Voter fraud and citizen disenfranchisement

Letter to AJC 7-24-2012

Voter fraud and citizen disenfranchisement.

A letter writer complains that Leonard Pitts is playing the race card by decrying the spate of laws requiring photo ID for all who wish to vote. An example was made of cashing a check at a bank and being required to show photo ID. Perhaps the writer forgot that owning a bank account is a privilege provided by a business that sets its own rules, but voting is a right for all citizens provided by our constitution.

The laws directed at those without voter ID are aimed at a symptom of our poor voting system. These laws are attempting to correct issues that are inherently built into a poorly designed voting process, but they also negatively impact many of our rightful voters. With the technological capability we have today there  is no excuse for lack  of electronic systems that  detect attempted voter fraud before it occurs.

 All the situations claimed by those who would disenfranchise some of our citizens  can be identified in a properly designed system and database before voting takes place. Issues such as people who are not registered,  people who have passed away,  people who are trying to vote more than once, people who are not citizens, can all be determined electronically if we put the effort into designing our strategic national information properly.

Stop gap measures never work in the end. They only add more confusion and frustration. We need to work on our real problems and put aside these ideologically driven schemes that hurt the country and our democracy.