In case my reader has heard a bit about the SAVE Act, and wonders about the opposition, here’s Norm Ornstein on Morning Joe. Ornstein, yes, is a Democrat, and worked in the Obama Administration as an expert in governmental ethics. But he’s also scholar emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. This position should bring a measure of credibility for folks who don’t trust Democrats. The SAVE Act has to do with … securing elections.
Katty Kay: If Republicans say this bill is simply about voter ID — something many Americans support — why has it sparked so much opposition?
NO: This isn’t about voter ID. It’s about voter suppression. The bill would require every registered voter to reregister in person using documents like a passport or certified birth certificate, which many people don’t have and can be costly to obtain. That amounts to a modern-day poll tax.
JL: Some Republicans argue this is needed to combat voter fraud, even after winning the last election. What’s your response?
NO: The actual level of voter fraud is vanishingly small — about 0.07% of votes cast. So what’s being presented as a popular voter ID effort is really a Trojan horse for something else entirely. …
John Heilemann: Rev, what does this actually mean in practice? Who bears the brunt of policies like this?
Al Sharpton: It’s a textbook example of how to make it harder for people of color to vote in large numbers — and to use that to maintain political power.
MB: What about people who don’t have easy access to documents — say older Americans or those born decades ago?
NO: Many don’t have passports and may not know where their birth certificates are. Replacing those documents can be complicated and expensive, and a lot of people could end up effectively shut out of voting.
Let’s address a common argument I’m sure is out there: It’s not possible to prove a negative, that is, that there is little to no fraud.
Speaking as a software engineer, which means I have to deal with logic every day, this requires some context, and by this I mean the addendum, in the unlimited case. When you’re dealing with an unlimited scenario, it’s always possible to imagine the unexamined ballots are falsified. But if there’s a limit, then you can process and verify each such ballot, given enough resources such as folks to work on it, in the most naive approach. But clever people work on this problem all the time.
Here in Minnesota, for example, there are lists of valid voter names for each precinct, and when you walk in and give your name, its checkbox is checked, and if it’s already been checked then that’s a clue that someone’s trying to cheat. Names are cross-referenced against lists of dead people so that when someone requests a mail-in ballot, dies before it is completed and sent back, and some relative decides, quite against the law, that the late relative should still get to vote, that illegal vote is caught, and a little questioning of the relatives will usually catch the lawbreaker.
These and similar procedures serve to catch the vast majority people who want to cheat voters.
But President Trump specifically talks of non-citizens voting, shipped in via bus, and students. Let’s address what he won’t: Who are these idiots? By which I mean these hypothetical cheaters.
Why am I calling them idiots? Because the potential penalties for voting when you’re not permitted are non-trivial; they’re on the order of five years in prison. If the illegal voter isn’t a citizen but is working towards it, they’ve put their potential citizenship at risk. Consider this case of a woman in Texas. And whatever for? For one vote. Hardly does a single vote matter; rarely does a bus full of students. The risk/reward ratio is tilted towards the State, not the cheater.
So why is the voter fraud rate not 0%? Well, when you have around 300 million people of voting age in the country, there’s always a few misinformed folks, such as the woman described at the link, above, and there’s always a few idiots who think they’ll never be caught.
But it’s not a horde and the responsible officials, Republican, Democrats, or independents, have good reason to work hard to make it all work.
And that’s why the Save ACT is unnecessary and repressive.
