Sometimes a news story is just a news story. Other times it’s an excuse to push one side of an issue. This Associated Press story falls into the second category:
Several states adopted new laws last year requiring that people show a photo ID when they come to vote even though the kind of election fraud that the laws are intended to stamp out is rare. Even supporters of the new laws are hard pressed to come up with large numbers of cases in which someone tried to vote under a false identify.
“I’ve compared this to the snake oil salesman. You got a cold? I got snake oil. Your foot aches? I got snake oil,” said election law expert Justin Levitt, who wrote “The Truth About Voter Fraud” for The Brennan Center for Justice. “It doesn’t seem to matter what the problem is, (voter) ID is being sold as the solution to a whole bunch of things it can’t possibly solve.”
A story could just as easily have been written centering on the arguments made Thursday at the John Locke Foundation-Federalist society event by Heritage Foundation legal fellow Hans van Spakovsky:
Among other solid arguments, von Spakovsky made the point in his speech that we have hundreds of laws on the books that are designed to punish rare crimes. That they are rare is no argument against laws that prohibit and punish them.
If you want to watch his entire 56-minute speech and subsequent Q and A, go here and scroll down.
