Posted on 01/13/2008 10:06:04 AM PST by truthfinder9
When I was young, I lived in Chicago. As a college student, I lived in Evanston, Ill., which borders Chicago on the north, and later, as a law student, I lived in the heart of the city itself. Richard J. Daley was the mayor, the Democratic Party ran the city, and vote fraud was accepted as a fact of life.
One Election Day, I went to my Chicago precinct voting station, and, while I was in line to vote, a car pulled up outside and parked illegally, and six men got out. There was an ordinary looking driver and five other men who were clearly derelicts. They came into the voting place, bypassed the line and announced that they were there to vote. The driver voted first, then each of the other five.
Each derelict told the person handing out ballots that he would need assistance in voting and asked to have the driver accompany him into the voting booth, to help him read and understand the ballot. In each case, the driver went into the booth and helped the man vote. After all six had voted, they got back into the car and drove away.
All of us who were there knew that they were headed to another precinct, where this scene would be repeated.
When the results were in, the Democrats handily won all of the contests.
A few days later the Chicago Daily News, a wonderful newspaper that is no longer in business, began a series of articles exposing the blatant fraud that had taken place in that election.
This was nothing new. The Daily News published these articles after every election. For several days the paper published names and addresses of fictitious voters who had come from their “homes” in vacant lots, cemeteries and abandoned buildings in order to cast their ballots.
I am sure that over the course of time the Republicans, too, have perpetrated voter fraud. It is just that, in my own experience, it has always been done by Democrats. Clearly, this colors my opinions regarding a case now pending in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Indiana, in addition to at least four other states, has enacted a law that says that a person who wants to vote needs to present photo identification in order to prove that he or she is in fact the person that he or she claims to be. The purpose of the law is to prevent voter fraud. Republicans like it. Democrats do not like it.
Democrats claim the law will prevent poor and disadvantaged people from voting because the requirement of presenting a photo ID imposes an undue burden on the right to vote. Such people, they claim, often do not have a photo ID.
The Indiana law was challenged in court by Democrats and activist groups who support Democrats. The lower court upheld the law, and that decision was approved by a federal court of appeals. One of the appellate judges, in making the ruling, said, “It is exceedingly difficult to maneuver in today's America without a photo ID (try flying, or even entering a tall building, such as the courthouse in which we sit, without one).”
He could have added that you also need one to cash a check, buy a drink in a bar or drive a car. As Americans, we take it for granted that we have the right to travel freely, yet we have no qualms about demanding that citizens who leave or enter the country display a valid passport. We want to know they are who they say they are. Having a photo ID is now a fact of life. If someone does not have one, it is certainly no great inconvenience to get one.
The case contesting the law is being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court, and a decision will be coming down in a few weeks. That decision will have an important influence on our future
On the one hand, we have the importance of preserving credibility in our elections. If citizens have good reason to think that elections are crooked, democracy cannot long survive.
On the other hand, we have the rather minor inconvenience of requiring that a voter bring a photo ID to the polls.
Sorry, Democrats, but I remember Chicago, and you are on the wrong side in this one.
Howard Chapman is an Adjunct Fellow of Discovery Institute
I hope and pray that SCOTUS affirms this law and makes it the LAW OF THE LAND!
Thwap the Demoncrats. They can’t win without breaking the law.
This happens in Philadelphia, and it is spearheaded by the thug unions. Nothing in this WORLD filthier than a Teamster on election day.
Vote processing... a challenger sits at the polling place and keeps track of which Democrats showed up to vote, and towards the end of the day the rest of the electorate signs the card and magically casts their ballot.
In some heavily minority districts where actual turnout is around 20%, they frequently have 90% or higher actually cast ballots.
And of course you can’t videotape this fraud so there’s no way to get this prosecuted. The union monkeys will work you over if you dare to challenge them on this.
Pittsburgh isnt much better. The dem machine is out full force ensuring that only Dems are counted. Election day in PA is like “Dawn of the Dead”. When hell is full, the dead walk the earth and Vote in PA.
Why do the Domocrats oppose it so................
Yep. Only somebody wanting to commit fraud or support fraud would object to Photo Id.
So would “English only” ballots.
“He could have added that you also need one to cash a check, buy a drink in a bar or drive a car.”
or cash a welfare check
We haven’t seen “voter fraud” yet. Iowa and New Hampshire have already shown us how crooked the 2008 election is going to be. The fix is in. Dems win.
Sorry, I meant that in response to...Voter Fraud Has Long Been a Problem, and Photo IDs Will Definitely Help. IOW...”English only ballots” will help thwart vote fraud.
Same thing in The Region. Lake County, Indiana.
If I were on the Supreme Court, I'd rule that voter ID laws are not only allowed by the Constitution but required. A legitimate voter is just as disenfranchised when his vote is canceled out by a ghost voter as when he is not allowed to vote. I would also require paper trails and open source code for electronic voting machines.
Democrats say thousands of “elderly and poor” don’t have photo ID.
_____________________________
On the other hand, Democrats
-—brag about their voter registration drives
-—tell us they have an awesome voter calling system
-—offer rides to the polls
-—babysit your children if necessary
-—plow your driveway
You get my drift. They say they’re totally connected to their constituents.
SO. WHY DON’T THEY HAVE ALL THEIR PHONE BANKS ASK IF THE PERSON HAS PHOTO ID??!! If they believe there’s this huge problem, identify the folks and help them get documentation. THe fact that they don’t do this puts the lie to their claims.
[Oh, one other thing. If those “elderly” voters don’t have ID, how did they sign up for their Social Security benefits?]
Won’t make a darn bit of difference.
bump
This isn’t the only way they commit voter fraud. My wife and I were guardians for her aunt who was in a nursing home due to alzheimer’s. I walked in one day and there was a “nice lady” there “helping” her to vote. When I asked to see the ballot she refused, until I informed her that my wife’s aunt did not have the legal right to vote since she had been declared incompetent and was under a guardianship. When she gave me the ballot, shazam, she had “voted” straight democRAT. I tore up the ballot, at which point the woman threatened to have me arrested. I handed her my cell phone and told her to dial 911. She hurriedly left the room. When I complained to the management of the nursing home, they said there was nothing they could do.
I’d like the dems to show us one adult who has physically voted in the past who is able to live in today’s society without a photo ID and have that person explain to us why it would be a hardship for them to obtain one.
If asked: who exactly is being disenfranchised? , they will point to a Hispanic and say him. To which you will reply: well, is he here legally or illegally? To which they will respond: beside the point! Then they will immediately brand you a racist and accuse you of intimidation.
And yet, somehow our nation fluorished for 230 some odd years without photo ID, or to put it another way, without U.S. Citizens having to provide their papers at every whim of the federal government.
It is astonishing to me to watch supposed conservatives buy into a scenario when they will have to provide their papers to vote, to fly, to ride by rail and soon to drive down the highway.
Pretty soon our car licenses will be recorded as we pass checkpoints along the way to our desitnation.
Not only will idiots track our every key punch on the internet, they will track our every movement.
This nation is no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave. We are the land of the cowards and the home of the feckless.
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