As a citizen and, um, a respectable journalist, I was appalled when I learned that you didn't need a valid voter registration card or proof of residency — any identification at all — to take part in Iowa's caucuses. All you had to do was show up at a caucus site and fill out a voter registration card. While Iowa's caucuses don't determine the Democratic or Republican nominee, they play a big role in shaping the presidential race. With huge numbers of volunteers and true believers flooding into the state, the potential for mischief seemed huge.
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I bring this up now because the ease with which Iowa's caucuses can be abused seems especially problematic this year. Every campaign since the dawn of our democracy has attracted people willing to bend the rules or game the system to get their candidate elected. According to The Des Moines Register, only 61,000 Democrats and 86,000 Republicans participated in the Iowa caucuses in 2000. Throw in a bunch of young, energized, devoted volunteers — like the hordes of Howard Dean supporters I've seen leaving Seattle for Iowa in their hybrid cars over the last couple of weeks — and, well, you get the picture. In a nine-way contest, even a few hundred out-of-state volunteers willing to show up at caucus sites and impersonate Iowans could distort the outcome on behalf of their candidate.
Last week, I called the Polk County Election Office in Des Moines and was told that you still don't need to produce any identification to fill out a voter registration card; according to the Democratic Party of Iowa, you can register at the caucus sites without any proof of residency. That means Deaniacs, Liebermaniacs, Edwardians, Kerryactics and Gepharatchiks from outside Iowa need only follow a few simple steps if they want to participate in the Iowa caucuses: don't bring identification, don't put your real name on the voter registration form you'll be asked to fill out and don't write about your exploits on your blogs. Alas, this means you won't get caught, and that you won't be a footnote in a presidential election (a grand and glorious thing), but you won't be looking at six years in prison either — six years in prison in Iowa, let's not forget.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/07/opinion/07SAVA.htmlyikes! and you thought BBV was bad :)
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