Voter ID is a fraud
I possess an official State of Maine Identification Card. It was issued about 40 years ago by then-Secretary of State Rodney Quinn. You’ll have to take my word for that because Quinn has been dead for a dozen years. But unlike him, the card has no expiration date. It’s still valid, even though I don’t look much like the photo anymore and haven’t lived at the listed address in more than three decades. So this tattered card would still be useful if Maine Republicans succeed in requiring everyone to show legal identification to vote.
In a spiteful way, of course.
GOP minions are currently collecting signatures to force a referendum requiring you to show a valid ID every time you go to the polls. This is designed to prevent … well, nothing much. Recent instances of people trying to vote illegally in Maine are so rare you can count them on one hand and have a finger left over.
In 2009, a guy in Newburgh voted after moving there from Dixmont. He neglected to mention he’d already cast a ballot in his old town. In 2010, a father in Oakland turned in absentee ballots for his two adult children, one of whom voted on his own in Orono. In 2020, a woman in Orono used her roommate’s absentee ballot to vote twice. That same year, another Orono voter did a double dip by voting there and in her hometown of Milford.
They all got caught.
That’s the extent of the voter-fraud epidemic in Maine. None of these cases could have changed any election outcomes.
Nevertheless, Americans believe there’s something suspicious going on. A 2022 Monmouth University Polling Institute survey found that just 36 percent of respondents had confidence in the electoral system. “Whether you like it or not, perception is reality,” Republican state Sen. Matt Pouliot of Augusta told a legislative committee in 2023, speaking in support of his ultimately unsuccessful bill to require voter ID. “If only thirty-six percent of the electorate believes the system is basically sound, why wouldn’t we take all measures to ensure integrity and restore faith in our system?”
Possibly because legislating against mythical problems is stupid. According to a 2021 Gallup poll, over 40 percent of Americans believe UFOs come from another planet, but I don’t see Pouliot and his fellow Republicans supporting the creation of a force field to protect Earth from invasion.
Current Maine law requires everyone to show legal identification and proof of residency when first registering to vote. But once you’re in the system, there’s no need to repeat that exercise every election. Doing so just clogs up the process, which many voters seem to think is already clumsy and inefficient.
Currently, three dozen states have voter ID laws (Nevada will vote on one in November), but a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study found almost no improvement in voter confidence in the system in those states. This might have something to do with Republicans filing frivolous lawsuits in several states making unsupported claims of election irregularities. Or possibly it’s because space aliens from UFOs are using advanced technology to create undetectable fake identification.
In June, the “Voter ID for ME” campaign claimed it had already collected more than 40,000 signatures on petitions, over half the number needed to put the requirement on the ballot, probably in 2025. Their proposed law would require the state to issue free identification cards to anyone who needs one. It would also prohibit requesting an absentee ballot by phone and would outlaw signing up to automatically receive an absentee ballot every election. Municipalities would be limited to having a single drop-box location where absentees could be returned.
If that seems like it’ll make it harder to vote, you’re not alone in thinking so. While that MIT study was inconclusive as to whether ID laws suppressed turnout, the League of Women Voters told the Bangor Daily News such a statute would do exactly that. “[W]e oppose efforts to create new barriers that block citizens’ constitutional right to vote,” a league spokeswoman said, citing people of color, senior citizens, and poor and disabled Mainers as those most likely to be disenfranchised by such a law.
Of course, Republicans aren’t as concerned about that as they are about the system’s integrity. Allegedly. Very allegedly. In 2021, a GOP-backed effort to place a referendum on the ballot to ban noncitizens from voting in local elections (something no Maine municipality allows anyway) turned in just enough signatures to put the question out to voters. Except the Secretary of State’s office determined about 25,000 of those 66,000 names were fake. Some were for dead people. Some were folks who never signed. It was a clear case of intentional electoral fuckery.
And it was run by the same GOP that seems to think my ancient ID card will somehow thwart voter fraudsters and protect the system from the evils of immigrants, space aliens and (sound the irony alarm) Republicans.
My old ID still works when I buy beer at Hadlock Field. Congratulations may be e-mailed to aldiamon@herniahill.net.
