BCT Editorial – 3/20/06

This page was last updated on March 20, 2006.

Ignore the hype; Editorial; Beaver County Times; March 20, 2006.

This is the second editorial on this issue in the last month. I’ll leave most of the critique of this editorial to my critique of “A non-issue” since this editorial is mostly a rehash of the first.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“Rendell vetoed a voting bill that was more politics than reality

“In the coming election campaign, Gov. Ed Rendell might come under attack for vetoing a bill that would have toughened voter identification laws.

“Ignore the hype.

“Under the bill, each voter would have to show election workers a form of identification such as a driver’s license; a U.S. passport; a student, employee or government ID; a county voter registration card; a firearm permit; a current utility bill; or a current bank statement, paycheck or government check.

“The Associated Press reported Republicans said they pushed the legislation as a way to combat voter fraud. However, county prosecutors and elections officials in Pennsylvania - people who live in the real world - said cases of voter fraud are rare, if at all.

“The current law is good enough. It requires identification only from people voting in a polling place for the first time. After that, poll workers compare a voter’s signature to the one on file with the county elections board. If poll workers are doing their jobs, there should be no problems.

“Outside the realm of Pennsylvania politics as usual, this was a solution to a problem that didn’t exist, one that richly deserved Rendell’s veto.”

[RWC] The legislation addressed other election issues, which the editorial conveniently omitted. For example, some local Democrat Party offices actually host polling places on Election Day. In addition to other rule changes for polling places, political party offices could no longer serve as polling places.

I get a kick out of the liberal inconsistency when it comes to Election Day. While liberals seem to have an overwhelming distrust of voting machines because they believe evil Republicans are using the machines to rig elections, even when there is a paper ballot backup. In fairness, I don’t know the Times position regarding voting machines. Liberals, however, seem to express no concern about voter fraud and the Times clearly falls into this camp.

Contrary to what the editorial would have us believe, the old saying, “vote early and vote often” didn’t come out of nowhere.