When we cast our votes soon, we have the opportunity to agree to amend our state constitution to say that we don’t want anybody voting under the false pretense of being somebody else. Of course we all agree with that. But, wait a minute. Perhaps we need to dig a little deeper.
There must be some terrible problem going on somewhere when 38 states are offering this amendment. Richard Hasen, author of a new book, The Voting Wars, has made an extensive study of the partisan battles over election rules from the 2000 Florida recount to the present. He did not find a single case where it’s even remotely possible that voter impersonation could have impacted the results of an election.
Incidentally, there was serious fraud going on in Florida recently where voter registration is being conducted by Strategic Allied Consulting. The representative is said to be sorting the registrations and throwing away those of one of the political parties.
How is it that 38 states are hoping to remedy this non-existent problem of voter impersonation? Maybe you have heard of an organization called ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. This is a nonprofit organization that is drafting model legislation for Congress and state legislatures. Writing a law is not easy so this organization provides our legislators with help, producing model bills including voter ID bills. The voter ID constitutional amendment must have significant benefit for somebody.
Another thing that most of us agree about is that government at any level should be frugal and efficient in spending our money. Braidy Powers, Cook County’s auditor/ treasurer, has studied this proposed change and estimates that it could cost us initially as much as $60,000 to $100,000 depending on what requirements might be included in the actual law, plus continuing extra costs for each election.
Please, think twice before automatically voting yes. There may be more to this than meets the eye.
Mary Alice Hansen
Grand Marais
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