Fraters Libertas

Election Credibility - I'll Vouch for That

Last Saturday during the NARN program we had a detailed, animated discussion on election fraud and the specific issues being raised in this campaign. My general opinion is that the concerns being promoted by the political parties and the media are overblown. The system, in Minnesota, is generally well set up to prevent any egregious violations, the type which could affect an election's outcome. The greater threat to the democratic system lies not with those inclined to commit fraud, but with uneducated and hyper motivated partisans descending on the polling places to second guess and make accusations regarding what they think they know and see.

I still believe that to be true, but I've discovered my analysis was wrong on one account. I specifically dismissed the concern about vouching. That is, confederates being planted by a party near each polling place, prepared to "vouch" for anyone who says they are a resident of that precinct, but without the identification to prove it. Background info, Minnesota allows a registered voter of a given precinct to vouch for the residency requirements of any other voter in that precinct, if they have personal knowledge of their residency. To quote Minnesota statute 201.061, one can register to vote at the polls based on:

(4) having a voter who is registered to vote in the precinct sign an oath in the presence of the election judge vouching that the voter personally knows that the individual is a resident of the precinct.

I felt that the "personal knowledge" requirement would prevent the incidence of casual, nearly anonymous vouching. My reasonable interpretation of that term was that the voucher would have prior knowledge of the specific address of that person's residence, which could then be proven to be within that precinct's borders. And if they didn't have prior and specific knowledge of this, an election judge could deny that person's status as a valid voucher.

Oh - how wrong I was . Discussions with county election executives have revealed that "personal knowledge" is to be interpreted with a bare minimum standard. The unregistered voter with no ID simply has to tell the voucher that they live in the precinct. And that's it, personal knowledge is established. Which makes me wonder why a voucher is necessary at all under the law. An election judge can be compelled to blindly accept someone's word just as well as a voucher can.

Last week, the guys at Powerline intercepted an email from the radical activist group ACT (Americans Coming Together) which advocated the above strategy. When I first read this post, I dismissed the analysis as incorrect. Reading it again, I now understand how correct they were.

Correct in their concern that the law is deeply flawed. But Powerline is not necessarily correct in their conclusion:

This email is a smoking gun of massive premeditated vote fraud. The ACT effort contemplates the prepositioning of registered voters as volunteers at their precincts of residence to provide the "vouching" necessary to get individuals registered to vote on election day in the precinct whether or not the volunteer "personally knows" the residence of the unregistered voter. It is a recipe for illegal voting in every precinct of the state.

Yes, the law in this regard is ridiculous, wrong, and does provide a prerequisite for illegal voting. But, for the folks from ACT, it's entirely legal. Those magnificent bastards are merely exploiting the laxity of naive Minnesota law.

But have no fear, it's still unlikely to allow "massive vote fraud." Take the Republican nightmare scenario often trotted out this time of year, that of the magical mystery bus of illegals pulling up and using a local stooge to vouch for them all. And then moving on to the next precinct to do the same thing. Technically, yes, under the law these folks would probably be allowed to vote (unless there was a witness at both precincts that could call them out). But before they voted, each individual would have to register to vote first. Meaning we'd get a name and an address for each of them. Making up a name is easy enough, but the address, there's the rub. If they haven't prepared their fraud sufficiently to actually cite a valid address (a valid one in each precinct they try to vote in), the jig is up. Because, the registration judge must check out any address given, to make sure the person is at the right precinct. If the prospective voter doesn't have an address to give, or makes one up that ain't in the precinct, they can't legally vote there. And if there is a busload of people perpetrating this scam all at the same time, they will draw immediate skeptical attention from election officials.

Yes, there are a few shifty loopholes to allow someone to vote even under those circumstances (which I won't elaborate on, since research shows our readership is full of shifty loophole exploiters). But the chances these techniques would be known and would be used on a systematic basis, on a scale large enough to make a difference, without it crumbling from the weight of its own complexity and manpower requirements? So close to zero that it doesn't bear mentioning.

So this evening, the night before the election, let your hearts be light. The citizen election judges will be on the case tomorrow, so don't sweat the specters of fraud. My advice is, vote. Then get the hell home to watch it all on TV. If you're wasting your time hanging around the polling place, you may miss one of the greatest shows in American political history.