by Bob Fertik

On Monday, former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker unveiled their 87-point plan entitled Building Confidence in U.S. Elections.

While most of the plan is positive - such as banning partisan election supervisors like Florida's Katherine Harris and Ohio's Ken Blackwell - the proposal has one fatal flaw: requiring a photo ID for all voters.

The idea came from James Baker, who engineered the Stolen Election of 2000. It represents the paranoia of Republicans who believe ineligible voters routinely visit polling places to impersonate eligible (or dead) voters and to cast fraudulent votes. In reality, there are virtually no documented cases of such on-site voting fraud in modern times - and certainly no election outcomes that were changed.

Nowadays when fraud is committed by voters (as opposed to election officials like Harris and Blackwell), it is done with absentee ballots, which are not as carefully screened as in-precinct votes. A famous example was the 1997 Miami Mayor's race, which was overturned by a judge. A photo ID would not stop absentee fraud unless such ballots had to be notarized - an idea Baker did not propose.

Requiring a photo ID would erect yet one more barrier to the many existing barriers to voting, since 12% of Americans don't have a driver's license. Any "workaround" to offer an alternative ID to that 12% - nearly all of whom are poor, elderly, and/or infirm - is guaranteed to fail, even if it is free. The inevitable result will be "Katrina Democracy" in which people with cars (and therefore photo ID's) get to vote, while people without cars (and photo ID's) are "left behind" to drown in their powerlessness, just like the poor citizens of New Orleans.

A photo ID would also move America closer to a "national identity card," an idea long opposed by liberals and conservatives because it would increase the power of government to control its citizens.

Not surprisingly, Democrats led by Tom Daschle and John Conyers denounced the photo ID requirement as a "new poll tax" that would prevent millions of poor people from voting. They called it a partisan scheme to elect more Republicans and declared it "dead on arrival."

But what if there was a better way to reduce voter fraud that actually made it easier to vote, rather than harder?

I have outlined such a plan. And the election experts I have consulted are loving it.

The idea is simple: why not register every voter automatically, using their Social Security account (but not the Social Security number itself) as the official registration record?

Nowadays virtually every American has a Social Security account. Virtually every newborn gets one (to qualify for health coverage and/or a tax deduction) and every teen or adult must have one to work or to receive government benefits.  You keep your account throughout your life, even if you need to change the original number because of identity theft or domestic abuse.

So why not use this authenticated and well-maintained national file as our national voter registration file? Obviously this file would be much "cleaner" than the thousands of county-created files that are poorly maintained and therefore full of relocated or deceased voters - which offers a golden opportunity for fraud.

My proposal is entirely consistent with the analysis that undergirds the Carter-Baker proposal. Like me, Carter and Baker think county election boards do an inadequate job of maintaining accurate voter files, and want to take the responsibility out of their hands. This is the beginning of the Executive Summary:

"First, we propose a universal voter registration system in which the states, not local jurisdictions, are responsible for the accuracy and quality of the voter lists."

Of course, "universal" doesn't really mean "universal" when 50 states and 5 territories are maintaining separate files. So immediately they have to kluge together a patchwork fix.

"Additionally, we propose that the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) develop a mechanism to connect all states' list. These top-down and interoperable registration lists will, if implemented successfully, eliminate the vast majority of complaints currently leveled against the election system."

That's a pretty big "IF," especially since the Republican head of the EAC, DeForest Soaries, quit last April because the EAC lacked any staff or offices.

But if Carter and Baker say it's ok to switch from a "bottom-up" to a "top-down" system, why stop in the middle at the state level and patch together a kluge? Why not go straight to the top for the whole enchilada of the Social Security file?

Moreover, Carter and Baker support automatic registration, just as I do. Obviously the nearly 100% complete Social Security file is far superior for ensuring the voting rights of every American than the 12% incomplete, income-skewed driver's license file.

The proposal I offer is remarkably simple. Every year at election time, the Social Security Administration would create a national voter file by removing non-voters (children and non-citizens). This voter file would contain names and addresses, but not Social Security Numbers or other personal information. It would then split this voter file into county files, and make them available on a high-security web site for county election boards to download. The counties would then remove prisoners (and non-pardoned ex-prisoners) according to state law, divide their files into precinct files, and print out sign-in sheets with the names and addresses of everyone who is eligible to vote.

The benefits of this new system compared with the current system are obvious - and huge.

1. It would make voter registration automatic. You would never have to fill out a registration form to vote - which is a major obstacle to voting for many citizens.

2. County governments would not have to laboriously maintain complete voter files. Instead, they would simply download the Social Security file (name, address, and citizenship status) for their county right before each election, merge in signature samples (and party codes for restricted primaries), and print out sign-in sheets for each precinct. This would save county governments billions of dollars each year in staff, postage, printing, and storage space.

3. The number of errors in the system would be reduced to a tiny fraction of the current system, so there would be practically no need for provisional ballots and all the hassles that go with them.

4. The tiny problem of voter fraud would be made even tinier. Duplicate registrations (which typically occur when someone moves and re-registers without cancelling the old registration) would become impossible, because a Social Security account has a single address. Dead voters would be removed as soon as Social Security is notified, which is pretty quick (because they have to stop the checks).

5. The Social Security file would get "cleaner" over time, if voters discovered the file had an out-of-date surname or address and provided a new one. (Such voters would cast a provisional ballot until the Social Security file was updated.) This would make life better for the Social Security Administration, as well as beneficiaries and Members of Congress who have to struggle with inaccurate files.

What are the disadvantages? None that I can find.

This plan could be implemented starting immediately and completed by the 2006 election (if it was a national priority) or otherwise by 2008.

1. The Social Security Administration would have to create a secure system to download county files to authorized county officials. (This could be done in 3 months if SSA has a decent computer system.)

2. County election boards would have to acquire the capability to download their county file and then match the street addresses against the precinct table so they can print sign-in sheets for each precinct. (Most counties have that capability already; if not, a specialized vendor could provide it easily.)

3. Counties would also have to scan and store all current voter signature samples, and add this image to the voter's record. (Many counties have that capability already; if not, a specialized vendor could also provide it easily.) This voter/signature file would have to be matched against the downloaded Social Security voter file. (As an alternative, the Social Security Administration could add signatures nationally from state driver's license files.)

4. In states that restrict primary voting to registered party members, counties would have to match their voter/party files against the downloaded Social Security voter file.  (As an alternative, the Social Security Administration could permanently store the party code for each voter, subject to strict privacy rules. But some voters would never "trust" SSA with this information, so this approach should be set aside until this legitimate concern is resolved, if it ever is.)

So that's my simple plan. Jimmy Carter and James Baker, are you listening?

Democrats.Com