This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 29, 2012 - Missourians’ hard-earned dollars are safer from theft because banks require a photo ID to withdraw cash. Board an airplane without presenting photo ID? Forget it, for the most compelling reasons of public safety.
Examples can be multiplied almost endlessly. Photo ID is part of daily life.
But nobody needs a photo ID to cast a ballot in Missouri, even though honest elections are the cornerstone of self-government. This must change. Our voting system is antique and wide open to election fraud. As secretary of state, I will make honest and most trustworthy elections my top priority.
Airlines, video stores, financial institutions, grocery stores that cash checks … all these and more use photo ID because it is the simplest and most reliable method we have to guard your identity. The time for election reform is now.
Because voter registration records are public and permanent, we know that large numbers of fictitious names are offered to election authorities for the voter books. The motive couldn’t be more obvious, of course. Partisan crooks create fictitious voters before the election as the necessary basis for creating fictitious ballots on Election Day.
Because the voting booth is private, only the voter knows whom they marked, making it exceptionally difficult to run down a fraudulent ballot after it has been marked. Nonetheless, Election Day fraud is well-attested. In addition, absentee voting violations are much more often detected because records make it easier to verify if a voter marked a ballot that was tallied in their name.
We know fraud occurs and have seen the evidence. We know there are those willing to commit a felony by registering people that do not even exist. Political workers in Missouri have been charged and convicted of election fraud and identity theft.
Recently, three state election officers came to Missouri to endorse my photo ID plan to assure all honest Missourians that their lawful vote isn’t being cancelled or stolen by chicanery.
My proposal is implementing photo ID in Missouri. If elected secretary of state, I will work vigorously in a bipartisan way with the Legislature and governor to enact this important clean-government reform.
Once a fraudulent ballot has been cast on election day, the sacred privacy of the voting booth makes it unlikely that we will ever know of the fraud. The way to fight fraud at the ballot box is to stop it before it happens, by assuring that the person receiving the ballot is the voter. It is easy to provide free IDs to people who lack a driver’s license.
My opponent for secretary of state says that voter identification is “extreme and unfair.” I disagree. Fixing a system so easily defrauded is vital to the integrity of American freedom and self-government.
As the lead sponsor of voter identification in the Missouri House this year, I have shown my commitment to protecting your identity and your vote. This commitment will continue if I am your secretary of state. Every honest Missourian is entitled to feel confident that his or her ballot isn’t being stolen or cancelled by election fraud.
Shane Schoeller is the Republican candidate for Missouri Secretary of State.