4 March 2006

Ensure Election Integrity

--by Mike Murray

Amid the daily onslaught of trivial trivialities -- as a friend of mine redundantly calls them -- it is becoming increasingly more difficulty to focus the mind on significant things. Members of the entrenched, establishment media bombard the reading and viewing public these days with gobs of obstructing, immaterial claptrap.

For example, would it truly (as many editorialists are lately trying to convince us), be a travesty if everyone wishing to cast a vote were expected to confirm his or her identity? Really?

Let me get this straight: If someone desires to operate a motor vehicle, purchase alcohol or cigarettes, board an airplane, enter a school or government facility, or even gain access to many corporate buildings -- some of them the very premises housing publications that decry the practice of identity verification -- he or she is forced to produce appropriate ID on demand.

But, to permit participation in the most important of public activities -- voting -- we should be satisfied by unverified signatures? Please.

I am reminded of an old joke. Two individuals are trolling a local cemetery, transcribing names off of headstones for the purpose of voter registration. One says to the other, "I guess I'll have to pass on this one. I can't make out the name."

"Hey!" admonishes the other. "Keep trying. That guy has as much right to vote as anyone else here."

Of course, proponents of the opposing viewpoint tell us that voter fraud is so rare as to be statistically insignificant. We should just trust them about that, I guess. Members of the mainstream media (and their "well-placed" sources) proclaim it; thus, it is so. Har, har, har, dee, har, har.

Remember the huckster who first published the statistic that more than twenty percent of Americans are homosexual? That "fact" was picked up and published over and over -- in newspapers, in magazines, in professional journals, in academic papers. Years later, when serious researchers tracked down the origin of the assertion, they eventually reached its author. He admitted that he had simply made up a number that sounded good, one that helped him make a larger point (a practice employed by way too many "journalists" recently: Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, Janet Cooke, et al.).

What enabled the fabricator of the phony sexual-orientation statistic to get away with his deception was the comfort level his claim enjoyed with many in his audience. The popularity of his false contention among his supporters permitted it to go unchallenged for a very long period of time. And his skeptics were afraid to question the authenticity of the bogus claim, lest they be painted as anti-gay bigots.

I suspect that it is much the same when it comes to voter fraud. Not too many years ago, Mike Huckabee (then the Republican governor of Arkansas) tried to gain media attention for a troubling practice. He contended that African-American ministers were ushering parishioners into the basements of their churches on Sundays for the purpose of unmonitored ballot casting, on non-sanctioned voting days. If true, the practice was unequivocally unethical and absolutely illegal.

Huckabee could get very few among the mainstream media to even report -- much less investigate -- his charge. Now, there is no guarantee that the black congregations in question acted improperly or, if they did, that they voted overwhelmingly for Democrats (though that seems probable, given election results).

What is undeniable here is that there was a significant story involved.

If the governor's assertions had proved true, that would have been one story. If not, false accusations on his part would have been another. Either way, the public was not-at-all served by the mainstream media's ignoring of events in that important, general-election year.

Then there were claims that Democratic-party icons such as Jesse Jackson have been involved in highly questionable "get out the vote" efforts. Specifically, it has been alleged that they have helped organize groups of people into busloads for the express purpose of crossing state lines and voting a second time, under a different registration.

Those accused rightly enjoyed the presumption of innocence; the burden of proof rested squarely on the shoulders of their accusers. But why wasn't big media even interested in looking into a matter so important, a story so big? Could it be that press outlets on the Left simply don't relish exposing certain kinds of impropriety, and those on the Right don't have the courage to stand against false, hateful charges of bigotry that might result?

How about the students attending college out-of-state, the ones who were given instructions from operatives from their affiliated political party (guess which one) about how to get away with voting twice: once via absentee ballot and a second time in-person, after traveling home for the election? Didn't hear much (anything?) about it? I'm not surprised.

Finally, there was the person who was recruited by party hacks to register under different names -- needing only his signatures as proof of his fraudulent identities. He related (on camera) that, as agreed, he cast multiple votes. His reason for contacting the media and his supposed grievance? He said that he was promised separate compensations for each vote he cast in the national election and that -- having cast three or more -- was paid for only one.

What do these stories have in common? All were grossly underreported. Most in the media gave them no attention at all.

Contrast that with the goings on in Ohio in 2004. When some people perceived possible irregularities that could have resulted in Republican favor, the mainstream press covered that story ad nauseum. It covered it so extensively, in fact, that many Democrats across the country continue to believe that George W. Bush stole the election with the Buckeye State's help -- compelling evidence to the contrary.

So, when many in the media now wring their hands and fret that attempts to ensure the integrity of elections are unnecessary, they lack credibility. Further, when they contend that efforts to confirm identities will limit access for "certain segments" of the population, they do a grave public disservice. Selective concern -- and the bias it reveals -- is only the tip of the iceberg.

More egregious, even, than big media's revelations of political preference (singular expressions of concern over disenfranchisement hint at Democrat leanings; solitary worries about fraud suggest Republican ones) is the suggestion that "certain segments" of the electorate are incompetent.

Are we to believe that these people (can you guess who they're talking about?) are much like young children, unable to fend for themselves in even the smallest of ways? The objects of such ridiculous characterizations should take them for the insults that they are.

For the truly indigent -- those who are so poor that they do not already possess identification and who cannot afford its purchase -- public assistance could surely be provided. But I suspect that that portion of the population is small. (How did they put it? Statistically insignificant?)

Voting is the foundation upon which our democracy is built. Ensuring integrity in the process should be important to each of us, regardless of party preference. We should enthusiastically encourage and enable all eligible voters to participate. And we should just as aggressively work to foil fraud.

I am in favor of all qualified citizens going into the voting booth and exercising that most precious of privileges on election days. But I do not want the ineligible to participate; I do not want the dead to vote; I do not want vultures to co-opt the votes of unwitting nursing-home residents; I do not want cheaters to register using more than one identity, or to vote by any means more than one time.

What reasonable person -- Democrat, Republican, or independent -- could think otherwise? What responsible person would leave something so important to chance?

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