For years, Democratic politicians have insisted that worries over fraudulent ballots are a right-wing myth and that the only purpose of security measures is to “suppress voter turnout”. Now it looks increasingly likely that Florida or Michigan will restage their Democratic primaries. The only affordable way to do that, since the states are unlikely to pay for the process, is an all-mail election. Suddenly, the Wall Street Journal’s Political Diary (free this week, normally a mere $3.95/month) notes, some Dems sound a lot like worrywart, vote-suppressing Republicans:
Senator Carl Levin of Michigan told ABC News that there is a “security issue” with a mail-in ballot. “How do you make sure that hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million or more ballots can be properly counted and that duplicate ballots can be avoided?” Mr. Levin has vivid memories of how absentee ballots have routinely been abused in Detroit and other cities by unscrupulous candidates.
In Florida, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Miami has her own issues with a mail-in ballot. “It’s fraught with problems and now is not the time to be experimenting when we’re talking about stakes this high,” she says. “We still have very raw nerves from the 2000 recount.”
Senator Levin and Rep. Schultz might also wish to ponder how easy it will be, in a race that has been marked by feverish emotions and a soupçon of violence, for over-the-top backers of either candidate to threaten or bribe. The insoluble “security issue” is the absence of any way to guarantee that ballots will be secret.
Let me confess that I’ll come near to bursting with glee if the Florida Supreme Court has to resolve Clinton v. Obama. Even if that never happens, it is enlightening to hear about Senator Levin’s “vivid memories of how absentee ballots have routinely been abused in Detroit and other cities by unscrupulous candidates”. Perhaps those memories will stick with him the next time a bill to crack down on vote fraud appears on the Congressional agenda?
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