Justice Department letter to Texas objecting to voter ID law

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

The law is seemingly either unnecessary or unconstitutional, depending on intent and implementation.

It's quite a leap to go from saying that these documents are possibly falsifiable to saying that the law doesn't help alleviate potential voter fraud or that there is absolutely no effect on the integrity of the vote either way.

I acknowledge it's not hard to falsify a utility bill. However, to do it for the entire Dallas Cowboys offensive line (a famous example of false voter registrations by ACORN), is going to be at least something of a barrier.

That isn't to say it wouldn't be all that difficult to falsify lots of utility bills and such in order to commit voting fraud, it's just that in this case, there'd be a lot more evidence of the wrongdoing and authorities might therefore actually have some success in investigation.

The Crawford case, if you're passing on the poll tax issue as being successfully circumvented, goes right to the constitutionality of the statute. Whether it's a good idea or not, I dunno. As strongly as the left has come out against this, I have yet to see any Americans who have really been disenfranchised. It almost seems that the left is trying to protect the ability to commit voting fraud.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by Kevin

It's quite a leap to go from saying that these documents are possibly falsifiable to saying that the law doesn't help alleviate potential voter fraud or that there is absolutely no effect on the integrity of the vote either way.

I acknowledge it's not hard to falsify a utility bill. However, to do it for the entire Dallas Cowboys offensive line (a famous example of false voter registrations by ACORN), is going to be at least something of a barrier.

So it's easy to falsify a utility bill, but hard to falsify five such bills? I just don't see how there is anything other than an economy of scale here - there's really no substantial difference in falsifying any number once you have the first, given the technology (a laptop computer, a printer) in use.

That isn't to say it wouldn't be all that difficult to falsify lots of utility bills and such in order to commit voting fraud, it's just that in this case, there'd be a lot more evidence of the wrongdoing and authorities might therefore actually have some success in investigation.

I disagree entirely that this even marginally increases evidence of any sort - nobody at the polling place is keeping the utility bill (just as they aren't keeping the ID shown) or whatever document is shown.

It would be the same situation you have now - those who organize and perpetrate the fraud slink back into the shadows.

I'd be all for a law that could unilaterally prevent voter fraud - but I have yet to see a law that has real "teeth" that doesn't simultaneously step on the toes of legitimate voters, and I don't think the trade-off is anything near worth it, given what we know (or rather, don't) about voter fraud.