Luther Weeks

From an audit and election integrity standpoint, this law is even worse than the one we discussed yesterday. Instead of giving small municipalities an exemption for four years, this one would exempt all municipalities for about seven years in ten!

Exempting any towns and any ballots from the post-election audit would be at the expense of election integrity, defeating the purpose of a random audit. It would be a unique, bad precedent if taxpayers foot the bill for officials’ fines levied for improperly conducting their duties.

“little evidence of actual voter fraud, and plenty to suggest that the laws will end up costing states millions of dollars that they don’t have…But criticism of the Voter ID bills often falls starkly along party lines. While Republicans say that they’re necessary to combat growing fraud, there’s little to suggest rampant fraud is actually taking place. Meanwhile, Democrats argue that there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that it’s the elderly, African American, and Latino voters who are most likely to vote without the types of identification that’s being required in the new legislation.”