Regarding Election Integrity

A debate currently rages in Georgia over the need for voters to be able to prove who they are, and that they have the right to vote in a given election. The controversy stems from a law that was passed by Georgia’s legislature last year which required voters to show a photo-ID when they go to the polls in order to be able to vote. Those who did not already have one could purchase one for up to $35.

This final provision within the bill seems to have been what left it open to legal challenge, and the law was indeed blocked from taking effect by a federal judge who ruled that the requirement for some to purchase an ID amounted to an unconstitutional poll tax. The law, consequently, has been unenforceable. That is, until recently – perhaps.

Earlier this month, Georgia’s legislators passed another bill making the photo-IDs free to those who cannot afford to purchase them – seemingly removing the obstacle that kept the original bill from taking effect. Not that it’s going to happen without a fight. Those who continue to oppose the voter ID requirement continue to raise charges that the requirement suppresses the votes of the poor, minorities, and elderly. Of course, it should be noted that this writer has seen no documentation offered to substantiate that claim.

If anyone needs to see real-world evidence of the need for laws like the one being debated in Georgia, he needs only to look to the state bordering the Peach State to the North. In Tennessee, politics-watchers are getting a firsthand look at the corruption that inadequate voter identification breeds.

Tuesday night, the Tennessee Senate, acting as a “committee of the whole,” voted to nullify the results of a special election held in September which was intended to replace one of its members, John Ford of Memphis, who had resigned as the result of a bribery scandal. The election was won by Mr. Ford’s sister, Ophelia, by a margin of 13 votes.

The problem is that more than 13 votes in the election were cast by convicted felons, people living outside the district, or people who aren’t living at all. Should the Senate, voting as the Senate, duplicate last night’s results on Thursday, Ms. Ford will be removed from office, and the Shelby County Commission will appoint a replacement until the next general election.

What is fascinating in both the Georgia case – where the discussion of inadequate voter verification is still at the theoretical level – and the Tennessee case – where the discussion has moved into the “real world situation” arena – is that those in both cases who oppose taking measures to prevent or correct corruption, by and large, have something in common – their partisan affiliation.

It is the Democrats in Georgia who are trying to oppose the measure that would work to prevent corruption in the electoral process. It is the Democrats in Tennessee who are fighting to keep in place the results of an election that no impartial observer could deny was corrupted to the extreme. Predictably, the charges of racism and vote suppression have been thrown out as a means of misdirecting the discussion, for lack of any real leg that these opponents have to stand on.

But “racism” as all too often charged nowadays has become a meaningless term. Whereas in the past, it usually pointed to actual cases of someone’s being unfairly discriminated against on racial grounds, nowadays, more often than not, it is used merely to describe the actions of those with whom a particular group may disagree. Thanks to the race-hustlers who have thrown around the term too freely and carelessly, “racism” as a charge has come to have a very hollow ring to it. What some don’t seem to want to acknowledge is that the measures being discussed in both cases would apply to people of any race – regardless of the race of anyone in a given instance.

And “vote suppression” seems to have come to mean anything that discourages from voting people who don’t have a right to vote. The simple fact of the matter is that there are some whose votes do need to be suppressed under the law: underage citizens, convicted felons, those not properly registered, non-citizens, and, yes, voters who have passed from this life.

The real question that this writer suspects many people – like himself – would like to have answered is: Why is the Democrat party behind most of the opposition to measures that would provide real solutions to the problem of vote and election integrity?

Best guess – It is because elections are a democratic (small “d”) process, and, perhaps ironically, democratic processes have not been kind to the Democrats (large “D”) in recent years. Whereas, when the Republicans were in the minority, they realized they had to just go out, work hard, and win elections, the Democrats now in the minority have decided that they need to circumvent constitutional democratic process in order to move their agenda forward – think of their heavy reliance upon the judicial branch for making policy in this light as well.

What makes this all very sobering is the implications it has for the day, if and when it ever occurs, that the modern Democrat party ever returns to power. They are already trying, through various extra-constitutional means, to suppress and silence those who oppose their agenda. Just imagine how successful they might be at this if they are ever given back the authority that goes with being the majority party.

It’s ten months until election day.