Securing The Illegal Vote?
John Fund has a troubling column up about the ease with which people who are in this country illegally will be able to vote if Eliot Spitzer's licenses for lawbreakers scheme goes through. Some other moves by the Spitzer administration already appear to be paving the way for widespread voter fraud already. Giving driver's licenses to people who have no right to be in this country in the first place is just the icing on the cake.
The background here is the National Voter Registration Act, commonly known as "Motor Voter," that President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1993. It required all states to offer voter registration to anyone getting a driver's license. One simply fills out a form and checks a box stating he is a citizen; he is then registered and in most states does not have to show any ID to vote.
But no one checks if the person registering to vote is indeed a citizen. That greatly concerns New York election officials, who processed 245,000 voter registrations at DMV offices last year. "It would be [tough to catch] if someone wanted to . . . get a number of people registered who aren't citizens and went ahead and got them drivers' licenses," says Lee Daghlian, spokesman for New York's Board of Elections. Assemblywoman Ginny Fields, a Long Island Democrat, warns that the state's "Board of Elections has no voter police" and that the state probably has upwards of 500,000 illegal immigrants old enough to drive……….
…………Gov. Spitzer is treading perilously close to that. Despite a tactical retreat this week–he says he will only give illegal immigrants a license that isn't valid for airplane travel and entering federal buildings–Mr. Spitzer has taken active steps to obliterate any distinctions between licenses given to citizens and non-citizens.
In a memo last Sept. 24, he ordered county clerks to remove the visa expiration date and "temporary visitor" stamp on licenses issued to non-citizens who are legally in the country. A Spitzer spokeswoman explained the change was made because the "temporary" label was "pejorative," given that some visitors might eventually stay in the U.S. Under fire, Mr. Spitzer backed down this week, delaying the cancellation of the "temporary visitor" stamps through the end of next year.
But he has not retreated from another new bizarre policy. It used to be that county clerks who process driver's licenses were banned from giving out voter registration forms to anyone without a Social Security number. No longer. Lou Dobbs of CNN reported that an Oct. 19 memo from the state DMV informed the clerks they don't "have any statutory discretion to withhold a motor voter form." What's more, the computer block preventing a DMV clerk from transmitting a motor voter registration without a Social Security number was removed.
Gov. Spitzer's office told me the courts have upheld their position on Social Security numbers. Sandy DePerno, the Democratic clerk of Oneida County, says that makes no sense. "This makes voter fraud easier," she told me.
Fund points out – as I have in the past – that none other than Jimmy Carter has strongly endorsed a requirement that voters be required to show proper identification before voting. This is common sense. In the society we live in it is virtually impossible to function with no identification. My 15-year old daughter has legal identification, for heaven's sake. It is not unreasonable to ask that every person voting in an election be legally entitled to vote. It is not unreasonable to keep people who are not citizens from voting. But Eliot Spitzer appears to be determined to secure the illegal vote.
Immigration Reform, Politics | Gaius November 2, 2007
By Icepick, November 2, 2007 @ 8:51 am
Fund points out – as I have in the past – that none other than Jimmy Carter has strongly endorsed a requirement that voters be required to show proper identification before voting.
Aw, crap. This had been my position too, but if Carter believes it it MUST be false….
/ gratuitous digging
By mockinbird, November 2, 2007 @ 3:03 pm
If this is what left wing Democrats have to do to stay in office and extend their grab for power, then their philosophy is flawed. Grossly flawed. And they may win in the short term, but there will be be a reckoning day.