This week’s Indiana Supreme Court ruling upholding the requirement that voters show a picture ID to vote really wasn’t much of a surprise, considering case law. However, it does represent an important reform to stop years of egregious frauds committed by slimy characters from both parties.
I once followed a suspicious voter between three polling sites where she cast ballots, before I was able to get an official in place to challenge her at a fourth site. At the time, all she had to do was give a name, no ID, and sign in the poll book. The unusual thing was catching someone in the act, not the act itself.
Electronic voting systems have come to most counties and the age-old game of tweaking paper ballots and machines has largely passed into the ashbin of history. However, absentee balloting continues to be a gaping hole in Indiana elections.
A voter casting an “absentee ballot” simply files a basic application indicating they will not be able to physically go to a polling site on Election Day. A ballot is then mailed to their residence to be filled out and returned by mail.
Convenient? Yes. Secure and fraud-free? No.
Slimy political agents hang around mailboxes to collect applications and ballots they filed for eligible or not eligible (dead, moved, non-citizen, etc.). Absentee ballots are cast from voters at homes that don’t exist. Small rental homes or single apartments can be found from which dozens of absentee votes are cast. The list goes on.
Prosecutions in this state for voter fraud are up, but you’ll find the cases are almost always about absentee ballot abuses.