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December 08, 2002

Fraud and Turnout

This is one of the reasons increasing voter turnout isn't as easy a goal as it might seem. The general consensus among most politically active Americans (or at least, my opinion), is that it's quite unfortunate that such a small percentage of Americans vote. In presidential elections, the turnout hovers right around 50%, and in other elections a fifty percent result would be a godsend. But the attempts to make voting easier and easier also make it simpler for people to commit vote fraud.

Is there a happy medium? I don't know, but I don't honestly see a reason to make voting all that easy. Yes, I think that everyone should make the time to vote, but I think there should be at least a little inconvenience to it. It's the most many of us ever do to influence the political process; it doesn't hurt to remind us all that voting is important enough to make a few sacrifices. I don't want to see a return to poll taxes and the like, of course, but requiring people to take a few hours out of their life every few years to register to vote and then vote hardly seems a massive imposition.