Monday, October 29, 2012

ID, please, Mr. President: Obama was asked to show photo ID to prove his identity when casing ballot in Chicago

Is that racist or what?
(NYP) President Obama stopped off in Chicago Thursday to become the first incumbent to cast an early in-person ballot in a presidential election.

But before he could, he had to present photo ID — his driver’s license — to prove his identity and prevent any fraud at the polls.

As a rule, that’s not only reasonable, but sensible.

And a compelling video that surfaced last week, documenting a blatant attempt at voter fraud by a Virginia congressman’s campaign, shows exactly why.

The video features Democratic Rep. Jim Moran’s son, campaign field director Patrick Moran — who was later forced to resign — coaching someone on how to commit voting fraud.

In a sting operation, a conservative activist approaches Moran with a supposed scheme in which supporters would cast fraudulent ballots under the names of 100 registered voters who are unlikely to turn up at the polls.

Virginia’s voter-ID law requires only utility bills as proof of residence, and the activist says he could fake those using his home computer.

Young Moran agrees: “A bank statement would be tough, but faking a utility bill would be easy enough,” he says.

He also urges the activist to call all the people on his list and make sure they aren’t voting.

“You can even just call and be, like, a pollster,” he suggests.

Should any problems develop, Moran added, “you’ll have somebody in-house that, if they feel what you have is legitimate, they’ll argue for you.”

By which, Moran says, he means lawyers for Obama’s Organizing for America “or provided by the communities or the committees” — groups like the NAACP, ACLU and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, which are prepared to challenge any attempt to stop people from voting.

No matter how dubious their credentials.

Democrats and the Obama team, of course, won’t acknowledge that voter fraud is a real concern.

But criminal cases involving ACORN in several states put the lie to that.

And who knows how many other campaign officials like Patrick Moran have helped hatch similar schemes and weren’t caught on undercover video?

Which is why Republicans — wisely — have backed genuinely tough and enforceable voter ID laws nationwide.

Like the one that ensured it was Barack Obama — and not, say, Saturday Night Live Obama-impersonator Jay Pharaoh — who cast an early ballot in Chicago last week.