California Conservative

This Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether it’s constitutional to require photo IDs for voting. At the center of that storm are two Minnesotans, Rep. Keith Ellison and former SecState Mary Kiffmeyer. Here’s how Ellison sees the issue:

To Ellison, who has authored legislation preventing states from requiring photo ID to vote, any costs associated with voting eligibility are tantamount to the Jim Crow-era poll taxes that were banished by the 24th Amendment in 1964.

“It’s unquestionable that this scheme creates a real obstacle to voting in federal elections,” Ellison argues in his brief, which he submitted along with all 42 other members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

I know that lawyers juice of their rhetoric in their arguments but saying that “it’s unquestionable that thsi scheme creates” obstacles in voting is pathetic. Furthermore, this isn’t being done in a vacuum. With millions of illegal immigrants in our country, we have to balance the right to vote with protecting against voter fraud.

I pointed out here how liberal groups are attempting to commit voter fraud already:

But the most interesting news came out of Seattle, where on Thursday local prosecutors indicted seven workers for Acorn, a union-backed activist group that last year registered more than 540,000 low-income and minority voters nationwide and deployed more than 4,000 get-out-the-vote workers. The Acorn defendants stand accused of submitting phony forms in what Secretary of State Sam Reed says is the “worst case of voter-registration fraud in the history” of the state.

The list of “voters” registered in Washington state included former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, New York Times columnists Frank Rich and Tom Friedman, actress Katie Holmes and nonexistent people with nonsensical names such as Stormi Bays and Fruto Boy. The addresses used for the fake names were local homeless shelters. Given that the state doesn’t require the showing of any identification before voting, it is entirely possible people could have illegally voted using those names.

Those ficticious ‘voters’ would be able to vote if the warm body that shows up didn’t have to show a photo ID. This isn’t just happening in Seattle either. It’s happening nationwide.

John Fund is the foremost authority on the issue. Here’s more of what he’s written:

Local officials refused to accept the registrations because they had been delivered after last year’s Oct. 7 registration deadline. Initially, Acorn officials demanded the registrations be accepted and threatened to sue King County (Seattle) officials if they were tossed out. But just after four ACORN registration workers were indicted in Kansas City, Mo., on similar charges of fraud, the group reversed its position and said the registrations should be rejected. But by then, local election workers had had a reason to carefully scrutinize the forms and uncovered the fraud. Of the 1,805 names submitted by ACORN, only nine have been confirmed as valid, and another 34 are still being investigated. The rest–over 97%–were fake.

If photo ID’s were banned, we couldn’t prevent voter fraud. That should infuriate American voters who play by the rules. This take it beyond the hypothetical or theoretical. This is a finding of fact.

Kiffmeyer, who testified in Congress in November against Ellison’s bill, argues that photo ID is about public confidence in the polling system.

As for the presumed burden on the poor and elderly, she said, “I assure you that applying for a photo ID is as easy or easier than getting on welfare or other social services.”

Mary Kiffmeyer makes a great argument. Keith Ellison make a ridiculous argument. Ms. Kiffmeyer is arguing that some rules must apply to voting; Rep. Ellison is essentially arguing that rules shouldn’t apply to elections.

If Ellison’s argument prevails, there wouldn’t be a reason why any voter would have confidence in the integrity of the electoral process. That’s simply unacceptable.

Technorati Tags: Voter Fraud, ACORN, Keith Ellison, Mary Kiffmeyer, Photo ID, Poll Tax, Jim Crow, John Fund, SCOTUS, Elections

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Monday, January 7th, 2008 at 8:27 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Election 2008, Elections, Liberals, Voter Fraud. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.