On the Vote and Photo IDs: A Pa. Solution Seeking a Problem?

Truth: There isn't much documented voter fraud in Pennsylvania, commonwealth Secretary of State Carol Aichele said.

In fact, Aichele said in a remarkable State College appearance last month: "There is no documented fraud (issue) -- not a huge one."

So, then, why should the state require most Pennsylvania voters to produce government-issued photo identification at their polling places?

That would be "to build the confidence that Pennsylvanians have in their election process," Aichele told local reporters. An appointee of Gov. Tom Corbett, she said the governor believes a photo-ID requirement would achieve that goal nicely. Proposed legislation to that end is making is way through Harrisburg right now.

Aichele also suggested that the dearth of documentation doesn't mean voter fraud isn't happening. County district-attorney offices are overworked and understaffed, and so investigating voter-fraud claims naturally fall down their high-priority to-do lists, Aichele said.

"Our studies show that 99 percent of voting-age Pennsylvanians have some form of photo ID they can show," she said in her local visit, appearing before State High students in late September. " ... I'm happy to show my photo ID when I get on an airplane, and I'm happy to show it when I go to vote."

But for people across a political spectrum -- including some state lawmakers from Centre County -- the lack of an evident problem remains a problem in itself.

Views from the Capitol Dome

Tor Michaels, the chief of staff for state Rep. Scott Conklin, D-Rush Township, said the photo-ID proposal smells like a solution in search of a problem. His boss opposes the concept, he said.

State Sen. Jake Corman, R-Benner Township, didn't express outright opposition when I called him last week.

But for him to support the legislation, he said, he will need to see evidence of a problem.

So far, Corman said, he has not seen that.

"For me to be supportive of this, to put a hurdle in the way of people voting, it's got to be to solve a problem," he said.

Corman said that weeding out fraud "is something we all should be in favor of." And he isn't suggesting that voter fraud doesn't exist -- just that he hasn't seen the proof, he emphasized.

State Rep. Kerry Benninghoff, R-Bellefonte, seemed less concerned about potential photo-ID standards. But he appeared to favor an approach wherein not all voters would necessarily be compelled to produce ID.

Rather, he talked up a concept that would give poll workers a more clear right to request ID from only those voters perceived as suspect.

"I would think the majority of people would applaud expanding the ability" to protect the integrity of the vote, Benninghoff said.

He underscored that, in the decade since 9/11, "we are expected to produce photo ID in a multitude of places that we never did in the past."

One in 18

For academic purposes, let's imagine -- just for a moment -- that voter fraud is a big problem in Pennsylvania.

On what could we base this assumption?

We could point to voter-fraud problems in some other states. That's what some Penn State College Republicans did during a recent NAACP-sponsored debate, citing, for instance, the 116,000 dead people found on Massachusetts voter rolls last year.

They also noted that Pennsylvania threw out 57,000 voter registrations in 2008 due to inaccurate addresses, questionable signatures and other concerns.

Actually, they went as far as to call voter fraud an epidemic -- not only in Pennsylvania, but across the country.

But actual, documented cases of voter fraud in Pennsylvania? Confirmed cases wherein someone showed up to a Pennsylvania polling place, pretended to be someone else, and cast a ballot?

That appears to be a zero.

While Penn State College Democrats' research revealed about two dozen voter-fraud cases in Pennsylvania since 1978, none of them would have been prevented by a photo-ID requirement at the polls, it appears. (The documented offenses have been achieved through other means, such as through faulty absentee voting.)

The College Democrats have voiced ardent concern that a government-photo-ID requirement would disproportionately affect college students, whose photo IDs tend to list outdated address information. (That could render them ineligible to vote under some proposed provisions.) The ID requirement also could disproportionately affect the poor and some minority groups that, for various reasons, are less likely to have government-issued photo identification readily available.

In all, one in about 18 Pennsylvanians -- or nearly 700,00 Pennsylvanians in all -- lacks the photo identification that would be necessitated under the pending legislation, the College Dems said. They cited state Department of Transportation data, arguing that the new ID requirement could cost the state as much as $11 million in its first year alone.

Advocates for the legislation have emphasized that PennDOT, under the new requirements, would provide a photo ID to anyone who doesn't have one -- no charge. The goal isn't to disenfranchise anyone, the advocates said repeatedly -- simply to ensure the integrity of the process.

And anyone who might show up to vote without ample identification could still cast a provisional ballot; that would be counted after the voter would produce proper identification later, supporters have said.

A Question of Face Value

That argument may be easier to accept at face value -- if a problem could be demonstrated in the first place.

Citations of voter fraud in other states don't prove voter fraud here. And outdated voter-registration logs in Pennsylvania don't prove wrongdoing at the ballot box.

Am I naive?

You could attempt to build that case.

And it would be a hell of a compelling case if you could make it with data. (How many times have I, as a journalist, filed corrections? Been fired? Made public apologies? Tally it up.)

Seems to me that data-centric mentality is exactly what this ID debate needs.

Perhaps there's merit in a photo-ID mandate. But let's see some hard-and-fast numbers first.