Top elections expert weighs in on voter ID proposal

[struggle4progress]

... I’m Bob Hall, director of the nonpartisan organization Democracy North Carolina. We have routinely made all of you mad at us. In 1998, we called out then House Speaker Harold Brubaker, a Republican, for improperly laundering huge amounts of corporate money into NC elections. Then we called out the illegal fundraising of House Speaker Jim Black, a Democrat. And we filed a complaint against the Democratic Party for creating a sham campaign account for Gov. Mike Easley.

Now, I’m afraid I have to say that this so-called “Restore Confidence in Government Act” is as phony as a three-dollar bill. It has certain appearance of being genuine, but if you hold up to the light and examine it more closely, it’s a sham, a political trick.

To begin with, for people concerned about voter fraud, this bill does nothing to address the most frequent ways fraud happens.

First, it doesn’t add any new safeguards on absentee voting; in fact, this bill makes it easier to get an absentee ballot. But here’s the truth: the rate of somebody impersonating someone else is ten times higher for people voting with absentee ballots than those who vote in person. Ten times! ...

http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2011/03/16/top-elections-expert-weighs-in-on-voter-id-proposal/