To the Editor:
(Dec. 2014) You recently published an opinion piece titled “Voter I.D. Call”; this article does not justify its claims about the identification of voters at polling places. For example, it claims that there are demands “that any laws regarding the visual identification of a voter be overturned.” Can the author, show us such a demand?
In New York, election law protects the right of any observer at the polls to challenge the legitimacy of a voter. Election inspectors are supposed to call out the name as the voter signs in, so that anyone who questions that person’s right to vote in that district can speak up. Alert pollwatchers designated by political parties and candidates as well as any other citizen can obtain lists of registered voters and can challenge any would-be voter.
In addition, the voter’s signature must match the one in the poll book. If the name is not in the poll book, various kinds of ID can be requested. Lacking validation, the would-be voter can appeal to a judge in the county who can allow him/her to vote on the machine. Or the person can vote by affidavit ballot that allows the Board of Elections to check the voter’s registration before the vote is counted. Are there attempts to overturn these established procedures?
In addition, Boards of Elections are to follow detailed rules for the counting of absentee ballots with public observation; these rules aim to protect the privacy of the way someone has voted at the same time as the right of the person to vote is subject to public challenge. How one votes is private; that one votes is not.
The article you published strongly suggests that there would be no way to know if someone tried to vote more than once in different districts. However, modern computerized lists of voter registrations allow Boards of Elections to cross-check registrations in different districts and even different states. Further safeguards are provided when New York requires that the two major parties be represented on Boards of Elections.
Since fraudulent voting is a crime, do we really think many persons risk trying to vote more than once? Is it credible to think that many undocumented aliens would jeopardize their residency in the USA by trying to vote even once, risking exposure in such a public process? Carefully researched studies have found that voter fraud is nearly nonexistent in the USA. [Search “voter fraud” at the website for the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, www.brennancenter.org.]
In the recent general election, voter turn-out was very low; only 36 percent of eligible citizens voted. The health of our system needs new strategies to encourage people to vote, rather discouraging voters through requirements that are unnecessary. One such strategy that seems effective in other states is to allow early voting, rather than having only one Election Day. Our government could better spend money administering such extended opportunities to vote rather than on sending officials out to issue voter IDs as your author suggests. The kinds of procedures already in place in New York strongly support fair elections without further depressing the vote by requiring official photo IDs that may have a disparate negative effect on those who are not privileged in our society: i.e., on the elderly, the poor, and on racial and ethnic minorities.
Wanda Warren Berry
Hamilton
Director, New Yorkers for Verified Voting