ACRU Counters the Lies about Election Reforms

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 19, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld Ohio's election reform law, but courts have struck down voter photo ID laws in North Carolina, North Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin, and proof-of-citizenship laws in Alabama, Georgia and Kansas.

Given the outrageous allegation that election integrity safeguards are evidence of racism, ACRU Senior Fellow Robert Knight compiled a guide, excerpted here.   

Mandatory Voter Registration – What proponents call "automatic voter registration" is really "mandatory" registration – a bad idea.

-- Not everyone wants to be registered. Forcing inclusion is an act of an authoritarian government and violates privacy.

-- It opens the door for fraud, filling rolls with people who may not vote, transients, or students who could vote again in their home districts.

-- It's a stalking horse for mandatory voting, which President Obama has floated.  Compliance could be forced via the IRS, similar to ObamaCare.

Early voting – For more than 200 years, Americans voted on Election Day. Progressives are stretching out the process sometimes for weeks. It's a bad idea.

-- Some ballots are cast even before the televised debates.

-- It's expensive and unnecessary. An MIT study pegged the average Election Day wait at 14 minutes, and early voting doesn't enlarge turnout.

Same-Day Registration – Progressives want to allow procrastinators to register on the same day they vote, without proof of citizenship or even a valid ID. This is suicidal public policy.

Voter Photo ID Laws – No safeguard is more dishonestly attacked than requiring a voter to prove they are who they say they are. 

-- More than 200 counties around the nation have more than 100 percent of their age-eligible residents registered to vote.  Four years ago the Pew Center found problems with more than 24 million voter registrations, including 1.8 million deceased people. These numbers are undoubtedly worse now.

-- In 2008, the Supreme Court found no evidence such laws disadvantage minorities, and minority turnout increased in the voter ID states of Indiana, Georgia and North Carolina. 

-- Opponents insist that 25 percent – a full quarter – of black American adults lack a government-issued photo ID. This would mean that millions of African-American men and women cannot legally drive, cash a check, or do many other everyday activities.

The full article can be found here.

SOURCE ACRU

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