File under “vote early and vote often“.
This week, we saw an extraordinary display of civic exposure, watching James O’Keefe and crew acquire ballots for voters who recently died. But that’s not all of it.
After reading this article, I learned that our voter checklists are not all they are cracked up to be. In addition to listing recently-deceased people, there are cases of people moving out of state, or to other New Hampshire towns, without being purged from the list. Given these cases, some people may actually be able to vote multiple times, without challenge.
In fact, as I checked in last Tuesday, I noticed I was listed under my old address, having moved inside the same town nearly 16 months ago. After voting, I went to the registration table to fill out a change-of-address form. I mentioned to the nice lady that, not only had I recently registered my car using my new address, I filled out the very same form when I voted in the November 2010 mid-term election. Surely, as a result of this diligence, my address would have been corrected on the checklist?
The nice lady told me that this happens because “we don’t have sophisticated databases that keep all that information in sync.”
In reality, all it takes is the passage of a simple law, giving the other nice ladies at the check-in table a means to verify the identity of the person in front of them. Yet, thanks to Governor Lynch, the Liberal community, and a few confused Republicans, no one will really know whether I am who I say I am, as I cast my vote.
The most perplexing part of this issue is that, for State and Federal purposes, you must present a valid NH driver’s license or other photo ID when you register to vote (see this video at 1:10). If you do not have one, you must provide some other proof of identity, citizenship, and domicile. Why is it that this process requires a valid photo ID at one end of the process, but not at the other end of it, when you execute the sacred task, sometimes months later?
I guess my confusion comes from my use of common sense. I really need to cut that out.
