Skepticseye.com

and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful, one-hundred percent.

However, you wouldn’t know all I meant, or said, by reading the Politico. The Politico called to see whether I would comment on an anti-voter caging proposal now before Congress. I obliged, and made the following points:

- if a state permits challenges to voters, than it makes little sense to deny challengers the ability to do research on whom to challenge (that is, caging mail returns to review who may have moved from the precinct);

- opponents of caging are really opposed to partisan challengers in polling places at all, and one wonders why that isn’t the focus of reform;

- perhaps that reticence has something to do with a subconscious realization that partisan challengers, some places, perform a valuable function, and we might not want a federal law banning them. They are, in one-party jurisdictions, perhaps the only monitors around not allied with incumbents and the majority party. This is where the machine comment came in - that historically challengers protect abuse of voters by “historically Democratic” machines. I think I then allowed that the Platt machine wasn’t Democratic.

My point was that, with all we hear about abuses involving partisan challengers in polling places, we shouldn’t lose sight of their intended purpose - and the purpose they may continue to serve. Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got ’til its gone.

- finally, the reporter related some accounts of partisan poll workers abusing voters, confronting them, and whatnot. I observed that many jurisdictions do not permit challengers to address voters directly, so this would violate state rules (maybe federal law, too, depending). If the rules aren’t being followed, how is adding a “caging” law to the mix going to help, I queried.

The reporter who wrote the story had a word limit, and was entitled to use the quote he did. But that squib shouldn’t be taken as a complete summary of my views. I think some good friends know that . . .

My Engage article about Voter ID laws and the Crawford challenge is now on line!

Ed Whelan wrote yesterday about the significance of the Washington State primary case as further evidence the Roberts Court takes Salerno seriously.

In other words, when litigants challenge a law’s constitutionality facially, they should be prepared to demonstrate its unconstitutional sweep in virtually all applications. I wouldn’t try to rely on cases that fudge this standard; Planned Parenthood v. Casey being but one example. (There, the Court found a spousal consent law unconstitutional, not by considering its burden on everybody, but only on those women who wouldn’t otherwise want to tell their spouses about their abortion decision). It would seem to me that with the Court paying more attention to the spirit of Salerno, litigants don’t get to redraw the sweep of the law to exclude people subject to, but not complaining about, the law at issue.

This is a critical component of the Crawford litigant’s case. Most voters have the government ID that Indiana wants them to produce. The Crawford litigation is all about the unconstitutional burden the ID requirement places on a small subset of people. But the case is proceeding as a facial challenge to the statute. These litigants want to say that the proper measure of the law’s facial sweep is the population burdened by the law. This Casey-like approach won’t work now - presuming the Court is at all consistent.

It’s here.

In my continuing effort to achieve scholarly excellent through EBay purchases, I have acquired a copy of the Election Laws of Vermont from 1885.  Ch. II, Sec. 35 includes among the requirements for suffrage that a voter “is of a quiet and peaceable behavior . . .”

While registration was not a prerequisite, each town’s selectman was required at least 30 days prior to an election, to make a list of qualified voters, which was then publicly posted.  At least 15 days before the election challenges to the list could be considered.  (Ch III Sec. 42 & 43.)  The right to vote was determined by the list (Sec. 49).  Voters supplied their own ballots, of course - BYOB!

The EAC Inspector General’s report on the release of the Tova Wang existential vote fraud study is here.

On page 9, public integrity veteran (of many wars), Craig Donsanto, gets into the mix!  Read it yourself - the document is configured so that I’m not able to paste in an excerpt.

For the Heritage Foundation!

Yes, it is possible to have a calm and respectful panel discussion of voter fraud, election integrity, and election administration, as we proved yesterday at the Harvard Journal on Legislation’s Symposium.  The gentlemen on the campaign finance panel, however, had a rougher go of it.

Their exchange made me feel five years younger (at least)!  Which may say something about the finality potential (low) of poorly reasoned opinions.

I now own a lovely little booklet, titled “Practical Directions for the Holding of Elections and the Canvassing of Votes Under the New Election Laws” for New York City election inspectors, from 1849.

Among its other delights, it explains that under New York law, no person shall be permitted to vote “who shall make or be interested directly or indirectly in any bet or wager, depending upon the result of any election, at which such person shall offer to vote.”

Not really.  For one thing, we’re not exactly celebrities.  And there’s no claymation involved.

But if you’re a hardcore Voter ID groupie, this radio debate between Wendy Weiser (of the Brennan Center) and yours truly might be of interest.

N.B. The linked file is in the form of an mp3 “podcast.”  However you needn’t be an IPod owner to listen to it.