Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
In 2004, the Russell Pearce backed Prop. 200 (crafted by ALEC and FAIR) was sold to voters on the urban legend that "illegals" — Mexicans are being bused across the border! — were voting in Arizona elections.
Prop. 200 required proof of citizenship to register to vote, a provision which is still being litigated in court because it is preempted by federal law for some voter registration; and a provision that required a government-issued photo I.D. to vote in person at the polls. (Casting a mail-in ballot requires no photo I.D., a giant loophole in Arizona where most votes are cast by mail-in ballots).
A report in the Arizona Capitol Times today dismisses the "voter fraud" urban legend. Illegal immigrants voting? Not according to election officials (subscription required):
The 2012 election cycle is underway and familiar allegations that illegal immigrants are registering to vote or casting ballots are already cropping up again, but election officials from across Arizona say the oft-made claims are little more than urban legend.
Election officials from all 15 Arizona counties and the Secretary of State’s Office told the Arizona Capitol Times they can’t recall any instances of illegal immigrants trying to commit election fraud. What fraud they have seen is mostly from legal immigrants, many of whom were told by organizers of campaigns that they’re allowed to register to vote.
Maricopa County Elections Director Karen Osborne said she could recall a couple instances of legal immigrants registering to vote, but never an illegal immigrant.
“In my 40-some-odd years … I have never known of an illegal alien trying to vote,” Osborne said. “They’re too afraid to be in the system.”
Arizona's photo I.D. provision was picked up by the states of Georgia and Indiana (through ALEC and FAIR model legislation). In 2008, in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, an appeal from Indiana, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that photo I.D. requirements were constitutional "because its overall burden is minimal and justified” by the valid state interest in deterring voter fraud, despite the fact that prosecutions for impersonating a registered voter are exceedingly rare, or non-existent. (Indiana could not point to a single prosecution).
With Republicans taking control of most U.S. capitols this year and a presidential race looming, states have passed the most election-related laws since 2003 in a push to tighten voting rules. U.S. States Tighten Voting Regulation With Republicans in Charge – Bloomberg:
Forty-seven states have enacted 285 election-related laws this year, and 60 percent were in states with Republican governors, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
* * *
The hottest legislation has been voter identification, according to the NCSL. At the year’s start, only Georgia and Indiana required a photo ID and offered no alternative way to have votes counted in its absence. Opponents say such laws discourage voting by the poor and black people, who traditionally back Democrats. Kansas, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas enacted or amended laws requiring photo ID this year, and 34 states in all considered such bills, the Denver-based organization said.
* * *
In Ohio, Lou Blessing, a state representative from Cincinnati, is co- sponsor of a pending bill that would require photo ID.
* * *
A 2006 Brennan Center study found that 11 percent of U.S. citizens didn’t have a government-issued photo ID, and neither did 18 percent of citizens age 65 and older and 25 percent of black voters.
This is millions of voters who are disenfranchised of their right to vote ostensibly for the purpose to deter voter fraud, which is exceedingly rare or non-existent. Let's get real, we all know the real reason for photo I.D. is not voter fraud, but voter suppression of classes of voters who tend to vote Democratic.
Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), an icon of the Civil Rights Movement, in an opinion in the New York Times last week A Poll Tax by Another Name – NYTimes.com wrote:
Since January, a majority of state legislatures have passed or considered election-law changes that, taken together, constitute the most concerted effort to restrict the right to vote since before the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
* * *
We have come a long way since the 1960s. When the Voting Rights Act was passed, there were only 300 elected African-American officials in the United States; today there are more than 9,000, including 43 members of Congress. The 1993 National Voter Registration Act — also known as the Motor Voter Act — made it easier to register to vote, while the 2002 Help America Vote Act responded to the irregularities of the 2000 presidential race with improved election standards.
Despite decades of progress, this year’s Republican-backed wave of voting restrictions has demonstrated that the fundamental right to vote is still subject to partisan manipulation. The most common new requirement, that citizens obtain and display unexpired government-issued photo identification before entering the voting booth, was advanced in 35 states and passed by Republican legislatures in Alabama, Minnesota, Missouri and nine other states — despite the fact that as many as 25 percent of African-Americans lack acceptable identification.
* * *
Conservative proponents have argued for photo ID mandates by claiming that widespread voter impersonation exists in America, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. While defending its photo ID law before the Supreme Court, Indiana was unable to cite a single instance of actual voter impersonation at any point in its history. Likewise, in Kansas, there were far more reports of U.F.O. sightings than allegations of voter fraud in the past decade. These theories of systematic fraud are really unfounded fears being exploited to threaten the franchise.
* * *
These restrictions purportedly apply to all citizens equally. In reality, we know that they will disproportionately burden African Americans and other racial minorities, yet again. They are poll taxes by another name.
* * *
We’ve come some distance and have made great progress, but Dr. King’s dream has not been realized in full. New restraints on the right to vote do not merely slow us down. They turn us backward, setting us in the wrong direction on a course where we have already traveled too far and sacrificed too much.
For the record, the poll tax argument was raised in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, and was rejected by the majority of the U.S. Supreme Court.
This urban legend of "voter fraud" is a GOP voter suppression tactic that is trotted out in every election and will not die when it is repeated ad nauseam in the right-wing noise machine and is shamelessly promoted by Republican politicians who ought to know better. From the Arizona Capitol Times article Illegal immigrants voting? Not according to election officials:
- [Right-wing] Bloggers, the Arizona Republican Party and some elected officials accused activist groups that were encouraging and assisting voters with early ballot requests of trying to register and obtain ballots for illegal immigrants. Those charges were rejected by Secretary of State Ken Bennett after his office and the Yuma County Recorder’s Office conducted a joint investigation.
- GOP congressional candidate Jesse Kelly alleged that there was a video proving that southern Arizona Democrats were busing in people from Mexico to vote, but state Elections Director Amy Bjelland said an investigation determined that the charges were unfounded and that no such video existed.
- Sen. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, said he believes voting by illegal immigrants is a major problem and may have swayed the results of the 2010 election in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District between Democratic Congressman Raul Grijalva and Republican challenger Ruth McClung.
- Attorney General Tom Horne said he believes hundreds of illegal immigrants may have cast ballots in the 2010 election, and accused President Barack Obama of trying to make it easier for them to do so by joining the legal challenge against Prop. 200.
- Horne said testimony and evidence from the Prop. 200 lawsuit proved his point, and noted that the evidence resulted in 10 prosecutions. But while that evidence showed noncitizens who had registered and even some who had voted in numerous elections, none were specifically identified as illegal immigrants. (emphasis added)
Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said “If one person fraudulently votes opposite of what I voted, then that person has canceled out my vote and it’s a real big problem,” he said. “You have to protect the integrity of your electoral system because that’s the foundation that government legitimacy rests upon.”
So when photo I.D. laws disenfranchise 11 percent of U.S. citizens who have no government-issued photo ID, and 18 percent of citizens age 65 and older and 25 percent of black voters who have no government-issued photo ID, as the Brennan Center study found, and "voter fraud" is actually an exceedingly rare or non-existent event, where does this rate on your "real big problem" scale Rep. Kavanaugh? Or is this a design feature and not a bug of Prop. 200?
Voter I.D. laws "cancel out" millions of votes by disenfranchsing American citizens of their right to vote for want of a government-issued photo ID. How does this protect the integrity of our electoral system? A government that wilfully disenfranchises millions of its citizens to suppress their votes on the basis of age, race and national origin has ceded any legitimacy.
Resource: Voting Rights & Elections | Brennan Center for Justice