One Person One Vote is a critical tenet of democracy, and one we didn’t really get around to until about fifty years ago. There are two important factors in ensuring this ideal is upheld. The first is making sure that voting is available to as many people as possible, so the vote actually represents the maximum amount of the population. The second is preventing voter fraud, so every person only gets one vote. Mostly within the past year, 33 states—including Wisconsin—have passed laws that aim to reduce voter fraud by requiring photo IDs at voting locations on election day. So, no more voter fraud. Democracy is saved. Moving on.
Except this is America and nothing’s that simple. There is a natural conflict between freedom and security that is present in many issues nationwide. For security reasons, I do not have the freedom to own a bazooka. Also for security reasons, I do not have the freedom to found a student organization devoted to conducting frequent maritime pirate raids on the Memorial Union Terrace. Often, laws intended to prevent crime can infringe on the rights of law-abiding citizens. Such is the case, opponents argue, with voter ID laws, as those without the necessary photo ID will be unable to vote in November’s presidential election.
Two Dane County judges have ruled Wisconsin’s new voter ID law unconstitutional for exactly that reason. Thursday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court announced it will not rule on this decision until after the election. This means the law is on hold, and come November, we will probably not need a photo ID to vote. So, good thing or bad thing?
It appears that without these stricter ID requirements, more people can vote but more voter fraud occurs. With the alternative, less voter fraud occurs but less people can vote. This is a matter of simple math. A single case of voter fraud impacts an election comparably to a single voter being barred from casting a ballot; each alters the result by one vote. The solution lies in which policy will skew results the least.
Voter fraud exists. Thousands of reported cases have occurred since the year 2000. The problem, however, is the new photo ID laws can only prevent cases of voter impersonation. Of these thousands of cases of voter fraud in the last 12 years, there are 10 confirmed cases of voter impersonation nationwide. Allow me to provide some perspective. Since the year 2000, more people have died from manatee attacks than have tried to impersonate another voter in a U.S. election. Some proponents of the laws claim voter impersonation occurs often undetected, and the rarity of reported cases is evidence that it is a large problem. This argument reveals a disturbing possibility regarding manatees. Think about it. Why are there so few reported cases of people being killed by manatees? Because they’re professionals. They don’t leave evidence. So when we’re done with voter impersonation, we should take steps to protect ourselves from genetically engineered manatee assassins. Fun fact: Genetically engineering manatee assassins is another thing I’m not allowed to do for security reasons.
Well then how many people are prevented from voting by these laws? The short answer: more than 10. The long answer is it is impossible to tell exactly, but definitely more than 10. In Pennsylvania, state officials report almost 100,000 registered voters lack government-issued photo identification. In the 2008 presidential election, over 1,000 ballots were thrown out due to lack of eligible ID in the states of Georgia and Indiana, which had such laws in place at that time. This number does not include voters that didn’t even go to the polls because they lacked ID.
Now, I can see some readers rolling their eyes, and I understand. Numbers and statistics can be manipulated to the whims of those collecting them. Proponents of photo ID laws reference different figures than those above. However, even in reports from proponents, numbers of voter impersonation cases never exceed a couple hundred, while the numbers of voters without required ID remain in the thousands.
For this reason, I am against Wisconsin’s new voter ID law and am happy to see it will not affect November’s election.
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