Fraudulent Voter ID

Is Patrick Moran, son of left-wing Congressman James Moran, really telling election fraudsters how to vote sixteen times in different names and polls? Madeleine Morgenstern reports:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/new-okeefe-video-shows-dem-congressmans-son-apparently-advising-how-to-commit-voter-fraud/

Unfortunately for all the conservative readers who think that demanding a photo ID card is going to prevent election fraud, what Moran is talking about here is cheap, last-minute, amateur stuff. (Yes, he should have said righteously, "My father doesn't want fraudulent votes!" Unfortunately, I think people in northern Virginia would hear that as a joke.) Things that wouldn't work in my home town are standard practice in crowded, long-commuting urban areas, e.g. Moran's district.

I am not recommending fraud, nor telling anyone how to do it. I avoided asking how some people obtained the bogus documents I've personally seen. I can say this much though. If you go to a busy urban DMV office at a rush period, when everybody's in a hurry, it is possible to obtain an official identity document that provides false information about you without even trying. I have personally done that in Moran's district; I filled in a form correctly showing my height as 5'4", and thus obtained a state ID showing my height as 5'7", which might have been very useful to the alien who tried to steal my identity with evil intentions, who was in fact 5'7".

However...if I wanted to commit election fraud, badly enough to invest a good bit of time and money in it--probably with the intention of committing more lucrative frauds later on--I'd make out a list of alternative names. Choices could include inactive voters, especially if I happened to find some of my own physical type, or brand-new identities for people who might plausibly have moved into town during the past year. I would visit a few of the appropriate DMV branches, not the same one twice, and get my photograph legitimately printed on a state ID card containing those people's names and addresses. The DMV has added a few hurdles to this process, demanding more documents that take a little more time and resources to fake, but a determined fraudster could still succeed.

I might also visit a skilled counterfeiter and get a few bogus IDs. This does take a high quality of resources these days, and don't ask me where to find a skilled counterfeiter. I don't want to know. My guess is that, like other people who allegedly do illegal things for a price, a lot of them are undercover law enforcement agents who'll turn you in if you ask. It's easier to take advantage of a legitimate, but time-consuming and un-enjoyable, system where everyone is in a hurry and few people really care whether mistakes are made.

Anyway, fake IDs are still pretty commonplace, and easily enough obtained that I've seen them used by people who weren't doing anything illegal--most often to get around irrelevant age requirements for jobs. Why sue for discrimination against people over 55 when it's easy to pass for 45?

The all-time record for fraudulent use of the DMV was probably pulled off in the 1980s by a White male music fan in Texas, who enjoyed imitating his favorite local singer, who was Black and female, so much that he obtained a driver's license and a few credit cards in her name. Although he paid for the costumes he bought in the singer's name, it didn't take long for a store employee to notice duplicate charge accounts in the same name, and the man ended up in jail.

Photo IDs can add a step of difficulty to a fraud scheme, but unfortunately they do not prevent fraud being committed. As Tim LaHaye prophetically observed in Babylon Rising, when the stakes are high enough, adding biometric data to official ID checks won't prevent fraud either; there are criminals who would kill innocent people for "clean" scannable body parts (eye transplants are fairly easy, though not cheap).

Seriously, Gentle Readers, I don't think identity theft is even going to be a factor in the next few elections. According to plans, election data is going to be processed electronically, in foreign countries...and officially neutral countries like Spain (which has won contracts to handle sensitive data in the past) may have more interest in rocking our vote than some of us have foolishly assumed, not to mention their interest in stealing our identities. I think it may be more important to keep complete identity information out of the election records than to worry about verifying it.

Meanwhile, for people who aren't planning to rob any banks or make any fraudulent credit card purchases, but are serious about the election...Patrick Moran got that part absolutely right. It's much easier and safer to take inactive voters to the polls than it is to steal their identities. Flatter them, arrange for politicians in your party to shake their hands, bribe them with treats.

For those who are concerned about election fraud, I think this is the real secret. It's easy to fool the DMV on a busy day, because the building is packed with people who are not having fun and are in a hurry to get out. It's not so easy to fool people at the polls in a small town, where people are mingling, shaking hands, reserving time for socializing. You never know when someone at the polls will know the inactive voter in question, personally. It would not be possible to reproduce this effect in northern Virginia, where people live in Fairfax, work in Arlington, shop in Alexandria, and may leave town any day...but you can get closer to it by getting to know the people in your neighborhood.

If you know the voters on your street, then even if a fraudster has a similar hairstyle and a photo ID with the same name, you'll immediately notice that the fraudster has a different voice. One fraud uncovered would probably put an end to fraudulent voting practices for several years to come. Partisan politicians want people at the polls to say, "Hey, Tracy, good to see you," instead of "That's not Tracy Jones!" And that is how communities prevent election fraud.