More Proof of the Need for Voter ID

To hear the vote fraud deniers like Justin Levitt and Al Sharpton talk Voter ID does nothing to stop vote fraud because it only stops impersonation.  In other words, someone pretending to be you or someone else they are not.  Maybe in their vain worlds that is their biggest concern: someone trying to be them.  The reality is Voter ID does much more than that.

Take the story yesterday that detailed 14,646 duplicate registrations in just one county in Northern Virginia (Fairfax County) and Maryland.  The election official says there is no way they can sort through all the double registrations before the November election and there are serious questions whether election officials can do anything other than put these voters on the “inactive” roles. 


This allows unscrupulous party operatives (and there are many party operatives in the metro DC area) and other political activists to vote in the state of their choice in different elections.  We are not talking double-voting either, rather more of an "a la carte" voting depending on the election.  For example, in the very blue or Democrat state of Maryland you could vote in the Democrat primary and then for the General Election vote in the purple or toss up state of Virginia.  Furthermore, Virginia has off year elections (2013 and 2015) when there are no elections in Maryland. 


While clean election rolls would also stop this, it should be remembered that the law firm of Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA) Co-Chair Democrat Bob Bauer filed in Virginia what a judge called a groundless suit to stop efforts by Virginia election officials to clean up the rolls.  This baseless partisan effort, while typical of Democrats, even runs afoul of the Bauer-led PCEA’s recommendations. 


Which is why Voter ID is part of the solution.  Everyone should be allowed to vote but only where they live.  Thus Voter ID would prevent the Maryland residents from driving 30 minutes and voting in Fairfax County and vice-versa.  Since Virginia law does not allow for a Maryland Driver's License for acceptable ID, these voters would be deterred from voting in Virginia. Voter ID does not disenfranchise anyone and actually prevents the disenfranchisement of legal voters. 


But Sharpton, Levitt and the Democrats who filed the groundless suit in Virginia will have none of that.  And unfortunately it effects elections and not just their vanity.