Help Prevent Voter Fraud

With so many questions surrounding the previous three Presidential elections it begs us to ask if we need voting reform. I do not mean to revamp our system or to realign congressional districts or anything of that nature. All I am saying is that we need to figure out what we can do to prevent any fraud going forward.

The 2000 and 2004 elections results while conclusive, proved to somewhat put a dark cloud over our country and our election process. Questions surrounding the vote totals in certain states were common place, however no one could ever conclusively prove that there was any voter fraud what so ever.

Moving on to the 2008 election many more questions surfaced, numerous offices of a certain community organization group by the name of ACORN were raided and the raids provided some shocking and very serious issues. For example the entire starting offensive line of the Dallas Cowboys were fraudulently registered to vote in Las Vegas along with their Quarterback who was registered eight times and even Mickey Mouse who was registered more than twenty times.

So I beg to ask the question, should the states individually completely clear the registered voter logs and start from scratch or is there a better alternative available?

Here is my suggestion, each city and town in every state completely clear their databases of all registered voters and set up over the course of a week or two depending on how large the city or town is for their citizens to reregister. We could also look at this from a different angle, that being that instead of wiping out the database the cities and towns could require that each registered citizen present a state issued ID to a town official in order for them to be a certified voter. This process would cut back on time, expenses and man power. However this time in order to register the citizen would need to present a valid state issued ID ensuring that they are who they say they are.

The next step to preventing voter fraud would be to require each voter to present their ID each election in order to be allowed to vote. This would prove as a second line of defense in addition to having presented it at the time of registration. This process would simply confirm that you are who you say you are and protect your vote.

In addition it would also be a reasonable requirement that no one except for an official from the city or town process voter application cards. This way we can all be certain that ID’s will be thoroughly checked and double checked. Community organizations and get out the vote campaigns are good at getting people involved in the process however they should not be responsible for registrations. By all means they can pass out application cards and what not, however the actual registration process should be kept away from these groups.

One final step in the prevention of voter fraud would be to have the systems updated on either a daily or weekly basis by having the names of anyone who passed away removed. This simple step would prevent people from going in and voting multiple times by passing themselves off as someone who passed away.

While there is no fail safe method to any of this, keep in mind that these are only suggestions and common sense methods that will assist us in preventing voter fraud. By no means are these steps a violation of anyone civil rights or are they discriminatory, in reality they are precautions and efforts to protect them. Perhaps we can achieve some kind of success in the prevention of voter fraud by taking the necessary steps to prevent it instead of simply reacting to it after the fact. The choice is yours, you can either sit back or let everything we have worked for go to waste or be proud to stand up and fight to protect it!