In California and some other states, it is illegal to ask a voter to show proof of identification that they are the voter they claim to be. Therefore, I could go to your polling place, pretend to be you, and the poll worker could not ask me to prove I’m you even if that person knew who you were. That’s a law that promotes fraud. That is nuts.
Bills have been introduced nearly every year in the California State Legislature to change this pro-fraud law. They have always failed on party-line votes.
This week the House passed HR 4844, The Federal Election Integrity Act, by a vote of 228-196. The vote was almost entirely on party lines with only 4 Democrats voting in favor. The bill will require voters to show a photo ID when voting in federal elections (Congress, Senate, President) beginning in 2008, and in 2010 those IDs will be required to prove citizenship. Under the REAL ID Act passed by Congress a few years ago, driver’s licenses will soon contain a notation denoting citizenship. An election like the California recall would not be covered under this law because no candidate for federal office was on that ballot.
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called this "a bill designed to keep people from voting." Really? If I want to rent a video at Blockbuster or get on an airplane or cash a check I have to show photo ID. This requirement doesn’t keep me from doing any of these things, and it won’t keep people from exercising our most important secular right. This proposal is part of a recommendation from a bipartisan commission headed by Jimmy Carter and James Baker, and it works. In Arizona, where this procedure was put in place this year, voting participation actually went up because people believed in the integrity of the system.
Apparently all of these facts were lost on Mrs. Pelosi and 196 other members of Congress. With 11 million illegal aliens in the U.S. plus the more than 20 million legal non-citizens, we must make sure that your franchise and my franchise are not compromised with the votes of foreign nationals or those who whish to commit fraud. This bill will do that. I hope the Senate takes it up quickly.