July 27, 1977

Little Fraud Biggest Vote Danger

The next seven days will be critical in America's continuing battle for effective citizen franchise.

Ohioans For Preservation Of Honest Elections have only a brief period to obtain 310,000 or more petition signatures that will give voters the right to decide whether they should keep or kill advance registration.

This effort became necessary when state legislators recently took to themselves the privilege of imposing partisan changes in our election procedures.

In an arrogant display of power the veto-proof legislature steam-rollered into law a bill that will enable people to cast a ballot on Election Day simply by showing "proof" of identity.

Democrats believe that the citizen too lazy or disinterested to register will vote their party - an outlook that demeans the sincere and intelligent Democratic voter.

Apathetic Republicans are in near panic over the prospect of one-party, socialistic government that unassailable Democratic power portends.  Yet, I have no doubt that in time the GOP will become as adept as Democrats in rounding up bar-flies and street people on Election Day and dragging them to the polls.  The jug of whiskey used to be standard election-day bribe in the old days for both parties.

Ohioans For Honest Elections is a bipartisan committee whose chairman is Ms.  Jean M.  Barren, Republican of Steubenville; and whose executive director is Bruce Duffy, Democrat of Columbus.

They are concerned that the inability of precinct workers to confirm identities and residences on busy election days will lead to massive fraud.  It certainly is easier for those recently moved to show identification for both addresses and vote in two places.  Forged identification cards are commonplace as any bartender will tell you.

The most likely area of fraud would occur with unscrupulous election officials - Chicago (Cook County) being only one example.

The new law not only makes Election Day registration possible, all registrations become "permanent" in the literal sense of the word.  There is no procedure for cleaning registrations from the files as a result of death or change of address, and 25 percent of the populace are involved each year in such events.

We laughed when Mayor Daley sent his henchmen to the cemeteries to register dead citizens.  Now, dishonest election workers can do the job quicker in the privacy of their computer offices.

The law also provides that would-be voters can register at license plate registrars.  What a laugh!  Registrars are patronage appointments untrained and uninterested in complex election laws.  How easy it will be for a registrar of one political party to "lose" the registration of another-party voter.

Election board workers in Ohio - where, under Secretary Of State Ted Brown, there has not been a hint of scandal in 27 years - are unanimous in opposing the newly enacted election law.

General elections, particularly those involving the presidency, already are a nightmare of pressure.  Many last-minute voters in big cities are dissuaded by the long lines at closing time.  To this burden now will be added additional duties that will further constrict the election process.

In the end, fewer voters will have exercised their franchise than otherwise would have been possible - and these will be the working men and putter-offers who, according to Democratic theory, are Democratic voters.

I concur that massive fraud and delay are possible, but I am more concerned about the certain few frauds.

In the last presidential election, the outcome was decided by less than one vote per precinct.  Only one over-zealous elector voting twice, or one dishonest precinct worker stuffing an extra ballot in the name of a corpse, would have turned the election around.

Massive fraud carries detectable risk.  One fraud per precinct is insidious.

Once a fraudulent ballot is cast there is no way of recovering it from the ballot box.  Safeguards are effective only prior to casting a vote.

The height of legislative arrogance was tacking on a $2 million amendment to the new election law to make it an appropriation measure untouchable by citizen referendum.  The Ohio Supreme Court, in a rare display of partisanship, upheld the ploy on strict party lines.

Fortunately, the politicians still haven't been able to subvert the State Constitution.  That document still can be amended by citizen petition, and this is the only route now open to Ohioans for Honest Elections.

It is a tough job to gather hundreds of thousands of petitions, but there is too much citizen liberty at stake to let it slip through our fingers.

When someone approaches you within the next week for your "John Hancock" to help give such a vital decision to the citizen -rather than to greedy politicians - sign with the same flourish as the patriot who showed us the way two centuries ago.

Author: Lindsey Williams