Trying to Make Elections Honest

The bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform, headed by former President Jimmy Carter and Republican James A. Baker III, has presented some constructive suggestions to clean up the massive frauds in our voting processes. They are responding to the widespread public realization that we do not have a system of "one man, one vote." Voting in the United States can be more accurately described as "one man, many votes" or as "dead or illegal man, one vote."

The most important among their 87 solutions to election frauds are three new requirements: (1) that voters present a government issued photo ID (such as a driver's license), (2) that states clean up the frauds in their registration rolls, and (3) that electronic voting machines have a verifiable paper trail.

Since 9/11, we have become accustomed to presenting photo ID when we board an airplane, but the need for positive identification of voters is even more important. Already 24 states require that voters prove their identity at the polls and 12 others are considering it, so it should be no big deal to make other states do likewise.

Registration rolls are a national scandal; some cities have more registered voters than people. Those who have died or moved away are retained as registered voters for years and years. The Commission reported that 46,000 New York City voters were also registered to vote in Florida.

The New York Times reported in 1998 that the percentage of registered voters who are ineligible because they have died, moved or registered at multiple addresses is 16.8%. This allows plenty of opportunity to vote the graveyards, the nursing homes, the absent students, and the homeless who can be enticed with beer or cigarettes. In their book Dirty Little Secrets, University of Virginia Professor Larry Sabato and Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn R. Simpson asserted that 2 million to 3.4 million "phony registrations" were on the voting rolls in California.

It is widely known that the practice called provisional voting offers the potential for large-scale cheating in the counting. Unfortunately, the Carter-Baker commission recommends phasing out this mischievous practice only by 2010. Many other election frauds contribute to a loss of public confidence in our voting system. These include the failure to follow the law in counting absentee ballots and the finding of boxes of uncounted ballots after election results are posted.

The Carter-Baker commission also proposed free television time for political candidates. Nothing would do so much to reduce the level of political spending about which people are constantly complaining. The whole process of self-government is at stake if we can't rely on the integrity of the ballot box. What can "one man, one vote" possibly mean if our votes aren't honestly counted?