The Voter ID Scam

By Bill Shein
March 23, 2011

We have many problems with our electoral system: Long lines at the polls, registration snafus, noncompetitive districts, proprietary voting-machine software, and so on. The list is long and there’s much work to do.

But we don’t have a problem with voter-impersonation fraud, in which someone shows up at the polls claiming to be someone else. It almost never occurs. Since voter-impersonation fraud is the only crime prevented by requiring voters to have photo ID, such a requirement does nothing to improve our electoral system.