Democrats tend to pooh-pooh the problems of voter fraud. This is because their ox is not being gored. An example of this naive head-in-the- sand attitude is the following.
“Despite many instances of electoral fraud internationally,
in the U.S. a major study by the Justice Department between 2002 and 2007
showed of the 300 million votes cast in that period, federal prosecutors
convicted only 86 people for voter fraud – and of those few cases, most
involved persons who were simply unaware of their ineligibility. This rarity of
electoral fraud in the U.S. follows from its inherent illegality. Harsh
penalties aimed at deterring voter fraud make it likely that individuals who
might perpetrate the fraud correctly fear that they will be discovered by
election officials carefully examining voter identification.”
This excerpt from Wikipedia is typical of the naïve, sloppy
thinking about voter fraud. The rarity
of prosecutions says more about prosecutor policies and connections and reports
of the crime than about the actual occurrence of the crime. Federal prosecutors are political appointees
and probably have bigger fish to fry than voter fraud. Local politicians also serve political
interests and it is unlikely that a state or local prosecutor from Party X who
is beholden to the X political machine
is going to rock the boat. The paucity
of prosecutions arguably weakens any deterrent effect. Many poll watchers are politically-connected
volunteers. Election officials are
politicians. I have been voting for 40
years, and I have never seen any people at the polls “carefully examining voter
identification.” Until states got serious about domestic violence, rape and
DWI, most of the crimes were not reported or never made it to the point where
they could be counted. Finally,
deterrence tends to be overrated. Overall, the effect of most laws on behavior is over-rated.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana's voter ID law in Crawford v. Marion Cty Elec. Bd., 128 S.Ct. 1610 (2008). As the Court notes, all the Republicans in the Indiana General Assembly voted for voter ID. All the Dems who voted voted against it.
Although not involving voter ID, the Court added this footnote:
13 See Pabey v. Pastrick, 816 N.E.2d 1138, 1151 (Ind. 2004)
(holding that a special election was required because one candidate
engaged in "a deliberate series of actions . . . making it impossible to
determine the candidate who received the highest number of legal votes
cast in the election"). According to the uncontested factual findings of
the trial court, one of the candidates paid supporters to stand near
polling places and encourage voters—especially those who were poor,
infirm, or spoke little English—to vote absentee. The supporters asked
the voters to contact them when they received their ballots; the
supporters then "assisted" the voter in filling out the ballot.
