constitution of the United States includes phrasing that the House of Representatives should be organized of members who were chosen by the people of several states (United States). When reading the original Constitution, those words are about as close as any that can be found that relate to requiring citizenship for voting privileges. People could search those Articles of 1787 in vain and never find a concrete definition regarding who should have the right to vote. Citizenship is considered the most hard and fast rule for authorization to vote and is regulated at the state level by the legislature. The intent of the authors of the Constitution appears to have been to leave the decision to the states since an explicit declaration relating to citizenship wasn’t included.
In contrast, Section 1 of the 14th Amendment makes a far-reaching statement that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside” (United States). This decree was so broad that further clarification would later be written, but naturalization is basically the achievement of citizenship by somebody who was not born in the United States. The applicant for naturalization must meet basic stipulations and promise to uphold the laws of the country by pledging their allegiance. The process entails a minimum residency requirement of fourteen years and would seem to be cost prohibitive since the aid of an attorney is almost always required (Wikipedia). The phrase “all persons born” seems straightforward and unable to be open for any further discussion, but there would also be many facets of clarification attached to it. One of the most common pertains to United States citizens who give birth while in another country. Their infant is automatically granted citizenship as long as the parents had retained their own and formed no allegiance to the foreign country (Wikipedia). Other common cases which were addressed because of some minor controversy concerning eligibility pertaining to birth included the birth of a child by citizens in Washington, D.C. and the adoption of an infant from another country by United States citizens (Wikipedia).
It is necessary to determine the percentage of fraudulent votes among the millions cast, in order to be able to reach a majority decision on whether a photo ID should be required. Per Spencer Overton, “to date, no systematic, empirical study of voter fraud has been conducted at either the national or the state level” which implies the scope and nature of voter fraud is an estimated assessment open to unconfirmed anecdotes as well as facts (653). Tales of fraud at the polls thrive within the political parties and candidates would often use it as a part of their platform to get voters riled up and motivated. Any politician knows that an energetic supporter will work harder for the cause at hand. Mixing some documented fraud cases with misleading generalizations would combine to benefit the contender while skewing the actual data that could be accumulated to form new regulations.
As a result of the 2000 Presidential election, and its ensuing decision by the Supreme Court, the writer John H.
Fund declared that our country had only been surviving instead of confronting the dreadful reality that our election process could be breached (11). Reform is easy to speak about, but difficult to bring about. For reasons mostly related to ineffectual balloting systems, about two percent of all votes cast nationwide in the 2000 presidential contest weren’t counted (Fund 2). According to a poll done in July 2004 by John Zogby, nearly ten percent of all Americans doubt their votes have been counted accurately (Fund 2). Widely publicizing such information could lower voter participation, already a prevalent problem, which is evidenced by the generally low percentage of participation versus voters registered during elections. New and improving technology should be utilized to upgrade subpar voting methods still operated in rural areas. The enhancements of voting equipment would assist in the accuracy of election results and help eliminate costly lawsuits, appeals, and recounts. Anything that would further discourage voter turnout would be in direct opposition of the intent of any future legislation that would be passed in order to help in the process of determining fraud. Voting irregularities are commonplace, but many prosecutors linger in attempting to intervene because convictions for fraud are almost non-existent (Overton 654). They would be inclined to protect their job since they are politically appointed and it would be easier to downplay the election process incompetence. Legislative committees assigned to study the issue would need better data about documented fraud cases to perform statistical analysis and fully understand whether there would be significant gains with the institution of a photo
ID.
Works Cited
“Continental Congress.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 29 Mar. 2011. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.
Fund, John H. Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2004. Web. 11 Apr. 2011.
"Help America Vote Act." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.10 Mar. 2011. Web. 22 Mar. 2011.
Holden, Richard. Personal interview. 8 Apr. 2011.
“Magna Carta.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 1 Apr. 2011. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.
"Naturalization." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 29 Mar. 2011. Web. 12 Apr. 2011.
Overton, Spencer. “Voter Identification.” Michigan Law Review 105.4 (2007): 631-81. Web. 11 Apr. 2011.
Tennessee. Department of State Division of Elections. Shelby County Election Commission. Web. 9 Apr. 2011.
“The House of Burgesses.” U.S. History Online Textbook. Independence Hall Association in Philadelphia, 2011. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.
United States. The U.S. National Archives and Records Association. Constitution of the United States. 105th Cong., 1st sess. Washington: GPO. Web. 9 Apr. 2011..
United States. The U.S. National Archives and Records Association. Voting Rights Act. 89th Cong., 1st sess. Washington: GPO. Web. 4 Apr. 2011.