Blue Collar Muse

I grew up just southwest of Chicago so talk of ward politics (of the Democratic variety) was plentiful. So were voter turnout campaigns and making sure that, not only did everyone vote, everyone voted correctly. For those not familiar with Chicago politics, that meant everyone voted for the Democrat on the ballot.

Everyone voted. Even if you didn’t vote, you voted. If your address was a vacant lot, you voted. Even after you were dead you voted. Because everyone voted and everyone voted for the ‘D’! Yes folks, welcome to the wonderful world of Democratic voter fraud where our motto is, “Vote early, vote often!”

There has always been voter fraud. There probably always will be. On both sides of the aisle. The best we can realistically hope for is to keep it to a minimum. But the sanctity of the voting process is important. If I cheat and thereby nullify votes for my candidate’s opponent, I have effectively disenfranchised those voters who wanted something I did not. Not to mention if my guy wins then my agenda is enacted while the other side’s is not. There’s a lot at stake and when this sort of power and influence is on the line, some are moved to do all they can and then just a little bit more to help their guy win.

The Left seems to be of two minds on the subject. If you Google the term ‘voter fraud’ the first results contain articles that pooh-pooh the idea that voter fraud even exists to any significant degree. The notion is called, among other things, an urban legend. Maybe it isn’t widespread, maybe it is. But it isn’t a legend. Recent elections have shown fraudulent voter registration drives from the Left on Indian reservations and vandalism of GOP vehicles tasked with bringing their voters to polls. These two are just instances that are, for some odd reason, stuck in my memory. Bill Hobbs has an archive of instances of voter fraud from 2004 available for those who want more examples.

Of course for the Left, the voter fraud that is urban legend is, by some happy coincidence, voter fraud perpetrated by Democrats. Voter fraud and voter disenfranchisement by Republicans is all too real and pernicious! Who can forget recounts of recounts in Florida and the endless mantra that Bush’s Presidency was tainted since he was selected and not elected. What about the thousands of lawyers watching polling places, in person and online in 2004, to make sure the GOP could not duplicate their evil 2000 election mojo!

With all this concern for the integrity of the voting process and making sure that every person’s vote is counted, one would think that both parties would be eager to take effective and simple steps that would help ensure that every person’s vote is only counted once! You would think that, but you’d be wrong.

Just last Friday, an amendment was offered to a bill in the United States Senate requiring those voting in Federal elections to show some form of government issued ID to prove their identity before voting. A driver’s license would do nicely. In the event a citizen wanting to vote had no appropriate form of ID, there were federal funds authorized for disbursement to the states to pay for programs to make sure there were valid IDs issued to all voters who wanted them. Seems pretty simple and likely effective. If someone showed up at the polls wanting to vote in my place, he’d have to prove he was me. It was to take effect in 2008. Here’s the language of the amendment. Look for the part, about 3/4 of the way down the page, that starts out “SA 2350″. Sounds like an easily implemented, effective, low cost, low tech, hard (not impossible) to beat way to stop a lot of fraud and bolster the integrity of a process whose integrity needs some bolstering after the last 8 years.

Unless you’re a Democratic Senator that is.

Here is a list of the Democratic Senators that voted FOR this amendment:

Hey - where’d everybody go?

Impressive, isn’t it! Especially the part where the legislation crashes and burns in defeat in the Senate well.

Every single Democrat present voted against the measure. Every last one … Two were not there to vote - Obama and Johnson. 5 Republicans “special party status” Democrats, Senators Collins, Snowe, Voinovich, Murkowski and Sununu also voted against the measure.

One has to wonder, just how concerned are the Democrats about the integrity of the system if there is not a single one of them willing to take even a token step towards appearing to maybe be thinking of possibly going on record supporting the shoring up of the process?

Wondering what ramifications this will have in November of 2008 …

Blue Collar Muse

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007 at 4:20 pm and is filed under 2008 election season, Blogroll, Individual Responsibility, Liberal, Politics, You'd Be Wrong. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.