Charles Howard, the 11th Duke of Norfolk was known as the “Jockey Duke” for his hard gambling, hard-drinking, hard eating, and hard womanizing. But above all else, he was politically ambitious.
And the Duke had his eye particularly fixed on the borough of Horsham in southern England because of its unique political characteristics.
Horsham was quite fanciful to a power-hungry aristocrat; not only did it send two members to Parliament, but in order to be a registered voter in the Borough, you had to own one of a handful of very specific properties.
This meant that, at most, only a few dozen people selected two MPs– giving whoever controlled the land in Horsham a LOT of power. And the Jockey Duke wanted that power. That’s why he spent the better part of 20 years (and a ton of money) buying those specific ‘voting’ properties.
By 1790 he had assembled enough land votes to assert control of the borough. But unfortunately for him, an elderly widow by the name of Lady Francis Irwin was standing in his way.
Lady Irwin had inherited some of the other vote-eligible properties from her late husband, and she wasn’t about to let the Jockey Duke take over her town.
So, prior to the election of 1790, she subdivided a portion of her land into dozens of tiny holdings– some as small as a few square feet. Then she claimed those tiny plots were owned by people who, for the most part, had never even set foot in Horsham. Some of them may have been made up entirely.
Regardless, dozens of new votes were cast on behalf of those ‘property owners’, and the votes were just enough to win. The Jockey Duke lost the election. And the election after that. And the election after that. In fact, he didn’t win until Lady Irwin died in 1807.
This wasn’t the first time in history that an election was rigged with fake votes… or voters who never should have been eligible. It’s an ancient practice, dating back to classical Greece when non-citizens infiltrated the eklesia to cast illegal votes. Naturally, some of those illegal voters were brought in by politicians themselves.
Voter fraud is so common in history that there have even been longstanding concerns over ballot tampering and forgery during papal conclaves, even as recently as 1958.
So, it seems pretty obvious that politicians should want to bolster confidence in elections… and take reasonable steps to modernize and improve upon their processes. That should be especially true in the world’s most advanced representative democracy.
Here’s an interesting personal anecdote– I have Italian citizenship through ancestry, and the country is currently having a national referendum on its constitution.
I’m registered as an overseas citizen at my local consulate… and, they actually sent a guy (literally just yesterday) to my HOUSE to hand deliver the ballot, check my ID, make sure I filled it out, and take it back to the consulate.
So not only did they want to ensure that I voted, but they also made sure that I am a citizen. That last part seems pretty basic.
The SAVE Act in the United States is designed to do just that. I actually read the legislation– and it’s pretty straightforward, not one of these crazy bills that goes on for thousands of pages.
In short, the Act would require voters to provide “Documentary Proof of United States Citizenship” prior to voting or registering to vote. And there are plenty of ways to demonstrate this.
Yes, I know there may be millions of people who don’t have a passport, or they don’t have access to their birth certificates, or they don’t readily have their Social Security cards.
But it’s not that hard.
Sure, maybe some people will grumble about the cost of obtaining proof of citizenship. But there are plenty of easy ways around that, including one of the Left’s favorite siren songs: subsidies for the lowest income applicants.
But the critics of this bill (almost exclusively on the Left) don’t talk about ways to solve these minor problems. They don’t talk about how to reform the bureaucracy to make it easier and cheaper to obtain ID and proof of citizenship. Nor do they propose other ways to improve election integrity.
Instead, they just claim (without explanation or evidence) that the bill is racist. The implication, apparently, is that black people are incapable of obtaining ID… and that strikes me as an extremely racist assertion.
The only reason I can think of why someone would be so opposed to this bill is because they want non-citizens to [continue to] vote in US elections. Chuck Schumer claimed that “tens of millions” of voters would be de-registered as a result of the law– which is sort of the whole point.
Opposition is crazy. Plenty of other countries already check citizenship. But the American Left has no interest in restoring election integrity or voter confidence. So, they just denounce election reform as racist.
Perhaps with enough pressure from the President the SAVE Act might actually pass the Senate. But, while I hate throwing cold water on this, it’s clear there will still be plenty of room for fraud.
If the law passes, for example, I wouldn’t be surprised to see places like California create new state-issued ID cards certifying the bearer’s US citizenship. And these IDs would then either be ‘erroneously’ issued by a state agency, or flat-out falsified. Either way, illegals could still vote.
There’s also a part of the law requiring local officials to ask voters “Are you a US Citizen?” … well duh, if someone is willing to break the law to vote illegally, they probably have no problem lying about that question.
Bottom line, I don’t know what the right answer is. The SAVE Act will hopefully make a difference, but there’s still plenty of room for fraud. Criminals always find a way to cheat.
But at a minimum it would be nice to see the Senate do the right thing for once, and push through a piece of legislation that protects Americans’ interests.
