Editorial - Proposed voter ID law is both unnecessary and expensive

[struggle4progress]

... Two reputable national studies – one by the Brennan School of Justice at New York University's law school and the other by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission – found in 2007 that voter fraud is exceedingly rare. There's no reason to believe that people residing in North Carolina are any less honest than their fellow Americans.

On the other hand, according to a report in The News & Observer of Raleigh this week, the State Board of Elections found that more than 1 million voters did not match up with the Division of Motor Vehicles database of driver's licenses. Compare that number with the 18 cases of double voting the elections board reported in 2008, out of 2.8 million votes cast.

Errors, inadequately trained election workers and malfunctioning voting machines represent far greater threats to fair elections than any sort of alleged fraud. In the Cape Fear region alone, voters reported receiving the wrong ballots, watching their on-screen vote choices change to an opposing candidate before their very eyes and other glitches that called into question the integrity of the election process.

If lawmakers want to solve a problem that affects a lot of people, they should start there ...

http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20110316/ARTICLES/110319702/1108?Title=Editorial-Proposed-voter-ID-law-is-both-unnecessary-and-expensive-