On "Voter Fraud"

Oh, you RedState front pagers, you're so cute when you have no clue what you're talking about.  Pejman Yousefzadeh, on reports of felons voting in Ohio:

Tell Me Again How Voter Fraud Doesn't Exist . . .

Because this story would beg to differ. Note that you are not supposed to be able to vote with a felony conviction.

If there was any justice in the world, every media establishment would be flooding into Ohio asking just what kind of shoddy oversight was allowing convicted felons to register to vote.

That "shoddy oversight" would be the Ohio Secretary of State's Office, because under Ohio law, ex-felons have the legal right to vote.  

Republicans want to kick up as much sand as they can about so-called "voter fraud," in order to cast doubt on the election results and prepare the rhetorical ground for post-election recounts.  Coincidentally, I spoke at a Federalist Society symposium yesterday on election law, and while the Wall Street Journal's John Fund and I don't agree on much, he and I both stressed the need to have these elections run in such a way -- especially at this precarious juncture in our nation's path -- that gives citizens the confidence that the election was conducted honorably and that the votes were tallied properly.

Now, part of where he and I differ on that is that while he's more concerned about alleged fraud committed by potential voters -- and on that, he like many other conservatives tends to conflate issues of voter registration problems with actual voter impersonation at the polls -- I'd rather shift the focus to fraud committed to potential voters, as I explained yesterday:

Last week, fliers were anonymously placed under car windshield wipers in minority sections of my home town Philadelphia, insisting that "on the day of the election there will be undercover officers to execute warrants" based on those who come out to vote and that anyone who had "outstanding warrants or traffic offenses" had better clear things up, since voting was the one time they had to use their real identities.  The flier also asserted that at polling places, police cars equipped with "plate identification computers" would boot any scofflaw cards.  (Similarly, in Northwest Baltimore in 2002, The unsigned flier read: "URGENT NOTICE. Come out to vote on November 6th. Before you come to vote make sure you pay your parking tickets, motor vehicle tickets, overdue rent and most important any warrants.")

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, back during our 2003 Mayor's race, men with clipboards driving black vans bearing official-looking insignias were reportedly dispatched to African American neighborhoods to ask minority voters for their identification cards. Tom Lindenfeld, who ran a counter-intimidation campaign for Democratic candidate John Street, said there were 300 cars with the decals resembling such federal agencies as the DEA and ATF and that the men were asking prospective voters for identification. In a post-election poll of 1000 African-American voters, seven percent said they had encountered such efforts.

And this one is particularly egregious -- during Louisiana’s 2002 runoff election which reelected Senator Mary Landrieu, flyers were distributed in black public housing complexes in New Orleans, reading in part: "Vote!!! Bad Weather? No problem!!! If the weather is uncomfortable on election day (Saturday December 7th) Remember you can wait and cast your ballot on Tuesday December 10th."

[You couldn't.]

So, what are we to do about it?  There’s a bill before the Congress right now – the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act, and it’s bipartisan because Tom Coburn’s a co-sponsor, even if my election law professor is the lead, which would makes it a crime for anyone to, within 60 days before a federal election:

• lie about the time, place or manner of the election;
• lie about voter eligibility, whether regarding an individual's eligibility or general qualifications to vote;
• lie about the party affiliation of someone running in a primary;
• lie about an endorsement by any person or candidate.

The bill, as reported out of Judiciary, doesn’t even have a private right of action – it’s all up to DOJ to enforce.  

The People for the American Way Foundation and the NAACP have much more on the problem of voter intimidation and suppression in its 2004 report, The Long Shadow of Jim Crow (PDF), which I encourage you to read.  This is a problem we can stem.

As for the current ACORN issues, well, obtaining 100% quality control from low-paid part-time workers is impossible, and from everything I've read, ACORN has been aggressively reviewing workers and its applications, flagging the bad ones, but under state law you're generally required to turn in all applications that you collect because, otherwise, you're just opening the door to ridculous chicanery.  As long as ACORN continues to cooperate with every legitimate investigation, then it's all a big nothing -- especially without evidence that people are showing up to the polls claiming to be "Mickey Mouse."

Instead, let's focus on actual, documented fraud and intimidation perpetrated upon real, live voters, and if a Republican raises the specter of ACORN to you, ask them about what Republicans Robert Erlich and Michael Steele did in Maryland in 2006.  Ask them what does more realistic harm to the integrity of elections -- hiring Philadelphia's homeless at $100/head to pass out fliers claiming blatantly false endorsements on Election Day and without telling them that they're working for Republicans, or the threat of someone showing at the polls claiming to be Donald Duck.  As SNL's Seth Meyers would say, Really.