Voter Fraud and Voter ID Laws
by Fred E. Foldvary, Senior Editor, 16 January 2012
The ultimate sovereigns in democratic countries are the citizens. The right to vote implies that the citizens ultimately determine the laws and policies of a country. But some of the voters are non-citizens -- immigrants, dead people, and imaginary people -- and so the people who control those votes get extra political power and usurp citizen sovereignty.The way to determine who is an actual citizen eligible to vote is to identify them. That implies checking the ID of the person seeking to vote. The most common ID is a driver's license, and if a person does not have the license, the government provides alternative identification cards. So long as any citizen is able to obtain a free governmental identification card, nobody's rights are violated by requiring an ID.
There are political and legal battles now occurring in the USA about voter photo identification. There is a case in Wisconsin on the constitutionality of its identification law. Those in favor of IDs argue that the law reduces voter fraud. The opponents of voter ID claim that such laws reduce voting by the poor, old folks, and minorities. Groups opposed to voter ID laws include the League of Women Voters, the ACLU, and organizations promoting the Democratic Party.
The opponents claim that the ID laws improperly prohibit citizens without ID from voting. But if any citizen may obtain an ID for free, and an ID is justified in order to prevent imaginary and non-citizens from having voting rights, then the ID law does not really block legitimate voting.
So far the voter ID laws have been upheld by the court cases. The Georgia voter ID law was upheld by the Georgia Supreme Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana's law. But the opponents keep bringing up new cases.
The ability to vote by mail pushes the ID issue one step back. If one may vote by mail, then to prevent voter fraud, the state has to require an ID when a person applies to vote by mail.
An alternative to state IDs is a national citizenship ID card, but that has been opposed by civil libertarians as providing the state and federal governments with a tool of oppression. A free citizen should not have to always prove who he is if he is not driving on government roads.
Under the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, some US states, mostly in the South, plus some counties, have to satisfy the federal government that their voting laws do not discriminate against minorities. ID laws such as that of Texas have been submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. The states have to provide studies on the effect of their voting laws on minority participation. The Department of Justice turned down South Carolina's request for pre-clearance of its voter ID law. The Justice Department declared the law to be discriminatory because minority voters there are 20 percent more likely than other voters to lack a required photo ID.
The legal right to vote is not absolute, as states may prohibit criminals from voting. Thus while voting is legally a privilege, it is not legal for the states to arbitrarily discriminate by group characteristics such as by race, sex, and age above 18.
If a country's laws are in accord with natural moral law, what are the prescriptions for voting? Because the citizens are equally sovereign, each adult citizen should have an equal right to choose one's governance and the governing chiefs. This does not necessarily imply voting. A community could have a rule that only members between the age of 30 and 60 may vote, and then a person who voluntarily joins the community and signs agreement with its laws, would not have the legal right to vote if his age is outside that range. His sovereignty would be exercised by choosing to join that community.
In a libertarian world governed by natural moral law, all communities would be explicitly voluntary, and members would sign their agreement when joining. But we do not live in such a world today, so we need to analyze the second-best system of governance. In today's system, the citizens are collectively sovereign, and each competent adult citizen should have equal voting power. That includes persons in prison.
It is in the interest of the citizens to prevent voter fraud, and so long as any citizen may obtain a photo ID at no cost to the voter, laws requiring a photo ID are proper and justified. When millions of people are voting for officials and propositions, then voter fraud is a temptation to those who seek to exert power, and election fraud has been a big problem in many countries. Since the voting is controlled by the government officials in power, they will be tempted to stuff the ballot boxes. The worst cases of voter fraud are perpetrated by corrupt governments.
In the USA today, one way that corrupt government can influence the vote is by voter fraud. Voter ID laws do not inherently limit voting power and should be upheld by the courts.
-- Fred Foldvary
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Copyright 2010 by Fred E. Foldvary. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, which includes but is not limited to facsimile transmission, photocopying, recording, rekeying, or using any information storage or retrieval system, without giving full credit to Fred Foldvary and The Progress Report.
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