Voter Fraud

Let’s think about in-person voter fraud, said to be a major problem that ID requirements are supposed to eliminate.  

First of all, when you vote in Pennsylvania, you need to give your name.  To cheat you would have to give the name of someone you knew was not planning to vote that day; if two people gave the same name the fraud would quickly become apparent.  Secondly, you must sign a book which has your previous signature.  You could fake a signature if you knew what it looked like ahead of time, but you’d have a hard time duplicating one you hadn’t seen before.  Third, you’d be taking a chance that one of the election officials would either know you or the person for whom you were voting.  Finally, you could only do it one time at one polling place.  If you did try it at three or four polling locations, you would be caught rather quickly.

Fraud may exist in registration procedures, or in the computer programming, or in gerrymandering, or in campaign finance, but the voter ID laws don’t address these issues.  

They do address one problem, and I will quote Morning Call columnist Bill White:

“In fairness, these laws are very good at addressing the problem they’re really intended to address, which is too many minority, student and poor elderly voters who are likely to vote Democratic.”