Who Needs Photo ID's To Vote?

What? Me worry? We shouldn't concern ourselves with voter fraud in Washington.

Washington’s 2004 gubernatorial election was easily among the most suspicious in the state’s history. After the votes were counted, Republican Dino Rossi was the apparent winner by a narrow margin. But runner-up Christine Gregoire demanded a couple of recounts, and left leaning King County cooperated by discovering boxes of ballots hidden in closets or behind filing cabinets to aid her cause. In the end, enough of these ballots were found to reverse the results and give the insatiably ambitious ex-attorney general squatter’s rights to the governor’s mansion by a mere 133 votes.
After the votes were counted (for the third time, I believe), a number of irregularities were discovered above and beyond the hidden ballots trick. The dead rose from the grave to vote. Convicted felons who had not yet completed their sentences voted. And, some precincts counted more ballots than could be accounted for by the number of voters who signed the register at the polling place. And dozens, even hundreds of voters, lived at the same address, which was not necessarily a residence at all. In one case several hundred voters listed the same city hall as their permanent address.
Officially, all of these shenanigans did not even merit a raised eyebrow. King County executive Ron Sims went so far as to issue a ludicrous boast that banks would be proud to achieve such accuracy. In fact, such sloppiness at a bank would result in bank executives embarking upon new careers hammering out license plates at the state pen.
Embarrassed into reform, the Democrat-dominated legislature tightened things up a bit, but refused to require that voters produce photographic identification, such as a driver’s license. This is a pattern. Democrats nationwide reflexively oppose photographic identification for voters. If any reminders were needed as to why Democrats are so steadfast on this issue, last week’s news from the left side certainly told us why.
Last month, seven employees of the Democratic voter registration activist group, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) were charged with felonies for their part in the most egregious case of voter fraud in the state’s history. At last check, of the 1805 voter registrations the group submitted, 1762 were tossed as fraudulent. Another 34 are still under investigation and only 9 have been accepted as legitimate. These voter registration cards were submitted within hours of the deadline for the 2006 election.
ACORN’s leadership magnanimously placed all the blame on its hourly workers. But ACORN has a history of this sort of thing. According to the Employment Policies Institute, in the fall of 2004, just before the November election, the states of Ohio, Colorado, Missouri, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Minnesota were all investigating suspicious voter registration cards submitted by ACORN. By 2006, Florida, Wisconsin and Tennessee were added to the list, with convictions already rendered in Wisconsin and Colorado.
Fortunately, not all of ACORN’s stooges are recruited from the best and the brightest. One common thread in ACORN’s frauds is the similarity of handwriting on the signature lines. Another is the use of a single address for numerous registrations. And finally, ACORN employees occasionally resort to lifting easily recognizable names from newspapers. Among those whom ACORN attempted to register in Washington were Dennis Hastert, Leon Spinks, Mariano Rivera, Frank Rich, Thomas Friedman and Alcee Hastings, along with numerous, well known sports figures. In Ohio, ACORN tried to register Michael Jordan and several Warner Brothers cartoon figures.
I have to wonder how many fraudulent voter registrations accepted from ACORN were counterfeited by employees possessing more than a room temperature IQ. It can’t be all that hard to alter signatures, invent new names and fabricate imaginary addresses.
Democrats argue that requiring photo identification will disenfranchise voters. Well, fraudulent Democratic votes disenfranchise me by cancellation.
ACORN boasts that it has registered more than a million voters nationwide. It is a creature of the Democratic Party and is largely funded by labor unions. When one considers how many elections nationwide might turn on a vote by cartoon characters, it’s no wonder then that Democratic lawmakers are so reluctant to require photo ID’s for voting. I have no doubt that Democrats appreciate that, if Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd had been required to legitimize their vote in 2004 by producing proof of their identity, Christine Gregoire’s margin of victory would have been reduced to 131.