Taking Our Elections Back

In a recent Huffington Post op-ed, Al Sharpton argues that voter ID laws will "disenfranchise" minority and poor voters, bringing America back to the days of Jim Crow laws. While Sharpton argues that it is time we "take our country back," I say it is time that we take our elections back.

It is ridiculous to pretend that voter fraud does not exist. For his book, Stealing Elections, John Fund interviewed former law enforcement officials in Palm Beach County who claim that votes for Bush were invalidated by pushing a thin object through the Gore chad. In support of these claims, the county reported over 19,000 ballots which contained votes for more than one candidate, an amount ten times more than the rate across the rest of the state. Apparently, we are supposed to believe that the county that had trouble following arrows also suffered from many people wanting to be like John Kerry and "vote for Gore, before they voted against him."

In 1993, Congress passed what is commonly called the "Motor Voter" law, which requires government agencies to provide voter registration forms. This law has been very convenient for me to register to vote when I moved from one state to another, and I support requiring government agencies to offer voter registration forms. However, the law also prohibits requiring identification to register. A CATO Institute report showed that in St. Louis, the Democratic-sponsored Operation Big Vote resulted in 3600 fraudulent registrations. While the report does point out the difference between registration fraud and vote fraud, it also questions the point of committing registration fraud if there was no intent to later commit vote fraud.

More recently, eight people were arrested in an attempt to influence a local election in Madison County, Florida. The people obtained absentee ballot requests from voters and had all the ballots mailed to one location. In some cases, the ballots were brought to the voters, but in other cases, they were only brought the signature form and the voter never actually saw the ballot.

Sharpton makes a ridiculous arguments in presenting his opposition to voter ID laws. Sharpton's only argument for this reads:

Imagine you're a hard-working American who holds two or three jobs just to put food on the table, and now you're required to take a day (or more) off in order to obtain an ID. Not only does this person accrue lost work wages, but he/she also has to factor in the cost of traveling to obtain the ID, as well as fees associated with getting copies of documents like passports or birth certificates.

If this were actually possible, it might qualify as a legitimate argument. However, the ID required to obtain those two or three jobs would be more than sufficient for voter registration. I had to bring three forms of identification when I was hired at my current job, but I only needed one of those to go and vote. If federal law requires ID for a job, why should states be prohibited from requiring ID in order to vote?

Sharpton concludes by asking, "If Republican officials and those who support them are so upset by the direction of the country and so insistent on the fact that we are a center-right nation, why don't they prove it with fair elections?" This is precisely why we need voter ID laws. In a nation with rampant voter fraud, working to bring about "fair elections" only brings charges of racism and election-fixing from a party that wants to pretend vote fraud does not exist. If the Democrats are really concerned about these groups rather than just trying to ignore fraud, then they need to provide an alternate solution to eliminate fraud. In the absence of such a plan, then I must assume that they have no desire to actually have "fair elections."

Voter ID laws are not an attempt to disenfranchise voters; they are an attempt to provide for the fair elections. In a world where an ID is necessary to purchase cigarettes or alcohol, write a check or use a credit card at some stores, get on a plane, apply for a loan, open a new bank account, get a job, or even purchase some cough syrups, why should we not need an ID to vote? While Sharpton may argue that we need to "take our country back", the truth is that we need to take our elections back by doing everything possible to prevent fraud.