And since I’m posting again, I have to pass along a comment made by an acquaintance who is a former reporter and who had occasion in the past to cover ACORN here in town. She told me she thought the idea that ACORN is capable of perpetrating intentional fraud was hilarious because in her experience the only time ACORN and actual organization ever touch is in their Acronym name. She characterized the group as a bunch of kids with good intentions running around trying to do good, but felt that if there was something they were not good at, being organized was that something.

You bring a good argument about the concept of “openness” around voter registrations and I would have to agree for the most part, but I don’t think that voter fraud should be ignored.

“”Be part of the solution instead of another angry person posting on a website.”"

Careful, you are making a little too much sense here.

First, there’s just the plain factual error about MN’s law regarding vouching. The maximum number of people that can be vouched for by one person in a precinct is 15, not 30. (Exception – an employee of an authorized residential facility may vouch for an unlimited number of the residents of that facility — this is nursing homes, VA homes, homeless shelters & domestic violence shelters, basically). But the real problem I have with the Rambler’s “common sense” analysis of MN election law is that it theorizes a straw-man worst case scenario that simply ignores the reality of how a polling place works and the procedural mechanisms that exist to ward against widespread fraud in MN. As an experienced election judge, this fear of a polling place being overwhelmed by people brought in from all over in order to game an election is laughable, to be honest. It ignores the human element on both sides as well as the procedures, processes and penalties that are in place to ensure a clean election. I’ll start by saying that he idea that the registration judges working the registration table on election day would just roll over and not start asking questions if a person in a precinct started to vouch for a lot of unknown faces is absurd on its face. In fact, the more people that a single voter vouches for, the more fishy that’s going to look. Heck, in most places, even the event of someone registering by voucher will cause a stir because they are rare in most polling locations. (And just want to be clear that once vouched for, you can’t turn around and vouch for anyone that day, which is a reasonable abuse-prevention measure). Then there’s the various oaths and penalties that are in place that stare the voucher and the vouchee/registrant in the face throughout the process. The penalties for registering when you are not eligible to do so are not light — a felony, punishable by a fine of up to $10,000, and up to 5 years in prison. And ALL registrants sign an acknowledgment of that penalty twice before they vote. How many people are going to take a chance on that penalty? I think you can go ask any of the county election administrators about how many voter fraud prosecutions occur after an election and find out that the number is slim, and that’s not because they are not vigilant or willfully blind; it is because it is infrequent and that severe penalty is definitely a significant factor behind the low volume of fraud. Next, we’ll add in the other sets of vigilant eyes at the polls, known as challengers. In the spots where the major political parties expect there to be potential for fraud, especially on the big presidential general elections when voter turnout is enormous, they send out challengers who are able to contest voters who they reasonably believe are ineligible (based on personal knowledge). And let’s not forget that the voters themselves also serve as eyes and ears for misbehavior. Then to top all of that off, you need to have the one thing that is most difficult to maintain in any conspiracy — silence. The larger the number of people involved in perpetrating a voting fraud, the less likely that a tongue won’t slip at some place or time that leads to it all being uncovered. And I’d also throw into the mix that with every passing election cycle we have more and more electronic systems and databases that help to make sure that dead people aren’t registered, that you exist and live where you say you do and that anyone voting has some footprints in the system that allow them to be verified and, if they are perpetrating fraud, findable. And that technology will just keep improving. I won’t go so far as to say it is impossible to enact a scenario like CommonSense is suggesting, but it is far from a common sense concern in my experience. If CommonSense is looking for areas to be concerned about in terms of voter fraud, I’d suggest that an area far more open to widespread exploitation is absentee voting. With fewer or even zero face-to-face contacts, there’s a much greater opportunity for abuse in that realm than what’s being quibbled about here.

For further reading, I’d suggest the following as a couple of decent starting places on voting fraud:
http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7Bfb3c17e2-cdd1-4df6-92be-bd4429893665%7D/VOTINGIN2008.PDF

http://www.buyingofthepresident.org/index.php/interviews/tova_andrea_wang/

I’ll also say that the debate going on here, when boiled down, is one that the field of election law will always struggle with, involving two ideals that are great in theory but problematic when put into a real world setting. On one side, we can say that ideally only those who are eligible to vote in an election should be allowed to vote. But on the other side to this coin, ideally anyone who is eligible to vote should be allowed to vote. Thus this big dispute is between two points that any reasonable person should agree to, at least in their ideal form. Of course, as is usually the case, in reality these two ideals end up rubbing up against one another and can run contrary to one another at those points. So at the tension point, a legitimate question arises as to which right to elevate into primacy when they come into conflict. Specifically, is it better to have election laws that end up denying the vote to someone who should have been allowed to vote? Or is it better to open up the franchise, knowing that a few ineligible votes are likely to get cast? Whatever your answer, one of the legitimate rights loses, so there’s no easy answers here. In fact, the answers are even less easy because those aren’t the only two considerations we might factor; there’s other related issues such a race, gender, criminal punishment and a number of other factors that we could toss in here and really muddy the waters. Bottom-line, this is not easy stuff and there’s good arguments to be made on both sides about what right is more fundamental. Personally, I am proud to live in a state that errs on the side of making sure the vote is open to those who are eligible, despite the potential for a few additional votes getting in that should not have. I recognize and respect that others are entitled to a different valuation of the ideals I’ve outlined and that people can arrive at different conclusions about the best system to put in place to best cater to the “winning” ideal. However, I ultimately base my preference on a belief that the real strength of a democratic society comes from openness in all facets, including openness of franchise. I find it far more unconscionable to outright deny a legitimate voter’s right to vote by having more restrictive laws than it is to let a vote through that should not have been cast, especially when we toss in those additional factors, like race. In my opinion, we do more damage to democracy by using exclusionary laws that turn away persons who have been traditionally unrepresented or under-represented. But that’s just one bleeding-heart progressive’s opinion. Again, your mileage may vary.

OK, if you’ve made it to this point in the posting and you’re just itching to post back at me and tell me how naive I am or whatever else you feel I’ve gotten wrong or missed, I’ve got one last thing to get out here. I’d like to put forth a challenge to those who are so concerned about voter fraud in the polling place. If you honestly imagine that this precinct-level, in-person registration abuse is a rampant, systematic problem that is going to impact you on election day, then do something about it by filling one of those two key human roles I mentioned above that are necessary to make the system work in preventing fraud.

Option 1) Go get trained to be an election judge and work the polls on election day (it might be too late to get in for this election cycle – you’ll have to put in a call to your county or city election office to see if they still have needs). If you want to know exactly where the real problems are on election day, this is the best place to learn about it instead of theorizing about it. I’d prefer to talk all day about real problems in the system rather than these largely theoretical ones we’re discussing here. In fact, I’d say that if you’re concerned about vote dilution, there are real problems encountered in every precinct I’ve ever been associated with that have at least as much of an impact as this purported on-site voter fraud.

Option 2) Go get trained to be an election day challenger. There’s less training required (actually, there is NO training requirement for challengers, but the major party you are appointed by will usually not want a clueless person representing it and thus there’s normally some training element involved), it is easy to get a party to sponsor you as a challenger because the parties like having helpers on election day, and being a challenger is going to allow you more flexibility and choice in terms of how long your election day is and possibly even where you go to be a challenger. The three recognized major parties are the I-R, the DFL and the Independence Party of MN. Give them a call! And if they are not doing trainings at this point, I can point folks at training materials online, as well as an actual non-partisan challenger training being held in St. Paul on Friday, Oct. 24th, if there is interest.

I’ll close by saying that informed, experienced discussion is usually better discussion, so go work the polls. The analogy I’ll draw is that working an election, seeing democracy in action all day long and up close is like having an HDTV – you get to see the warts, the wrinkles, the blemishes and the perspiration that the normal picture from your old TV can’t show you. A voter’s view of the process is that old TV view – it does not give you adequate exposure. So come in and serve at the polls. Be part of the solution instead of another angry person posting on a website.

“Black Americans being turned away from the polls at 8:00 P.M. in Cleveland last election?”

I suppose McCain was responsible for this? I suppose he called in his KKK posse?

What kind of cases are you talking about?

BlueLark,

“”The age old retort by conservatives, like “joe the plumber” that big gov’t or social welfare is the root of all evil is a farce.”"

Its more than an age old retort and its not a farce, its the philosophy of liberty and freedom. its the belief that people are entitled to the fruits of their own labor and that we know whats best for our own money.

**I’m convinced the top 5% of the conservative wing costs this country a 1000 times more than the bottom 5% of the liberals**

Thats in interesting conclusion and is completely opposite from the evidence I have seen. Especially when Obama proposes a trillion in new spending and McCain proposes a spending freeze.

Kaplan,

Get a clue please, this article is completely preposterous. You are basically taking Obama’s and the Acorn spokesman’s word for it and implicating McCain as a racist for wanting a fair election. Personally being the objective person I am, I see the logic of an investigation when you have 40,000 people registered to vote in a district and only 35,000 residents, but thats just me.

“the McCain campaign and its surrogates have continued to falsely link Obama to ACORN” — Falsely? please read this independant article:

http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/7203

You sir, seemingly have fallen for Obama’s lies.