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Voter ID
continued from page 1
uniquely identifies the ballot for accuracy and the bal-
lot counting process is open for the public to observe.”
“Oregon already has Voter ID, it’s called our signa-
ture,” Buehler says on his blog.
Nationally, the Urban League and the NAACP are
campaigning strongly against Voter ID laws.
“We’ve seen more states pass more laws in the past
year, pushing more voters out of the ballot box than at
any point in the last hundred years,” Ben Jealous
told Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman, Sept. 6.
“And you know, it’s not simply a Republican
thing, because we’ve seen Rick Snyder, Republican
governor of Michigan, veto strict photo ID. We’ve
seen Bob McDonnell of Virginia actually expand
the re-enfranchising of formerly incarcerated people
in that state and say to his folks, ‘Don’t even bring
me a strict voter ID bill, or I will veto it.’ It’s an
extremist thing. It’s a far-right thing. You know, and
it’s having a real effect on this race, and it will have
a real effect come November.”
Jealous, along with most progressives and civil rights
activists, sees Voter ID as part of the long history of
voter suppression efforts aimed at Blacks, Latinos, the
elderly and poor people in general, who all are less like-
ly to have state-issued photo ID. They’re also part of
the Democratic base.
Mike Turzai, the Pennsylvania GOP House majority
leader, offered ammunition for that view in June. Boast-
ing of his party’s accomplishments at a state Republi-
can meeting, he said, “Voter ID, which is going to allow
Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania:
Done.”
Model legislation from the controversial pressure
group ALEC was used to craft several state ID laws.
Some of the most restrictive – the Texas law that rec-
ognizes gun permits but not school ID, for example –
are facing legal challenges. But similar laws in Penn-
sylvania, Idaho or Louisiana, require voters to show
government –issued photo ID.
Investigations across the country have found very lit-
tle evidence of voter fraud, according to a report from
the Brennan Center for Justice.
“There have been a handful of substantiated cases of
individual ineligible voters attempting to defraud the
Voter Registration Drives,” suggests that the real harm to
democracy is that too few people are registered to vote.
“At least 51 million — roughly 25 percent — of voting-age
Americans are not registered and cannot vote,” the report
says. “That is equivalent to losing the entire eligible voting
population of California, New York, and Texas combined. As
of 2010, Census data shows that 37 percent of eligible blacks
and 48 percent of eligible Hispanics are not registered to
vote.”
In Oregon, just two cases of voter fraud have been
substantiated since January 2009. In 2010 Brown’s
staff investigated allegations that 6,000 dead people
had voted. They looked at every case. The result? One
single conviction.
In 2011, Lafayette Keaton, 81, was convicted of vot-
--GOP Secretary of State candidate Knute Buehler ing for his dead brother and his son. He also was col-
lecting his brother’s social security benefits. Keaton
was fined $5000 and sentenced to three months in jail
for the voter fraud. That was in addition to jail time for
know from my own work that voter fraud just isn’t an issue.” the benefits fraud.
The second case involved a Josephine County man who
Gaskin points to case studies show voter ID would not have
voted using his brother’s ID. He was convicted of four
prevented the few cases of fraud that exist.
“If you have someone who is bound and determined to felonies and deported, losing forever his chance to become a
break the law, the answer is enforcement. So the first step is citizen.
ensuring the existing law is being enforced.
“I think there should be as few barriers between me and my
vote as possible.”
Read the rest of this story online at www.theskanner.com
The Brennan Center’s latest report, State Restrictions on
election system. But by any measure, voter fraud is extraor-
dinarily rare.”
What’s more, the report concluded, photo ID laws do noth-
ing to prevent the small amount of fraud that exists. Yet those
same laws will exclude “millions of voters,” says Keesha
Gaskins, senior counsel for the Brennan Center’s democracy
program.
“There’s little justification for those laws,” Gaskin says. “I
‘Oregon already has Voter ID, it’s called
our signature’
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AND
PROJECT COORDINATOR
The Department of County Human Services is seeking
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9-12-12
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September 12, 2012 The Portland Skanner Page 7