The American Spectator

Shelton: “It’s the same thing in many ways. Now look, we can argue that it’s not as violent. It’s not as bloody. Bottom line is, what kind of effect does it have?”

Artur Davis, the former Democratic congressman from Alabama who seconded Barack Obama’s nomination for president at the 2008 Democratic convention (and spoke at this year’s Republican convention), finds that analogy preposterous. “I never heard a single voter in my 68 percent African American district complain to me about ID being something that was onerous or burdensome or difficult.”

He went on to say: “The idea that people in low-income African American communities are bothered or intimidated or burdened by attaching just a few responsibilities to their all-important core right of voting—it’s a condescending idea. It’s a patronizing idea. If the law works the same with respect to everybody, it’s free and clear of whatever history or bigotry or racial animus [exists].”

And when voters are disenfranchised by the counting of improperly cast ballots or outright fraud, their civil rights are violated just as surely as if they were prevented from voting. The integrity of the ballot box is just as important to the credibility of elections as is access to it.

EVEN AFTER THE EVENTS in Florida in 2000, the media tend to downplay or ignore stories of election incompetence, manipulation, or theft. Allowing such abuses to vanish into an informational black hole in effect legitimizes them. The refusal to insist on simple procedural changes like a photo ID requirement for voters, secure technology, and more vigorous prosecutions accelerates the country’s drift toward banana-republic elections.

Scrutinizing its own elections the way the United States has traditionally scrutinized voting in developing countries is a sad, but necessary, step in the right direction.