From the Wall Street Journal.

...Democratic Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut agreed with the GOP point man, Kit Bond of Missouri, to include modest anti-fraud protections. Mr. Bond saw fraud first-hand in St. Louis in 2000 and 2001, when a dog and the dead were registered; 28% of all registered voters can't be located by the U.S. Postal Service. So he insisted that voters who register by mail show proof of identity, such as a photo ID or utility bill, but only when they cast their first ballot. Every Senate Democrat voted for the bill that included this.



But now comes the House-Senate conference, and every issue is settled but one: the anti-fraud provisions. The usual liberal interest groups (AFL-CIO, NAACP) are pressuring Senate Democrats to kill the bill, claiming that the first-time-vote ID requirement is "tantamount to requiring [voters] to pay a poll tax." You don't have to be from Alabama to know that "poll tax" is intended to rile black voters into suspecting GOP foul play.

So Mr. Dodd suddenly has new demands: striking language that permits states to use Social Security numbers to keep voter rolls clean, and gutting the ID requirement by allowing first-time voters merely to sign a form and have election workers verify the signature. Never mind that 34 states don't currently verify signatures at the polls, and it would be impossible to expect the nation's 1.4 million poll workers to become handwriting experts.

The smoking-gun motive, however, is Mr. Dodd's new demand for a private right of action to sue local election boards, a provision never proposed in either the House or Senate. Bringing trial lawyers into election disputes is a perfect way to guarantee endless Florida-style litigation in every close race.

Republicans are naturally rejecting all of this, and so right on cue Mr. McAuliffe blasted President Bush and the GOP for "standing in the way of election reform." Senator Dodd is also now claiming, falsely, that House Republicans are trying to erect "significant new barriers" to voting.

Expect these cries to grow louder now that Democrats can again point to a fiasco in Florida, the home state of a Governor (Jeb) named Bush. The losers will, of course, be all Americans who expect and deserve a modern and honest election system.



I'd like to know from others here: what would you consider to be sufficient and reasonable evidence of proof of identity for voting? I have to show my drivers license just to write a check, and wouldn't object to showing it at the polls. California cheerfully issues official ID cards similar to drivers licenses for those who don't drive, and one assumes that could be used as well.