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Some numbers:

Existing studies are incomplete but provide some insight. For example, a statewide survey of each of Ohio’s eighty-eight county Boards of Elections found only four instances of ineligible persons attempting to vote out of a total of 9,078,728 votes cast in the state’s 2002 and 2004 general elections. This is a fraud rate of 0.000044%.’ The Carter-Baker Commission’s Report noted that since October 2002, federal officials had charged eighty-nine individuals with casting multiple votes, providing false information about their felon status, buying votes, submitting false voter registration information, or voting improperly as a noncitizen. Examined in the context of the 196,139,871 ballots cast between October 2002 and August 2005, this represents a fraud rate of 0.000045% (and note also that not all of the activities charged would have been prevented by a photo- identification requirement) (Overton, 654).

Some more from Indiana:

Even including suspected but unproven reports of fraud, the State and its allies have uncovered remarkably little evidence of any misconduct that Indiana’s law could prevent. Out of almost 400 million votes cast in general elections alone since 2000, the briefs cite one attempt at impersonation that was thwarted without a photo ID requirement, and nine unresolved cases where impersonation fraud at the polls was suspected but not proven. Nine possible examples out of hundreds of millions — and these nine cases might just as well have been due to clerical error (Levitt, 1).

These are fairly typical examples of what we find when we look empirically at voter fraud allegations. There are a host more in the Brennan’ Center’s report, The Truth about Voter Fraud.

Ok, so what about the cost? Voter ID laws increase bureaucracy and they increase the time needed to vote. Worse, and more importantly, we know that a substantial number of poor and/or elderly persons do not have adequate IDs. This means that to stop an essentially non-existent problem we must increase the costs of the running the election and set up situations in which otherwise eligible voters might be denied the right to vote.

To add some numbers to this notion, there are more people without IDs than is likely assumed by most readers. To wit:

The 2005 Carter-Baker Commission estimated that 12% of voting- age Americans lack a driver’s license, and an analysis of 2003 Census and Federal Highway Administration data estimates that twenty-two million voting-age citizens lack a driver’s license. Some 3-4% of voting-age Americans carry a nondriver’s photo-identification card issued by a state motor vehicle agency in lieu of a driver’s license. Thus, according to the 2001 Carter-Ford Commission, an estimated 6-10% of voting-age Americans (approximately eleven million to twenty million potential voters) do not possess a driver’s license or a state-issued nondriver’s photo- identification card (Overton 658).

That’s a lot of voters who could be disenfranchised—and to stop less than a rounding error’s worth of likely voter fraud. This does not strike me as prudent, or efficacious, public policy. (It is worth noting that some voter ID rules require something less official than a state-issued ID).

And, not only are there a lot of persons sans ID, they are clustered in particular groups. For example:

Other studies on demographic disparities in photo identification focus largely on particular areas and localities. According to the Georgia chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons, for example, 36% of Georgians over age seventy-five lack a driver’s license. In 1994, the U.S. Department of Justice found that African- Americans in Louisiana were four to five times less likely than white residents to have government-sanctioned photo identification. Of the forty million Americans with disabilities, nearly 10% lack identification issued by the government (Overton 659).

So, as is often noted, voter ID laws will more have the effect of making it difficult for poor, elderly, African-American, and/or disabled persons from voting whilst curbing a non-existent problem.

In short: voter ID legislation is a solution to a nonexistent problem which ultimately causes new problems.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/voter-fraud-exposed/
 
It's all ACORN driven paranoia. They see the numbers of people ACORN registered coupled with the reports of voter registration fraud committed by some of ACORN's employees, and they think there's some nationwide plot to register a bunch of fictional people to vote, then having people assume those identities and go vote.

Evidence to the contrary won't persuade them.
 

OldGaffer

Governor
It's all ACORN driven paranoia. They see the numbers of people ACORN registered coupled with the reports of voter registration fraud committed by some of ACORN's employees, and they think there's some nationwide plot to register a bunch of fictional people to vote, then having people assume those identities and go vote.

Evidence to the contrary won't persuade them.
Absolutely correct.
 

JuliefromOhio

President
Supporting Member
Ohio accepts photo ID or 2 documents e.g. rent receipt, utility bills that confirm residence.

Gov Kasich and repubs backed off requiring photo ID only.......I suspect because they realized they might lose votes from their elderly voters.
 

Mytzlplk

Governor
yep, thta's been argued and established for a very long time now

as we know, cons are either to stupid or dishonest to learn the lesson
 

Corruptbuddha

Governor
You have to show ID to:

write a check, drive a car, rent a house, join a gym, open a bank account, get on an airplane, get on a cruise liner, get on a train, pick up a package at the post office, receive registered mail, use a credit card, buy a pack of cigarettes, buy a can of beer, get food stamps, get welfare, get a JOB, see the doctor, enroll in a school, get married, get a divorce, collect a lotto jackpot, join the military, visit a family member in prison, get your utilities turned on, rent a house, buy a house, buy a car, buy Sudaphed, rent a DVD, collect unemployment, rent a horse, get a fishing license, buy a gun, get a library card, travel abroad, donate blood, donate sperm, donate eggs, and you even have to have an ID to cash your tax return.

But, according to the left, when it come to performing the most basic and sacred duty of a citizen of a Republic, voting, you need nothing prove who you are.

That's stupidity that borders on the absurd.
 

GordonGecko

President
Yuri, there are those on the Right (JackDallas overtly so).....who do not accept that a Republican EVER "honestly" loses an election. Ever.
 

CatsEye

Mayor
It's all ACORN driven paranoia. They see the numbers of people ACORN registered coupled with the reports of voter registration fraud committed by some of ACORN's employees, and they think there's some nationwide plot to register a bunch of fictional people to vote, then having people assume those identities and go vote.

Evidence to the contrary won't persuade them.
By law (at least in most states) ACORN was required to submit all registration applications to the proper election authorities, regardless of whose name was on the application, eg "Mickey Mouse". So this has less to do with ACORN employees intentionally committing registration fraud, and more to do with a few lazy employees.
 
I call bullshit on your little screed. Personally, I do not oppose the voter ID lawas as long as two conditions are met:

1) That it is provided at zero cost to the voter to avoid being labeled a poll tax.

2) That steps are taken to make getting the required ID's easier.

Back in 2008 there was a story about a convent in Indiana where a bunch of 80 -90 year old retired nuns weren't allowed to vote under Indiana's Voter ID law because they didn't have any ID, even though the election officials at their polling place were their fellow nuns who had known them for decades. My point is that while it's easy to think that everyone has an ID, we should take steps to insure that the exceptions be provided with the required ID's so as not to prevent people from voting in our rush to catch the exceedingly rare fraudulent voter. That would be a greater travesty.
 
You're preaching to the choir, but thanks for the info - it never hurts to put it out there in the hopes that some knucklehead might actually learn something.
 

Bo-4

Senator
Nice try CB, but elderly and poor folk don't take a lot of vacations or write a lot of checks out in public.

I haven't written a check at the grocery store in 15 years and don't like standing in line behind those who do.

That said, they now have scanners to run against a database of bad checks. No ID is required.

And Redbox DVD machines do not ask for DL's.
 

Corruptbuddha

Governor
The fact remains that for all of the bullshit you have to produce an ID for, voting (taking the future of this nation into your hands) should be one of them.
 

Corruptbuddha

Governor
What?

The 'elderly' take more vacations than anyone.

And don't you think that if you need an ID to catch a fish, that you should also need one to cast a vote? Hell those elderly you speak of need an ID to get into AARP but not to decide who'll run the nation?

Stupidity.
 

MaryAnne

Governor
How could they find fraud when the Republicans paid watchers to sit at all Precincts? They paid each one $125, more than the Judges.
Ours wondered why in the world she was there because we kept everything strictly business. Others were not so nice.
 
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