There was no fat lady in the room, but everyone agreed she had
finally sung, proving the adage that “it’s not over till the fat
lady sings.” That happened one day the other week in my Northern
California county — Humboldt — five weeks after the November 7
elections.
Election night tallies brought no surprises for statewide
offices, Congress or state legislative races, but three city
council seats and the mayor’s office in the county seat and one
county supervisor race were whisker-close. In a scene repeated
thousands of times in counties across the land, the Elections
Manager and his staff went to work pouring through absentee and
provisional ballots, matching names and addresses with registration
rolls, setting aside any with discrepancies for further
investigation.
Californians mark paper ballots, putting “x” in the circle by
each name they select. The ballots are counted by electronic
machines, often put through twice to confirm the tallies. As a
further accuracy check, elections officials in each county then
canvass the ballots, recounting by hand a small percentage. Unlike
those counties in Florida that caused the nation to holds it
collective breath in 2000, there are no hanging chads in
California; no stirring of chicken entrails to divine voter intent.
(Remember the post-election bumper sticker in Florida, “Honk If You
Voted For Gore — That’s the Big Button in the Middle of the
Steering Wheel”?)
We hear much about the importance of “transparency” in ballot
counting. The Humboldt County Election chief was a model of
transparency, holding a daily briefing for the press and all
interested parties during the elongated counting period.
A few days before the statutory certification deadline, November
27, he announced the results of the five nail-biting elections.
There were no upsets. In some cases, the election day winners
gained a few votes; in others challengers gained a few. In one
Eureka city council race, the incumbent, Jeff Leonard, was declared
the winner by 28 votes. His challenger, Ron Kuhnel, exercised his
right to call for a full recount of the 8,000-plus ballots in their
ward — at his expense. Officials expected this to take three or
four days. They completed their work in a day and a half, with the
result that the incumbent gained four votes. Kuhnel, who paid
$2,985.99 for the recount, said, “The race is over — finally.”
And, County Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich declared, “The fat
lady sang.”
But did she sing off key in Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri?
There, county elections officials reported that thousands of new
voter registration cards handed in by ACORN, a community activist
group, were highly questionable. One woman had 12 registration
cards. Many were for addresses that did not exist. Some registrants
were dead. The cards were piled in bins for detailed examination.
Presumably, none of those in question voted.
It is usually Democratic spokespersons who clamor for
ever-easier voter registration. I don’t think this is what they had
in mind. An ACORN spokeswoman, interviewed on television, allowed
as how a few registration solicitors had not been fully trained.
Considering the scope of potential fraud, it was more a case of
willful negligence on the part of the trainers and management of
the organization.
There is, of course, one sure way to make certain that the
person stepping up to the table to get a ballot is the person whose
name and address are on the rolls: have him or her show a valid
photo identification card, such as a driver’s license or passport.
These days store clerks often ask for one when presented with a
credit card. We show them at airports. Despite cries by some that
requiring voters to show IDs is an invasion of privacy, there is no
valid reason for not doing so. Unless, that is, one wants to
encourage fraud.
