No-Identity Politics

Since daughter Jessie will turn 18 the end of October, will thus be eligible to vote next November, but will be in first Pittsburgh and then Pasadena after tomorrow, we took her to register today and get an application for an absentee ballot.

Because of Jessie’s experience proving her identity in order to take the Graduate Record Exam last October, we went to the voter registration office heavily loaded with identity papers.

Now let me digress: the GRE required a valid, government issued (passport, drivers’ licence, state identity card, etc.) picture ID. Jessie’s Bryn Mawr student ID had a nice picture, but alas Bryn Mawr doesn’t qualify as a government. Jessie and I were issued passports on the same date, and since mine was still good we figured hers was, too. Big mistake. Hers had expired a month or so earlier, and we didn’t have time to get it renewed before the exam. Since Jessie was not a legal resident of Pennsylvania she could not get a state issued identity card there. Thus I had to drive to Philadelphia, pick her up, drive back down to Virginia (or at least that part of it near D.C.) to get a Virginia non-drivers license, i.e., state identity card, for her, and then drive her back. That card required proof of residency (a passport or birth certificate, which I had).

Imagine our surprise, then, when we learned today that NO proof of either citizenship or residency is required to register to vote in Virginia. You have to affirm that you are a resident and citizen, and lying about that is election fraud, a serious felony, but no supporting documents are required. Just sign the form.

Maybe voting in Virginia is not as serious a business as the Graduate Record Exam.

Say What? (13)

  1. Rich May 27, 2004 at 9:53 am | | Reply

    I’ve registered in CA many times, never needed any identification. Anyone can register.

    And I understand that the motor voter legislation requires the DMV to offer registration to everyone, regardless of status, even if it’s know that they are foreign nationals.

    In CA they print election materials in Spanish (and about 20 other languages). Not only is there nothing stopping illegal (or legal) aliens from voting, everything actively encourages it.

    Rich

  2. ELC May 27, 2004 at 11:21 am | | Reply

    You can’t even rent a movie at Hollywood Video without showing a driver’s license or similarly official ID.

  3. Craig May 27, 2004 at 12:34 pm | | Reply

    (Realizing that this is an overly serious response to the anecdote)

    Two big distinctions between driving and voting:

    1 – voting confers very little benefit on the actor; driving has become virtually essential

    2 – there is a right to vote; there is no corresponding right to drive

  4. Nels Nelson May 27, 2004 at 1:55 pm | | Reply

    I’d be surprised if many illegals voted in California, as registering requires giving the state your name, address, DOB, and ID card no. or SSN. You can’t just walk into any polling place on an election day and declare your intention to vote. Even if fraud is fairly easy I doubt too many people here illegally would risk exposing themselves by corresponding with the state.

  5. Margaret May 28, 2004 at 12:59 am | | Reply

    I’d already noticed how *easy* it would be to commit voter fraud out here in California. I could hand in plenty of random names and use my home address to receive absentee ballots. If anyone ever actually called me on it (doubt it!) I could just claim innocence– after all, someone could have registered all these non-people at my address as a prank, right? The only tip-off the election officials might have would be a sudden upsurge in Republicans voting in my heavily Democrat precinct… :-)

  6. Rich May 28, 2004 at 10:49 am | | Reply

    You need to register 15 days prior to the election, but if you come of age after the 15 days but before the election you can still register (at the registrar’s office I think).

    Here’s the CA on-line registration form.

    https://ovr.ss.ca.gov/votereg/OnlineVoterReg

    You may note that you don’t need a SSN, it requires only the last 4 digits.

    And you don’t even need a street address.

    http://www.usbc.org/media/voting.htm

    […]

    The Clinton Administration applied their famous “don’t ask — don’t tell” strategy to the Motor Voter law’s implementation by warning Motor Vehicle Department employees not to ask if an applicant is a citizen or tell them that non-citizens cannot vote.

    Under the Motor Voter law, anyone [Motor Vehicle Department employees included] who “knowingly and willfully intimidates, threatens, or coerces, or attempts to intimidate, threaten, or coerce, any person for registering to vote, or voting, or attempting to register or vote” violates federal law.

    Hence, the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens, visa overstayers and others classified as “refugees” who were granted amnesty or asylum by the Clinton Administration could all have been illegal voters in this election.

    How many ineligible voters actually took advantage of the Motor Voter law by registering to vote? In Florida, according to the Florida Secretary of State’s numbers, between 1994 and 1998 (the most recent data available), the number of registered Hispanic voters skyrocketed by an astonishing 557%, from 99,000 to 655,000 while the number of White and Black registered voters increased by a reasonable 15 %.

    […]

    Draw your own conclusions.

    Rich

  7. tRIO May 28, 2004 at 5:21 pm | | Reply

    *Nothing* is as serious a business as the GRE.

    Right?

  8. Fedling May 30, 2004 at 5:06 pm | | Reply

    And you wonder how people like Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi get elected? You have to be able to work the system, something political bosses have known since the dawn of democracy.

  9. David Nieporent May 31, 2004 at 5:56 am | | Reply

    Uh, you do realize that there’s no earthly reason why it would matter whether the passport had expired, don’t you? It’s still just as much a government-issued picture ID. It’s not valid for travel purposes, but it still identifies you. You have to run into a really stupid bureaucrat, even by the standard of bureaucrats, to find one who wouldn’t accept it as ID.

  10. John Rosenberg May 31, 2004 at 3:55 pm | | Reply

    David – We, of course, made exactly the same argument to ETS (or whoever it is who administers the GRE), but to no avail.

  11. Andrew Lazarus May 31, 2004 at 7:41 pm | | Reply

    David Nieporent is correct and ETS is wrong. The expired passport should have been accepted. That’s why you can use an expired passport to get a renewal.

    Personally, I’d guess that a five-fold increase in Florida Hispanic voters came from arrivals who came at much the same time (e.g., Mariel boatlift) attaining citizenship at much the same time.

    As it happens, I’m not enthusiastic about how easy voter registration is, but the fact that one could file a perjurious application to vote is not really evidence than millions of colored people have done so. Wouldn’t some government somewhere have found these zillions of illegal voters? Indeed, GW Bush’s Florida campaign manager had so much trouble finding unqualified Democrats on the voter rolls (in her day job as Secretary of State), she had to purge tens of thousands of legitimate voters.

  12. AMac June 2, 2004 at 5:59 pm | | Reply

    Speaking of illegal voters in 2000 in Florida, here is a fairly balanced account of that election and recount by a conservative blogger. Estimates of the effects of non-citizen (etc.) voters are near the beginning of the essay.

  13. actus July 13, 2006 at 12:10 am | | Reply

    “there is a right to vote; there is no corresponding right to drive”

    Piggybackin on that, voting is a relationship wiht the government. The GRE and movie rentals, private businesses.

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