Tuesday - February 14, 2012

Stuff This In Your Ballot Box

WASHINGTON – More than 24 million voter-registration records in the United States— about one in eight — are inaccurate, out-of-date or duplicates. Nearly 2.8 million people are registered in two or more states, and perhaps 1.8 million registered voters are dead.

Those estimates, from a report published today by the non-partisan Pew Center on the States, portray a largely paper-based system that is outmoded, expensive and error-prone.

“We have a ramshackle registration system in the U.S. It’s a mess. It’s expensive. There isn’t central control over the process,” said Lawrence Norden of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

And now that you’ve got everyone worked up thinking about the obvious outcome, let’s start the spin control ...

Experts say there’s no evidence that the errors lead to fraud on Election Day. “The perception of the possibility of fraud drives hyper-partisan policymaking,” said David Becker, director of Pew’s election initiatives. But inactive voters do cost money. Inaccurate lists mean wasted money on mailings and extra paper ballots.

Ok, maybe I’m being a bit too harsh. A national data center is the best solution, but my question is who will be in charge of it?

Pew’s solution: create a multi-state data center to give officials voter registrations, motor vehicle records and death certificates from other states, allowing them to spot records that could be removed. That effort is starting this year with Colorado, Delaware, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Virginia and Washington.

Husted is asking the U.S. Justice Department for guidance on how to clean up the rolls before the presidential election without violating motor voter. “It undermines voter confidence and creates the potential for voter fraud where people could act and vote on their behalf,” he said.

Ach, crivens, now you went and blew it again. Asking the Justice Department for guidance? Fox guarding the hen house much?

I’ve given quite a lot of thought to this problem over several years. I’ve concluded that the rolls need to be purged on a regular basis. Sure, have your Motor Voter registration. For now. But it’s only good until the week after the next presidential election. At that point the entire country has to re-register, in person, by hand, over the next year. You go to the dentist twice a year, you get your eyes checked every two years, you do your taxes every year, you renew your driver’s license every X years ... so there is no real reason that your voter registration should last forever, other than laziness on the part of the town and county clerks.

Let’s face it, the government knows who you are and where you live. Many, many branches of it. So does Visa. So does the phone company and the power company. In this day and age we have unbelievable amounts of computing power available for very reasonable amounts of money. Set up a national database that can query a dozen or so other databases - that means it can ask them a question and get back just a Yes or No answer - and you can purify the rolls pretty darn quickly. How many thousand town clerks and county clerks are there across the country? Show up at yours with your photo license, your SSN, your military ID, passport, or other government ID, a pay stub, a bank statement, and a credit card bill. Let’s face it, the government already has all this data on you anyway. The clerk puts your name and SSN in the system, and in 3 seconds gets back a list of your addresses and where you are registered to vote and a Yes/No from the criminal databases saying whether your prior convictions allow you to vote or not. And whether or not you are an actual citizen! Of these addresses the one used by your employer, your utility or phone bill, and your credit card zero in on what your primary address is. You agree in writing that this is your primary address, and not only are you registered at that address but all other registrations are canceled.

Then you get your picture taken and are issued a photo voter ID with your name and address on it. There is no charge for any of this, but you have to go there. A roving Flying Squad of registrars visits the nursing homes and the home bound who wish to be voters.

Yes, it’s a lot of work. So what?

Once you have the ID, the next time it needs renewing you just have to show up and have your information verified. If you have moved, or if your appearance is radically different, then you get a new picture and a new card. Big deal.

When Election Fortnight happens - phooey on Election Day, we have too many people - you show up and show your card. It gets scanned to make sure it’s still active, and a poll worker checks to make sure the holder looks like the person in the picture. And the database gets toggled that you have now voted. That’s all there is to it.

Absentee voters? Well, with a fortnight to run the voting in, the qualifications for absenteeism would be greatly tightened. And your ballot would have to be postmarked before the fortnight started. And once your vote was entered, your ID would be toggled to the Voted position for this election.

Come on already. We’re in the second decade of the 21st century. This is the future, George Jetson be damned. Anyone who is eligible to vote ought to be able to walk into any polling station in the nation and vote on the spot in their local election, and then be unable to vote in it again anywhere else. The computing power exists, the heart of the software exists, and all the verification databases already exist. It’s just a matter of putting it all together.

Slightly off topic, but given the low cost of computers, it’s obscene that so many areas still use a paper ballot. You want a physical record of your vote? Really?? Fine. Use your mouse when voting digitally to click the “receipt” button, and an off-the-shelf barcode printer prints you a label. It looks like a bunch of lines with a year printed on it, but it contains your polling station number, your voter number (not your voter ID, just the “I was voter 183 at station 15 at polling center 6182") and which choices you made. If you want proof that your vote is in the system, it’s your duty to get down to the county courthouse and scan your label. Come to think of it, any courthouse in the nation should be able to do it, for voting in the last X years that the system has been running. It’s all digital and that’s all that’s needed.

One in eight active registrations is invalid or inaccurate. At the same time, one in four people who are eligible to vote — at least 51 million potential voters — are not registered.

You do have the right to not vote if you wish. But for those who do wish to vote, a well made validation system for registration that is kept up to date by continual re-registration is the only way to go. I’m beyond tired of hearing those idiots wag on about “disenfranchisement” every November. The solution is clear, and could be implemented for less than the combined cost of a new submarine, a couple of new bombers, yet another nuero scan for great-granny, some free cell phones for Da Poor, some free needles for junkies and some free condoms for junior high students. “Free” as in “paid for by your taxes”. It’s not like we don’t have the money. It just gets spent on everything else.

Posted by Drew458     on 02/14/2012 at 11:10 AM   
Filed Under: • FREEDOM • Government •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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