Thanks to the Republican Pres. Doanld Trump Administration, Louisiana can have elections that inspire a little more confidence that the fundamental condition of representative democracy, fair elections, can be achieved.
Recently, the state gained access to the Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, kept by the federal government to vet applicants for eligibility (citizenship or permanent residence) for transfer payments. Taking that data and cross-matching it with voter registration rolls for the past few years, GOP Sec. of State Nancy Landry’s office determined that 390 noncitizens (permanent residents are ineligible) illegally appeared on voter rolls, of which 79 actually had voted in at least one election.
The state hadn’t pursued this layup to improve election integrity because until Trump’s reelection strangely the federal government charged $1.75 a name – meaning to plug in each registered name would have cost the state around $3.5 million a shot – for information federal agencies had to collect by law anyway and which would cost nothing to search. The outcome is disturbing, because (except for the provisional ballot process) Louisiana has pretty airtight procedures for registration and vote casting, so likely illegal documentation (or sloppiness at a registrar’s office) caused this problem.
Landry says those illegally registered will have their information turned over to the appropriate authorities for disposition, and hopefully their registrations will be cancelled by Landry and that the roll will be vetted this way on a regular basis. That will make for a more pristine roll and would send a message that future attempts to register and vote illegally – whether through negligence or as a plan by nefarious forces – will be snuffed out.
There are two good reasons why that must be policy. First, examples abound about how even a handful of votes could determine the outcome of an election – even just a single one in a jurisdiction of over a couple of hundred thousand. One illegal vote could change everything in personnel and subsequent policy.
Yet even if that rarely were to happen, the fact is the process of elections is the most fundamental component to a representative democracy, because all other products of the political system flow from election outcomes. Even one tainted vote, even if it makes no difference in the outcome, is an unpardonable stain on the American political system and no unreasonable expense should be spared in preventing this.
And, surface evidence of illegal voting only may scratch the surface of the problem. Especially with the proliferation of no-fault, causeless mail voting, it may be a much bigger problem than evident with purveyors of illegal voting clever enough to keep it hidden. The standard reply from the political left is that the occasional instance of uncovered illegal registration and/or voting constitutes the universe of problems, thus there’s nothing to see here and drive on. Of course, this is an entirely hypocritical attitude to take when compared to its view on other issues, such as electoral boundary apportionment, where leftist defenders of schemes such as requiring majority-minority districts in rough proportion to proportion of minority population across the entire mapped jurisdiction take the opposite stance – that even without any evidence of racist intent in drawing lines, if these are not drawn to the proportionality standard that constitutes a racist outcome because it reflects a hidden underlying racism.
By contrast, it is appropriate to assume the worst with voter fraud precisely because voting is the ur-fundamental aspect to the political system, and to act with absolute vigor to enact policy that stamps out even remote possibilities of fraud. Louisiana has been increasingly attentive to this imperative, with this latest action exemplary for that reason with more like it hopefully to come.
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