Lisa Schiffren at NRO takes time out from exploring the vast Communist-Jewish conspiracy to make Barack Obama our Kommisar to note that it’s terribly, terribly unfair that homeless people are allowed to vote:
Try as I might, I cannot really understand how even a minimum standard of voting security can be maintained when, as an Ohio judge did yesterday, you decide to let the homeless vote. If there is no address — how do you check whether someone has voted before or whether they are using a real name? I get that the judge is attempting to enable fraud on behalf of his campaign — but how does this pass even a minimum test of reasonableness?
Okay, Lisa, let me explain. The homeless have a right to vote. This right is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, which is, in fact, the law of the land. The Founding Fathers thought about whether we should have a property ownership requirement to vote. They rejected it outright.
All U.S. citizens have the inalienable right to cast a ballot — even citizens who, for whatever reason, don’t have a home.
I realize that the Republican party would be better off if it could purge the poor from its rolls; next, they could go after apartment-dwellers, since we can just up and change addresses at a moment’s notice. Or maybe denizens of trailer parks — who’s to say they won’t just tow their home to Ohio for the election? When the franchise is reserved only for people owning deeded property, preferably worth more than $250,000, then the GOP will be in fine shape. Yes, it flies in the face of the basic liberties the Founding Fathers envisioned, but hey, that hasn’t stopped the Republicans any of the other times they’ve gone after our rights, it won’t stop them now.
While I appreciate the sentiment — and I agree that the person you quote is finding thinly-veiled excuses to suggest disenfranchisement for likely anti-Republican voters — the Founding Fathers argument is weak, sadly.
Voting rights required property in parts of the US until about 1850.
Of course, slaves and women weren’t intended to vote at all, so sometimes making the “Founding Fathers’ intent” argument can backfire.
The US Constitution leaves voting requirements up to the states, with the exception of those qualifications explicitly prohibited by the Bill of Rights (i.e., you can’t use race or sex as a criterion, nor can you set the minimum age any higher than 18). By convention, all states have near-universal adult suffrage (excepting felons in some states), and I assume that this is enshrined in at least some state constitutions, but it is not a requirement of the US Constitution.
You may not think the Constitution provides citizens with a right to vote, but the Supreme Court disagrees with you.
“Undeniably the Constitution of the United States protects the right of all qualified citizens to vote, in state as well as in federal elections. A consistent line of decisions by this Court in cases involving attempts to deny or restrict the right of suffrage has made this indelibly clear… The right to vote freely for the candidate of one’s choice is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government.”
REYNOLDS v. SIMS, 377 U.S. 533 (1964)
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=377&invol=533
Bloix:
For the most part, members of the Supreme Court do not interpret the Constitution so much as assert without justification that it says whatever they would like it to say. Appealing to their authority proves nothing.
Edited to add: And in fact, the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly specifies what is to be done if a state chooses to limit suffrage: Its representation in Congress is to be reduced in proportion to the fraction of the population denied suffrage. It would make no sense to have such a rule if the Constitution flatly denied states the power to limit suffrage.
I’m not sure we should take seriously someone who so blithely dismisses Supreme Court opinion. Interpreting the constitution is their job after all, legally. You may not like how they do it, but disagreeing with their decisions (and I disagree with more than a few) is qualitatively different than denying their legitimacy.
Of course, since the modern right is so profoundly undemocratic, it doesn’t surprise me that you’re so willing to tie yourself in knots to justify denying the vote to ‘the undesirables’.
—Myca
Berg does not seem to be tying himself in knots to do that. He was pointing out that the right to vote was not always held out to be something sacrosanct, guaranteed and egalitarian throughout the history of the Constitution, either by its original authors or subsequent Supreme Courts, and it can still be constitutionally circumscribed by certain state whims even today.
If multiple subsequent amendments to the Constitution were required to make the right to vote explicitly available to minority persons and women, the original document and its original authors were not so diligent in enshrining that availability.
Unfortunately, felony disenfranchisment remains constitutional, until some subsequent Court rules otherwise.
RICHARDSON v. RAMIREZ, 418 U.S. 24 (1974)
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=418&invol=24
Although I’d agree that the Constitution did not originally hold the right to vote to be universal, the specific bit of Brandon’s comment I was responding to was one in which he said, in effect, “It doesn’t matter that the Supreme Court has ruled that the, “Constitution of the United States protects the right of all qualified citizens to vote, in state as well as in federal elections,” because who cares about the Supreme Court anyhow?”
My point is that it’s far more important to Brandon to make sure that there is no right to vote than it is to understand the current state of legal scholarship.
—Myca
Brandon, this sort of judicial review has been around since Marbury v Madison. And Marbury held that the power of judicial review was implicit in the text.
see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison
You can disagree with the core holding of marbury if you want–others have–but it seems apparent that the last 205 years of precedent based on that holding are unlikely to be overturned.
Sailorman:
I don’t dispute that the Supreme Court has the power to rule however they choose, and that there are essentially no checks on this short of a Jacksonian rebellion of the executive branch. My point is that this entails the power to rule disingenuously or incompetently. The Supreme Court is the ultimate legal arbiter of the Constitution, but that doesn’t make their rulings correct—it just makes them enforceable.
Even if we grant for the sake of argument that the Constitution means whatever the Supreme Court says it means, Jeff is still dead wrong about the intent of the founding fathers, as the Constitution didn’t say much of anything about suffrage until the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. Besides, the founding fathers had a strong antidemocratic streak, and as others have pointed out, property ownership in fact was a requirement in most states for quite some time.
Besides, one thing the Founding Fathers did reject outright was a Federal government with the power to do things like fund schools, create welfare programs, establish universal health care, etc. If you want the Federal government to do things like this, you don’t get to play the founding fathers card.
Myca:
I can distinguish between Constitutionality and desirability. For example, I support abortion rights, but I do acknowledge that Roe v. Wade was bunk. If the Constitution really required states to allow the homeless to vote, I would acknowledge that and argue instead that the Constitution should be amended to correct that flaw.
I never need to know anything else about Brandon ever again. This will pretty much justify my interpretation of Brandon Berg from this point forward. That is as profoundly anti-democratic.
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Jake:
A fine riposte indeed, sir. I am humbled.
Let me break it down for you: Government is serious business. Granted, it seems like a joke most of the time, but the consequences are serious, sometimes even a matter of life and death. The point of democracy is not to provide a mechanism for allowing people to exercise their inalienable right to vote—it’s to produce a government that allegedly sucks less than the ones produced by alternative systems. And it works best with an electorate capable of evaluating policy alternatives and their likely consequences. This is hard—much harder than holding down a job that allows you to pay the rent. So why do you consider it beyond the pale to argue that those who have failed in the latter task should be entrusted with the former?
Why would I want people who can’t even govern their own lives deciding who will be given the power to govern my life? For that matter, why do you, aside from the fact that such people generally vote for the side you prefer?
It’s one thing to say that there are legitimate arguments in favor of universal adult suffrage. But if you’re so committed to denying that there are also legitimate arguments against it that you feel justified in dismissing out of hand anyone who questions its value, then that says a lot more about you than about me.
Although there are actually some reasonable arguments against the universal franchise, homelessness is an appallingly poor indicator of ” an electorate capable of evaluating policy alternatives and their likely consequences.” I mean hell, capability? Sure, maybe someone in a shelter may not have kept up on the Iran situation… but you think they’re not even capable of doing so, because they happen to be homeless?
He is not dismissing you out of hand because you are arguing against the universal franchise. He is dismissing you because you are making unwarranted and offensive conclusions about people who are homeless.
And i won’t even go into detail about the other obvious protest: money does not intelligence make.
Good quote. It addresses the key issue in the matter. There was a time in the country’s history where a lack of enough resources to maintain a dwelling would disqualify one from voting, but that time is past. However, this statement does not say that all have the right to vote. It says that all qualified citizens have the right to vote. Homeless people lack the documentation to show that they are qualified citizens; often they lack the documentation to show that they are citizens, period.
People should have to be able to prove that they are qualified citizens to vote; a presumption that anyone who shows up at the polling place is both a citizen and qualified to vote should not be the default. I think that any qualified citizen should be able to vote; I support expenditure of public funds to assist indigent people to obtain proof of their qualifications. Tell me how one could do this for homeless people?
Don’t forget that one’s residential location is an important factor for determining which state and local representative, local senator, school board reps, selectman/alderman, etc., etc. you get to vote for. If you have a person who moves from shelter to shelter in the city it would be very possible – even likely – that they are not resident in any specific precinct for any length of time. How do you determine which alderman they get to vote for, or which House representative? Do you have a special ballot where only certain less-local candidates are on it?
And it works best with an electorate capable of evaluating policy alternatives and their likely consequences.
Good Lord, I didn’t realize conservatives were still arguing for poll taxes and literacy tests.
Ron, Brandon … since voting is (according to the Supeme Court) a basic Constitutional right, it seems to me that before we make the exercise of that right harder, we ought to first demonstrate that there is a legitimate problem with voter fraud.
If it turns out that we need to institute certain tests and requirements in order to obviate that sort of fraud, that’s one thing … but there simply is no legitimate voter fraud problem in the US. You’re offering a solution in search of a problem.
Indeed, since instituting these kinds of requirements ends up suppressing the vote among minorities and the elderly, both bulwark Democratic constituencies, I find it hard to conclude that you favor these kinds of tests for any reason other than it seems likely to benefit your preferred candidates. This is especially odious because, as PG points out, it’s more or less the same reason we saw these measures in the post-reconstruction south.
I’m certainly amenable to being proven wrong. Maybe there is a widespread voter fraud (not registration fraud) problem, but to my knowledge, every serious investigation into it has returned bupkis.
—Myca
… give women the vote, give Black people the vote…
If you agree with these, don’t appeal to the Founding Fathers.
The point of democracy is to produce a government that provides the greatest benefit to the greatest number. Popular elections are indeed a means, not an end.
Why is “govern-ment of one’s own life” the relevant standard? Besides the tortured happenstance of verbal likeness, “governing” one’s life and governing a nation are not at all related. Many great statesmen and policymakers have regrettable home and personal lives. Many stable family men would make atrocious world leaders.
A better method would be weed out cult-like, anti-scientific thinking. We could start by taking away the vote of everyone who doesn’t accept evolution – or we would, if we were libertarian feudalists and not (small “d”) democrats.
But I’m still a bit jittery about the election in four days, so push this “poor people shouldn’t be able to vote” line some more, please. There’s still time.
I’ll add also of course, that a government which refuses the input of those for whom the current course is a failure will never see the need to change that course. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
—Myca
Brandon, Sailorman correctly read my intent in comment #13.
Well, that’s a novel definition. You could probably substitute for the word democracy, the words monarchy, theocracy or dictatorship and be just as correct. And just as empty of meaning.
I would contend that point of democracy is to place supreme power in the hands of the people as much as is reasonably possible. Although that may not be the only definition of democracy, it is, unlike yours, a definition of democracy. It is, if you accept my definition, profoundly undemocratic to attempt to limit the franchise to only those who agree with one’s political positions (or, as a subset, attempt to keep the franchise from those who overwhelmingly disagree with one’s political positions).
Your position is both anti-democratic and without sound factual basis.
RonF,
You determine the residence of a homeless person the same way you determine the residency of someone who owns 10 houses spread across six states, who moves from city to city on a daily basis. You accept whichever location they declare as their residency.
So unless you are advocating that McCain and Palin should be required to de-register in their supposed precincts, don’t pretend that you are opposed to registering homeless people because of the grave concern that they may precinct shop in which shelter address to declare as their primary residence. Both parties have aggressively pursued residency shopping by snow-birds (people who live in one state for part of the year, and another state for the other half of the year) where it was useful, so concerns that transient homeless people may precinct shop are pretty ridiculous.
Both parties have aggressively pursued residency shopping by snow-birds
This pretty much compels a reference to Ann Coulter’s being investigated for voter fraud. She spends most of the year in New York (where it is much easier to do media appearances and meet with her editor, agent and publisher), but bought a house in Florida and registered to vote there. Then she cast her ballot in the wrong precinct in Palm Beach. However, a friend of hers from the FBI called down to state officials and told them to call off the investigation.
Charles S:
In perusing a Google search of “voter residence determination” what I find is that in fact a simple declaration is not sufficient to determine the residency fo a voter. Invariably a voter has to offer documentation of residence in such a location; utility bills, property tax records, etc., etc. So your premise is incorrect. What documentation can a homeless person offer?
Myca:
ACORN is being investigated in 15 states for turning in fraudlent registrations. While no trials have been held, I think it’s safe to say that there’s a number of fraudulent registrations turned in by them, registrations that could be used to vote fraudlently.
Here’s evidence of some ACORN workers who moved to Ohio on a temporary basis and registered for absentee ballots. I don’t know if they’ve used them, but the fact that they got them is bad enough.
since voting is (according to the Supeme Court) a basic Constitutional right, it seems to me that before we make the exercise of that right harder, we ought to first demonstrate that there is a legitimate problem with voter fraud.
It’s enough for me that we have already in this election seen numerous examples of fraudlent registrations. While you are more dismissive of this, it is my viewpoint that this meets the criterion of “legitimate problem”. I don’t care to wait until a court actually finds years down the road that a particular election has been decided by fraudulent votes. Prevention is always much less expensive than cure; and I’m not just talking about monetary cost.
Indeed, since instituting these kinds of requirements ends up suppressing the vote among minorities and the elderly, both bulwark Democratic constituencies, I find it hard to conclude that you favor these kinds of tests for any reason other than it seems likely to benefit your preferred candidates. This is especially odious because, as PG points out, it’s more or less the same reason we saw these measures in the post-reconstruction south.
This sounds an awful lot like you’re accusing me of lying about my motives. Are you?
BTW, what measures are you talking about in the post-Reconstruction South that I or anyone else is proposing be instituted in the present day? IIRC the measures that were taken there and then included poll taxes and literacy tests, not a requirement to prove one’s citizenship.
George Bush won Florida in 2000 by a little over 500 votes, I believe. There were numerous allegations of vote fraud by both sides in that. Yet there was no serious investigation. What I’ve seen over the years is that oddly enough the winners of elections rarely are interested in investigating fraud in the elections they won and usually have the power and/or influence to ensure that it doesn’t get investigated.
Let’s say that George Bush had actually lost Florida, but 1000 Cuban refugees had registered to vote for him, or that a group of snowbirds had cast votes in two states and helped push him over in Florida. A serious investigation would have then disqualifed him as the winner and Al Gore would have been President. It would likely have taken quite some time to nail that one down in the courts. The courts tend to be less than enthusiastic about such cases because of the disruption that such a change would cause and because it erodes confidence that the government is stable. Do you think it would have been better if better controls over registration and voting would have made Al Gore President of the United States in 2000?
RonF,
Invariably a voter has to offer documentation of residence in such a location; utility bills, property tax records, etc., etc.
1) That seems an implausible requirement — how do college students in dorms, who pay utility bills and property taxes in neither their college town nor in their parents’ home, document their residence for voting?
2) Even if true, that still doesn’t solve the problem of how to deal with people who own multiple residences. Ann Coulter pays utility bills and property taxes in both Manhattan and Florida. Which is her residence for voting?
Also, I find concerns about REGISTRATION fraud worth taking seriously only when the proponent can explain how the registration fraud will lead to VOTER fraud. Twenty-four states — including the swing states of Florida, Georgia, Indiana, South Dakota, Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Arkansas and Virginia — require some form of ID to vote, and several of these require photo ID.
Given this requirements, most people who think registration fraud will lead to voter fraud seem to have thought through how this will occur in roughly the same fashion as the Underpants Gnomes*:
Phase 1: Collect registrations for Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: Steal election!
* Of South Park fame. “Phase 1: Collect Underpants, Phase 2: ???, Phase 3: Profit!”
Even the McCain/Palin Honest and Open Election Committee has admitted that they don’t know of a case where registration fraud has led to voter fraud. As for criminal voter fraud, there has been at least one arrest for it this year: the guy who tricked people into signing an anti-gay marriage petition.
PG, a college student can show their lease agreement to establish residency. And if they’ve been living in their residence for any length of time they can usually can show a rent bill, phone bill, tuition bill or other such thing that has been mailed to their residence, especially if they’re living off campus.
My statement still stands. People who have multiple residences can choose which one they want to establish as their legal residence, but they must satisfy the local registrar that this is their “home” residence. What is required for such varies from state to state and even from county to county and town to town, but invariably the aspiring voter has to show documentation that they own or lease property at an address within the juristiction of the registrar. Regardless of whether you have one, two or more residences, you have to show some kind of documentation to the registrar that you reside at address ‘x’. There is no way under present law that I’m aware of that homeless people can do so.
So I don’t really care where Ann Coulter decides to vote. She’ll have to pick one, show that she actually owns or leases that address, and then satisfy the registrar that she resides there.
The concept that someone should have to have a documentable basis for declaring that location ‘x’ is their residence should not change. Now, if you want to propose to modify existing law (e.g., a declaration by people running a shelter that Joe or Jill Smith spends much of their time staying in their shelter), put that forward and have it examined by the legislature and the electorate. But I doubt that you’ll get any support to eliminate the principle itself that people have to tie themselves in some objective fashion to a given location to gain the right to vote there.
O.K. So 26 states apparently do NOT require any ID to vote, and an untold number of others don’t require an ID that has a picture, which sounds pretty inadequate to me. Does that make sense to you? That someone can vote without even showing minimal evidence that they are even who they say they are? Kind of hard to prove vote fraud in such a case, wouldn’t you say? There’s no evidence kept that could prove that someone had voted fraudlently.
I agree with Myca that the right to vote is very important. That’s why I don’t see why we should wait until an election is proven to have been fraudlently decided before we act to prevent it from happening in the first place. Besides, as I said above, the investigation of vote fraud will end up being controlled by the winners of the fraudlent election, so good luck on that.
RonF,
Wait a minute, college students have been told in this election that they are NOT to vote in the places where they can show residence with bills in their name, i.e. their collegiate residences, unless they have declared their independence from their parents and won’t be counted as dependents anymore. If they are to retain the status of dependents, they’ve been told to vote at their parents’ address, which is unlikely to have bills mailed in the students’ names, so how are they supposed to prove residence there? I voted in Texas all four years I was in college in Virginia, because Virginia certainly didn’t consider me a resident for the purposes of tuition rates. I never had to send any property tax or utility bills or other proof of residence to establish that I could vote from my parents’ home. I really don’t know where you’re getting these supposed rules for residency.
I’m confused as to why the ID would need to have a picture. You are saying that a utility bill suffices to establish residency; why wouldn’t possession of such bill suffice to show that I am also the person on the voter roll? Are you concerned that in the states that require ID, ACORN actually is writing down the names of real people and then going to their mailboxes, stealing their utility bills and using them to vote? Or perhaps ACORN is writing down the names of fake people and getting fake IDs in those people’s names? (This risks getting charged with TWO felonies if the person checking ID thinks it’s a fake.) In states that don’t require ID, is ACORN registering fake names and then finding volunteers or hiring people to vote multiple times under the fake names? Again, how do you think voter fraud — not registration fraud — actually occurs? We’re still at ??? for that.
The Bush Administration’s DOJ has worked very hard to prosecute cases of voter fraud; the whole scandal over the politically-motivated firing of the U.S. attorneys erupted because some of those attorneys were resistant to putting so much of public resources into what they saw as a minimal-to-nonexistent problem. In its efforts, the DOJ found very little voter fraud and not a great deal of registration fraud. Much of the “fraud” was perpetrated by legal immigrants who didn’t know that they were ineligible to vote and therefore filled out registration cards when they saw them at the DMV, or by ex-cons who also didn’t know of their ineligibility. This is going to rip the fabric of democracy?
I don’t think you need bills. Just any mail that’s addressed to you at a given residence. This is probably how homeless people show proof of address as well.
And yes – as a student dependent, I had to vote at my parents’ address by absentee ballot. I don’t think that’s a new law. My husband, who was also a student, but who was independent from his parents, voted based on his collegiate residence, after registering with mail that came to him through the dorm offices.
Mandolin,
If that’s the rule, then a homeless person could establish residency at any shelter that was willing to accept something mailed to her there.
Also, to amend what I said above so I don’t mislead anyone reading this: EVERY state, under federal law, requires that a first-time voter who registered by mail show documentary identification in order to vote. Kansas and Pennsylvania require all first-time voters — not just first-time voters who registered
by mail — to produce documentary identification at their polling place to cast a vote.
“If that’s the rule, then a homeless person could establish residency at any shelter that was willing to accept something mailed to her there.”
Yes, I believe that’s the case. Or at least, it was what had been indicated to me in the past. Perhaps it’s fallacious.
Students are allowed to maintain their registration to vote where they previously held residence, or they can register their school address. Mail to a mailbox at a school is sufficient to demonstrate residency. Likewise, mail to a homeless shelter is sufficient to establish residency ([EDITED TO ADD] at least in Oregon, I’m sure some states have anti-homeless laws to prevent this[/EDIT]).
I particularly like RonF’s claim that Ann Coulter will have to choose whether to register and vote in Florida or New York, because of course wealthy people with multiple residencies are somehow incapable of committing voting fraud even though there are no protections against it.
Also, the claim that ACORN might be brought to court for submitting false registration forms is absurd, since anyone registering voters is required to submit voter registration forms turned in to them.
People who register to vote in a location where they don’t intend to remain in residence (or where they don’t actually live at all) are a completely different category from registration cards submitted for people who don’t actually exist (Mickey Mouse and Mickey Ds) or who have no idea that they are being registered (various random famous people). The first group are a tiny number, but they do vote, and do commit fraud. The second group are a large number, but they don’t vote, and they don’t matter.
The first group is also just as likely to include Republicans as Democrats. Both the McCain and Obama campaigns in Ohio had staffers who erroneously registered in Ohio.
Wait a minute, college students have been told in this election that they are NOT to vote in the places where they can show residence with bills in their name, i.e. their collegiate residences
That’s a reference to Virginia law and does not apply nationwide. For example, in Illinois the law (at least as enforced) seems to be that “In practice, then, the state elections division lets students choose whether they want to register at their previous address or at their school address.” I had thought that more widespread than it may actually be, but it’s certainly out there.
I really don’t know where you’re getting these supposed rules for residency.
Just do a search on the Board of Elections for the various States’ voter eligibility requirements and you’ll find them. If you weren’t asked to prove that you lived in your parents’ house it may simply be that the registrar took you at your word instead of asking for proof. But the law in every state (not to mention municipality) I can find is that a prospective voter must show proof of residency to be registered either when they register or when they show up to vote (if by mail).
You are saying that a utility bill suffices to establish residency; why wouldn’t possession of such bill suffice to show that I am also the person on the voter roll?
Because you could have grabbed it out of a mailbox or out of a garbage can.
Are you concerned that in the states that require ID, ACORN actually is writing down the names of real people and then going to their mailboxes, stealing their utility bills and using them to vote?
I don’t posit that ACORN has anything to do with it. Individual action would suffice.
Much of the “fraud” was perpetrated by legal immigrants who didn’t know that they were ineligible to vote and therefore filled out registration cards when they saw them at the DMV, or by ex-cons who also didn’t know of their ineligibility.
Which still means that people ineligible to vote attempted to register to do so. Which means that we need to take measures to ensure that they don’t, and to ensure that people who have managed to illegally register to vote (whether fraud was intended or not) do not actually cast a ballot. My guess would be that if there are a number of people who attempted to illegally register to vote and were caught, there are others who attempted to illegally register to vote and succeeded.
If that’s the rule, then a homeless person could establish residency at any shelter that was willing to accept something mailed to her there.
That would work for me. Or, if someone sent the homeless person mail to General Delivery at a Post Office, that would establish their residency in the precinct the Post Office was in. If the homeless person was not getting mail, perhaps some other process could be worked out.
I particularly like RonF’s claim that Ann Coulter will have to choose whether to register and vote in Florida or New York, because of course wealthy people with multiple residencies are somehow incapable of committing voting fraud even though there are no protections against it.
I don’t see the logic here. How do you get from my statement that people with multiple residences will have to choose where they register to “RonF thinks wealthy people are incapable of committing voting fraud”?
Also, the claim that ACORN might be brought to court for submitting false registration forms is absurd, since anyone registering voters is required to submit voter registration forms turned in to them.
Unless the ACORN workers were the people who fraudlently filled out the forms in the first place. Which remains to be seen. It appears that some of them fraudlently filled out registration forms for themselves, in any case.
The second group are a large number, but they don’t vote, and they don’t matter.
The people who fraudlently filled out their applications do matter. Perjury, I believe they call it.
The first group is also just as likely to include Republicans as Democrats. Both the McCain and Obama campaigns in Ohio had staffers who erroneously registered in Ohio.
Republican or Democrat, each one is one more reason to put more regulation in the process.
I don’t posit that ACORN has anything to do with it. Individual action would suffice.
No, no it wouldn’t. That statement seems flatly insane.