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Proponents haven’t shown how voter ID would prevent fraud
Sen. Cisco McSorley speaking to students at the Roundhouse in 2010. (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
There are no documented cases of illegal registration or voter fraud that would have been prevented by voter ID. The secretary of state’s report does not even seem to prove widespread registration fraud or illegal voting, let alone make the connection to voter ID.
Editor’s note: This is in response to a column I (Heath Haussamen) authored this week about the secretary of state’s report on the voter rolls in which I wrote that McSorley is among those who have made erroneous claims that there’s not been one voter fraud conviction in the state’s history.
Thank you for your great coverage of the ongoing saga of the secretary of state’s investigation of the voter rolls.
My words have been taken out of context of “documented” cases of proof of people fraudulently registering to vote and illegally voting – and of proof that a voter ID bill would solve either problem. I have always spoken in the context of documented cases that could be prevented by voter ID.
First of all, we must distinguish between the crime of illegally registering to vote and the crime of fraudulently casting a vote. Then, the case must be made to demonstrate how voter ID would prevent either of these two crimes.
There are no documented cases of illegal registration or voter fraud that would have been prevented by the voter ID bill.
Not making the connection
The Republican Party published an editorial that tried to say there were two cases of fraud that would have been prevented by voter ID. One was the Sunland park judge candidate who illegally registered and voted for an office for which he was not qualified. There was no documentation offered that voter ID would have prevented either of these two crimes by this candidate.
The other was a claimed occurrence way back in the early 1970s. I could not find any evidence for that claim either. Not surprisingly, the Republicans never mentioned the case you cited implicating a Republican voter registrar in the crime of changing voter registrations.
But, in any event, these cases must be documented then distinguished as to the underlying crimes committed, and only then can they be analyzed in the context of whether they can be prevented by a voter ID law. There is a huge chasm between claiming illegal voter registration and illegal voting and showing how voter ID would prevent them.
My point has always been that there is a rush to claim that illegally registering to vote or illegally voting can be prevented by a voter ID law. So let’s have those who support voter ID prove their case that voter ID is required to solve the problem of people voting illegally. Bring us these documented cases and the connection to voter ID.
The SOS report does not even seem to prove widespread registration fraud or illegal voting, let alone make the connection to voter ID.
Not one legally qualified person should be denied the right to vote
I agree that one person voting illegally is one too many. No one condones even one illegal vote cast.
The government should take all reasonable steps to prevent those who are not qualified citizens from voting.
But, at the same time, we cannot deny the right to vote to anyone on unproven claims of fraud. So now that the SOS has possibly shown in her flawed investigation that there is no widespread fraud in people registering to vote and even possibly voting, let’s put this whole voter ID issue to rest.
After passing their voter ID law, in Indiana they found they created a significant problem. It has now been disclosed that there are 43,000 legally-registered voters without a government-issued voter ID. These voters will be denied their right to vote if they can’t get the state-issued picture ID. Getting that ID has proven problematic – so much so that many will not be able to vote.
In New Mexico no one has documented how many are legally registered and qualified voters who do not have a state-issued picture ID. The SOS report claimed 105 registered voters may not be U.S. citizens and maybe 19 of them have voted in N.M. elections. If New Mexico’s numbers are anything like Indiana’s, there seems to be a huge imbalance in our priorities when it comes to voter ID.
If it is true that not one person should vote illegally, then it is equally true that not one legally qualified person should be denied the right to vote.
The government should not erect any artificial barriers that will prevent qualified citizens from voting.
I am taking the time to write this because you work hard to get your facts correct. I hope I can trust you to keep covering the issues of documenting instances of people illegally registering to vote and people fraudulently voting, and whether they can be connected to the solution of state-issued picture ID.
McSorley, a Democrat, represents the Albuquerque area District 16 in the N.M. Senate.
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“As a general rule, what we object to is any rule that makes access to the basic right of voting more difficult to any American citizen.” -IcarusPhoenix
IcarusPhoenix – can you please explain to me what “we” would do if “we” found out a politician (or the staff of) had purposefully made an individual’s right to vote inaccessable and/or impossible?
Mr. Best:
Ms Wedum is (mostly correct); in the majority of states with ID laws – including New Mexico, for all those who keep making the bizarre claim that we don’t have one – allow any state-issued id, a current renter’s agreement or public utility bill with your name and address, a sworn affidavit, or a verbal affirmation of your name and address to the poll worker, among many other things. These are not the sort of laws to which we are objecting. It is the ones like proposed laws in Ohio that would allow only for a state-issued ID (which, as stated, would then have to be free to the individual, or else they automatically become an unconstitutional backdoor poll-tax), or the new law in Wisconsin that did the same, just before the governor shut down half the MVDs… all in coincidentally Democratic districts. As a general rule, what we object to is any rule that makes access to the basic right of voting more difficult to any American citizen.
Mr. Best, I don’t think that either a library card or a credit card are considered valid forms of ID in those states that require “Voter ID”
IP, I was mainly interested in Hemingway’s response which he has provided. Next I’ll go looking for the Koch brothers in the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel.
Fox News has pursued this phony New Black Panthers scandal for months.
As Ben Jealous President of the NAACP said: “The reality here is that the New Black Panther Party is like 12 people, 13 people. They don’t say these things at the NAACP. If they did, we would take them on. I said three times on a show with you last week so hear me this time. You know, bigots come in all colors. We absolutely denounce the New Black Panther Party. But they aren’t in our group.” FOX TV ignored this!
http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2010/07/naacp-leader-on-nbpp-theyre-not-in-our-group/
Stever:
The investigation was influenced by political appointees; specifically, several of President Bush’s appointees – who had been placed in the Civil Rights Division in jobs that had previously not been politically-appointed, but instead staffed based on merit – pushed for the DOJ to launch a Federal investigation into a crime that, under any other circumstances, fit the textbook definition of “local jurisdiction” – and which the locals had already taken care of.
Does the GOP waste its time talking about the actions of the KKK? Of course not, because to do so would be to legitimize the lunatic fringe and delegitimize the party itself. Why exactly do you think that the NAACP should not be afforded the same right to ignore people whose actions have little to no bearing on the real world? Since the two groups are in no way related to each other, demanding that they comment just because a distressingly large portion of our society can’t get around certain physical traits that they share through no fault of their own is like asking the AARP to comment every time anyone over the age of 50 commits a crime.
IP, to the extent the DOJ conducted a legitimate investigation, not influenced by political appointments within the department, the NAACP was either in favor of it or opposed to it. Which was it? Did they ever make a statement that standing outside a polling place, in the manner the NBPP did was wrong?
If I’m to evaluate the NAACP’s real concern for voter rights, I’d like to know.
@ stever:
So do long term resident undocumented immigrants have a human right to participate in decision making that affects their interests (vote), or not?
We seem to be beating around the bush.
Hemingway your statement about voter ID being Republican corruption is laughable. There are but 3 states that don’t have voter ID laws. It is kind of like saying all judges are corrupt, all politicians are corrupt, all people of acertain race are racist..etc. I hope your staement is in jest, because if it is not, you may need to expose youself to a braoder range of acquaintances and expand your horizons just a bit. You don’t live in a cave do you?
stever:
I presume you’re referring to the remarkably small and already-ineffective New Black Panther Party that the DOJ ended their investigation into when they found absolutely no evidence that an organized effort at voter intimidation existed? The investigation launched because exactly one incident was reported in which the perpetrator was arrested on the spot?
Here is an expose of the voter suppression program of the Republicans and the Koch Brothers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwOTm3ShQh0
This is an overt attack on the voting rights of American citizens.
Hemingway, try linking to something which demonstrates the NAACP’s attitude, for or against, the voter intimidation practiced by the New Black Panther Party. Near as I can find they opposed the Justice Dept probe into the matter.
Voter ID or not, I just do not buy the fact that so many people do not have any form of valid identification.
In this day and age when one can’t buy a roll of toilet paper without showing a form of ID … I just cannot get a hold of the idea that people walk around with nothing in the form of ID.
Credit card, library card, Social Security card, matricula, check cashing card, ATM. Everyone has to have AT LEAST SOMETHING.
I just don’t buy McSorley’s 2008 LA Times source than 43-thousand people do not have some form of government ID. It is just not possible to survive today unless you are 100% off the grid …. then you would not be registered to vote anyway.
The SOS’s witch hunt outcome doe not justify spending any more money on the matter. The status quo holds. Stop chasing tail$. Voter ID is an unnecessary expense to the state. Durand has discharged her crazy duty of systematic voter suppression attempts dictated by Republican national agenda.
Time to let this go.
On December 10th the NAACP is sponsoring a “Stand For Freedom March” to protest the Republicans’s plans to disenfranchise millions of voters. The Voter ID is vote suppression – pure and simple!
http://www.bearnaacp.org/?p=582
The rally is to call attention to the need for the protection of the fundamental right to vote!
However unacceptable the idea is that any voter registration or actual voting fraud exists I find it far more unacceptable that qualified voters may be denied the right to vote. From a very pragmatic perspective the level of registration and voting fraud revealed by the SOS investigation would have and probably had almost no chance of influencing the outcome of any race. It seems really rare that 100 votes ever influences the voting outcome. My second point is that a process exists to discover such fraud as exercised by the SOS investigation. Will any criminal charges be forthcoming to utilize the judicial system and curtail criminal activity? It is possible, without any new voter identification requirements, to discover any punish illegal actions. No law can absolutely prevent illegal actions. It seems to me that the current system does an admirable job of preventing illegal activity while allowing people access to vote without unreasonable burden. Yes fraud occurs, No it does not appear to influence the ultimate outcome of elections.
OK Ellen, I’m sure the remote Otero County scenario doesn’t apply to 43,000 people in Indiana and I’m not even concerned that is has to be a driver’s license. If someone wants to vote and is disabled, works 40 hours a week in Sacramento, can’t drive, has no friends, never comes to town for any reason, never flies, never enters a federal buliding then the state should pay for the cost of getting that person an ID that’s suitable. I’m just tired of that excuse being used for the majority of people who don’t have any of those excuses or by people like Hemingway who have another reason for opposing voter ID laws which have nothing to do with disenfranchisement.
Any news in regard to the FBI’s investigation of former Secretary of State Mary Herrera or the fifty plus criminal counts against former Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron? Perhaps the information provided by the prosecution of these potential crimes will shed light upon the suspected voter fraud in New Mexico. Do you have an opinion on that Senator McSorley? Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.
Voter ID is Republican corruption!
I knew someone would dredge up the Brennan Center report. If you take a look at independent analysis of the statistical analysis of this report you will find that this report has some validation and verification problems of it’s own. Stever your right. It may be a minor inconvenience for some to get a “free” picture ID. But wholesale disenfranchisement…no way. I get inconvenienced every time I use my credit card, or cash a check…Dog on it..I have to show that pesky picture ID. So what. Hey an old guy like me gets carded going to a bar for a drink..That is a real inconvenience..
stever, consider that a person who cannot drive (possibly disabled) or cannot afford a car, or is mentally handicapped may have a transportation problem. Or perhaps they live a two hours drive from the nearest MVD, as the residents of the Sacramento-Weed area, and the Timberon area of Otero county do?. Perhaps they work during the week and only go to Alamogordo to shop on the weekends, when the MVD is closed. It is a minimum 3-4 hour round trip drive from Timberon to Alamogordo, although there is a MVD office in Cloudcroft. Pinon is even further out. If the SOS wants photo ID’s, she should go to the person’s home to get them. And what ID does a person have to show to GET this photo ID? A utility bill??
IP, I don’t disagree with the idea that it might be an inconvenience for some people and absent any other reason for having one, e.g. a drivers license, they state could make them free, in some acceptable form. It just seems like a very weak excuse given the incredible number of things people do that require a picture ID or the amount of effort it takes to get one.
Ellen, why can’t 43,000 people get a picture ID? I can understand there has been some study that estimates the number of registered voters who don’t currently have one but how many actually *can’t*?
The problem with the disenfranchise meme is that its trotted out for so many issues, it comes across as reflexive.
I have to agree with the Cisco Kid here, and IP, who presents a better argument in my mind. Voter ID means nothing given the corruption at the polling places to begin with.
Please explain why they “can’t” get a picture ID?
Stever:
In part, I think Senator McSorley is talking about the mere idea of placing an extra burden on our fellow citizens just so that they can partake of our single most cherished right, though there are documented cases – particularly in states with more rigid ID laws – of out-of-state college students, first-time voters, and senior citizens lacking the exact required form of ID and being disallowed from exercising this right. More than that, however, is the reality – as has been pointed out previously – that if there is not some form of accepted ID that is absolutely free-of-charge to the individual voter, then any voter ID law is automatically unconstitutional as a backdoor poll-tax.
Ultimately, the demonstrably false rhetoric that our elections are insecure because of voters has damaged people’s confidence in a system that – from that direction, at least – is not actually broken, to the point that people are demanding that we secure that which is not insecure, and that we secure it against those who are no threat, ultimately leading to threats to the very system we’re trying to protect.
” The SOS report claimed 105 registered voters may not be U.S. citizens and maybe 19 of them have voted in N.M. elections. …… It has now been disclosed that there are 43,000 legally-registered voters without a government-issued voter ID. These voters will be denied their right to vote if they can’t get the [Indiana] state-issued picture ID….”
I do NOT agree that it is OK to deny 43,000 citizens their right to vote in order to prevent maybe 19 foreign nationals from maybe voting.
BTW, it’s Justice John Paul Stevens.
Here is the Brennan Center for Justice on the odious Voter ID laws. The laws have the same effect as the reprehensible Jim Crow laws.
http://www.brennancenter.org/content/section/category/voter_id
The South Carolina legislation will disenfranchise approximately 180,000 voters in South Carolina – including the elderly, students, minorities or low-income voters.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/10/19/347880/south-carolina-voter-id-law-violates-voting-rights-act/
The Republicans are showing their true colors – pretend there is voter fraud and then enact a disgusting Voter ID law to eliminate voters. This should be repugnant to New Mexicans.
Photo ID is a national Republican political scheme that would disenfranchise voters in New Mexico. It would absolutely do nothing to improve the integrity of the electoral process.
Mr Mc Sorley complains about the Indiana Voter Law as if they go out of their way in that state to disenfranchise voters…What he failed to point out that that law was reviewed by the US Supreme Court and ini a 6-3 ruling found to be appropriate. FYI the judge writing the opinion was John Paul Stephens…and you know I think he practiced law in Chicago. No voter fraud there iether Cisco….
Why not do away with all forms of ID. Perhaps the Department of Motor Vehicles is taxing us by forcing us to have drivers licences. Is it a violationof my rights to have a bank check my ID before I cash a check…or a vendor check my ID to make sure my credit card has not been stolen?
Cisco is know as a liberal war horse and he is an example as are many on both sides of the isle why term limits are needed.
The logic that Mc Sorley articulates in this commentary proves how out of touch he seems to be with the majority of voters who demand safe and secure elections. Lets use Indiana’s as our baseline. It already passed muster with the Supremes!
It is as if many of the progressive liberals are living on another plannet..Some Utopian society where your ID never gets taken from you. I guess when you get to the round house in Santa Fe, the condition for thinking this world really exists becomes more accute.
“Getting that ID has proven problematic – so much so that many will not be able to vote.”
Please explain why they “can’t” get a picture ID? Certain things in life require no voluntary action but the vast majority of things require some initiative. You ask for proof in one direction, what’s the proof the other way?
New Mexicans need to know the cost of the bogus voter fraud investigation. How many hours of state employees were used in this witch hunt? The Secretary of State should tell us the facts ASAP!
Senator McSorley has a great deal of insight and has years of experience in the legislature, but most importantly he is known as a realist. The recent witch hunt by the SOS who is a willing tool of Rod Adair and others on the east side of the state, those who turn a blind eye to the the needy, in this case the seniors in rural New Mexico who might not be able to get the required ID card to vote. Because we do not appear to have a problem with voter fraud and voter registration, why would we want to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to implement a costly system of voter identification cards. This might be their way of creating jobs. Those of us who are able to think beyond idealistic views of the suspicion that the Democrats are out cast the thousands of votes it would take to result in a fraudulent election, realize the extra manpower, technological systems, and other administrative costs it would take not only to implement such a system, but maintain it. Does big government come to mind? I believe the very nature of this suspicion should be an offense to us New Mexicans of being accused unjustly and without basis. I can only conclude that those pursuing voter ID are accusing us of crimes, or at least of criminal intent, as we carry out our rights under the U.S. Constitution. McSorley hits the nail on it head by saying we as citizens have a right to vote. Next the SOS will be calling for our thumbprints or some other nonsensical system to cast our votes.