GOP's 'Voter Fraud' Claim Meant to Reduce Blue Votes
By John Boyd
Attorney
Like most states, New Mexico has never required voter ID. New Mexico's checks on voter fraud include a computerized system that verifies that voters are real, live where they say, and are eligible to vote. Voting twice is a crime, and voters' signatures are in county clerks' records for comparison.
Voter ID requirements have been shown to interfere with balloting by students and by voters who don't: drive; have a utility bill in their name; bring "proper ID" to the polls; or understand the complicated procedure for providing ID to vote absentee.
An ID requirement, particularly one imposed at the last minute, would effectively turn many lawful voters away.
Two weeks ago, despite these facts, Republican Party lawyers concocted a "voter ID" controversy by loudly proclaiming their "shocking discovery" that voter registration groups had filed "at least 3,000 fraudulent registrations in Bernalillo County alone." This provoked the public freakout the Republicans wanted. Their charge, however, turned out to be fabricated. When their lead plaintiff was under oath, he had to admit they had no evidence of fraud. The "3,000 fraudulent registrations" were duplicates, forms with illegible addresses, omitted Social Security numbers, unsigned forms and the like. In other words, just what you would expect among 60,000 new registrations. None were added to the voter rolls, nor could they have resulted in a fraudulent vote. The only arguably "fraudulent" registration apparently was a teenager's prank that would have been routinely screened out during computerized cross-checking of Social Security numbers.
In court, the director of the Bureau of Elections and a county clerk's representative carefully explained how New Mexico's databases eliminate felons, dead people, people who have moved away, and other ineligible voters.
National studies confirm the United States does not have the "voting fraud" problem the Republicans are braying about. What we do have is a pattern of exclusion of lawful voters. This is the ugly picture that emerged in Florida where thousands of black voters were wrongfully denied the vote. It does not take a vivid imagination to know what a requirement for "proper ID" would translate into in Florida or, for that matter, what kind of chaos would reign at New Mexico polls if a last-minute "voter ID" requirement were imposed on thousands of new voters when there is no agreement on what constitutes a valid ID.
The statute the GOP claims requires ID of certain new voters is contradicted by another statute— which the Republicans don't mention. They just harp on the first one.
So why are the Republicans beating the drum for voter ID for new registrants? The answer is simple. There are more than 120,000 new registrants in New Mexico— 44 percent Democrats, 24 percent Republicans and the rest "Independent" or "Won't Say."
Add to that the fact that ID requirements historically disrupt voting by students, minorities (particularly Native Americans in remote areas), the institutionalized elderly and the poor. These groups (surprise!) tend to vote Democratic. If you think the Republicans would be demanding voter ID if new-voter numbers were reversed, I have a bridge to sell you.
The percentages being what they are, a voter ID requirement would likely shave a couple of points off the Democrats' margin in this swing state. Republicans are about as concerned with "voter fraud" as they are with protecting the spotted owl. They want the chaos and vote suppression they managed in Florida.
As Judge Thompson found, imposing an ID requirement at the last minute would double the chaos. If thousands of voters are challenged at the polls for not having the right kind of identification, many will turn away.
Others will have to vote with "provisional" ballots, most of which will never be counted. What seems like a simple matter is, in fact, a formula for election-day mayhem and disenfranchisement.
The credo for these Republican warriors is apparently this: If we can slip in a last-minute voter ID requirement by faking a "voting fraud crisis," and shave a few percentage points off the Democrats' votes, go for it! The Republicans lost in the court in which they first filed suit, but we now learn that they have filed at least one collusive law suit against a Republican county clerk who immediately agreed that the court should "force" him to require ID of voters. If at first you don't succeed, just try again.
But this time, do it without anyone on the other side. And the Republican U.S. Attorney has improperly announced an "inquiry" into voting fraud. So this beat will apparently go on until the Republicans are satisfied that they have discouraged, intimidated, confused or interfered with enough of these new voters to reduce the threat that a functional democracy apparently poses to them. Party on, GOP!
Boyd is an attorney who represented the Democrats in the district court case in Bernalillo County.
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