"Dead Rights"...to vote or not to vote, that is the question.

Dead Men Voting
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Tuesday, January 08, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Election Integrity: The Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear arguments on Indiana's voter identification law. If the justices don't get this one right, they could open the door to a future with more fraud.
Arguing in opposition to the law will be attorneys for the Indiana Democratic Party. This is not to say that Democrats are in favor of voter fraud. (Note from Norm: This is to say that the Democrats ARE IN FAVOR OF VOTER FRAUD! As an official poll watcher in the November 2006 election I was not only what one would call “privy to”, I actually witnessed voter fraud by the Democrats. It was the most despicable act of anti-American conduct I’ve had the un-wanting privilege to witness. The Democrats were in complete control over ninety-eight percent [fact] of the voters. To make a long story short let me just say I also had the opportunity to chastise a judge for not doing her job. After calling ballot security and explaining the attempt at fraud they (ballot security) called me back and told me the judge would be calling me momentarily. When I explained to the judge what was going on I got a long dissertation, which a mounted to, “…it may be her married name.” (In reference to the person committing fraud). After the judge repeated the above quote seven times, I interrupted her and told her in just so many words that I did not want to hear it again and that she (the judge) "get down here and do your job!" Then I hung up on the judge. The judge never showed up. Along with all the other stuff that went on, the improprieties at the counting of the ballots after the polls closed was unbelievable…just take my word for it folks…if you don’t stay around and watch the count, you may not be counted! And yes, this was one-hundred percent controlled by non other than the Democrats [fact]) But they do seem to want voting to be as easy and painless as possible. And they don't seem to be too picky about verifying the identities or citizenship of those casting ballots.
The media, predictably, are calling Indiana's law the strictest in the nation. If so, our election laws are lax indeed and the other states have some catching up to do.
In the Hoosier State, the burden is on voters to show photo identification at the polls. If they can't, they're allowed to cast provisional ballots. These would be counted if the voter within 10 days provides a photo ID or shows that one of the law's exemptions applies.
We can't understand how anyone could oppose such a standard.
The fact that a few people might lack photo IDs is not a compelling argument against the law. Indiana Democrats now argue that 11% of voting-age Americans lack proper identification, but their own expert witness suggested during a federal case trying the Indiana law that 99% percent of the state's voting-age residents already have the necessary ID.
Either way, photo IDs aren’t that hard to come by, or getting one can require about the same effort it takes to vote. If that's too much to ask, the state can make it easier still.
In Georgia, for instance, free photo IDs are made available to residents who don't have driver's licenses. Other states could do the same to counter the argument that voter ID laws are simply another form of poll tax.
The fact is, citizens who won't go to such a small effort to ensure that they can vote probably don't have much to offer to our system. They're unlikely to be paying much attention to the world around them. And they certainly won't have a grip on the details of ballot issues, making them vulnerable to sound bites and charlatans.
Our republican style of government should not be dictated by public whims. But it's clear most Americans are paying attention and want elections with integrity. Polls consistently show that roughly three-fourths favor laws that require voters to show a photo ID before they step into the booth.
Without laws that force people to prove who they are before they vote, the system is open to cheats who would vote multiple times under false or others' names in different locations, convicted felons who've lost their right to vote, and illegal immigrants and legal immigrants who aren't U.S. citizens. (Note from Norm: Democrats in California had literally banks of people training legal and illegal aliens how to vote.)
Evidence of such fraud was found in 2005, when a Washington state judge ruled that 1,678 illegal votes were cast on Election Day in 2004. Not enough to make a difference? Democrat Christine Gregoire was elected governor that year by a mere 129-vote margin. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer found that at least eight dead people "voted" in King County.
The problem is not limited to Washington or the many places known for election irregularities. Last fall, U.S. Civil Rights Commissioner Peter Kirsanow noted in National Review Online that "while Alaska has 503,000 people on its voting rolls, there are only 437,000 people of voting age in the state."
In Georgia, wrote Kirsanow, "the names of at least 15,000 dead people are on the rolls," and in Indiana, home of the "strictest" law, "tens of thousands of names appear on the voter rolls more than once."
Voter ID laws won't guarantee perfect elections or perfect governments. But they'd at least yield results that more closely reflect the preference of the electorate.