In a democracy, the permission to vote is a concept known as eligibility. Voter fraud occurs when someone who is NOT eligible votes anyway. Voter suppression is when someone, who IS eligible to vote, is prevented from doing such.
History of and Changes in Democracy
Democracy arose as a concept, in ancient Greece, allowing participation in government by citizens. Although it was a direct democracy — people voted on issues without anyone between their opinion and the accumulation of votes — not everyone was able to vote. Only men could vote but not necessarily all men. Sometimes there were pre-requisites. For example, only men who had completed military service might be allowed to vote (Robert A. Heinlein would approve). For some cities, the man had to have achieved a certain level of wealth (an oligarchic democracy). For each democratic city of Greece, there was a set of criteria and those criteria could differ from each other although all had being male as a basic requirement.
Modern democracy has shifted from ancient Greece in two major ways. The first is a matter of inclusion. The original definition of eligibility is written directly within the Constitution (or other specification of the rules of government). This can be expanded by the vote of those already eligible. For example, a sufficient number of men had to vote for adding women to the roster of eligible voters (US 19th Amendment). When only “white” men could vote, it was up to those men to vote to allow blacks to vote (US 15th Amendment). In the United States, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment of the Constitution was approved by already eligible voters to lower the voting age to eighteen.
The other change from ancient Greece is that most modern democratic systems are representative democracies. People do not vote directly on issues. They vote for people who they believe will cast votes in the way they, themselves, would choose to vote. The representatives (whether called a Senator or Congressperson or Member of Parliament or …) are there to represent the people who voted for them. This is the theory. It is not always put into effect. Democracy, including representative democracy, is not easy.
Voter Fraud
Voter fraud is when someone, who does not meet the criteria of eligibility, votes anyway. This is very rare — because of the layers of safeguards in the various voting systems for the states within the US. This is a matter of identification and registration. People are allowed to vote when their identification matches their registration records. In spite of false accusations, there are many ways to assure this. Voter fraud in the US is very rare.
That does not mean that voter eligibility should not be checked. It means that current checking of eligibility has been proven to be sufficient. Vigilance is appropriate, paranoia is not. The fact that someone has lost an election indicates they did not have enough support. Recounts may be appropriate. Throwing tantrums is not.
One area of vulnerability is associated with the mechanics of voting. There are movies that talk about potential vulnerabilities — and they often talk about them as proof that fraud has occurred. Potential vulnerability is not the same as fraud. Normally, such films neglect to mention other layers of protection in addition to the one in which they have found potential vulnerabilities.
Thus, multiple layers of checks for eligibility is a good, and necessary, type of requirement. And vulnerability within one layer does not equate to fraud.
Voter Suppression
The other end of the “teeter-totter” is voter suppression which, unfortunately, is not rare in the United States. Voter suppression is when someone, who IS eligible to vote, is prevented from voting. I cannot claim any knowledge of such occurrences outside of the United States though I am certain that they have occurred.
One method used early in the history of the US is access to polling places (where a vote is cast). Polling places would usually be placed within city centers — making it very difficult for people, who lived away from the city, to vote. Keep these methods in mind as they never really go away — they just adapt to current circumstances.
Another method of suppression is restrictions based on finances. One of these methods was called a poll tax which required a fee to be paid in order to use the polling place to cast a vote. Since poll taxes were not explicitly made NOT legal, it took much litigation to stop the practice. Other methods of suppression also exist to keep the poor from voting. Not being given the time to vote is one such method. Given a choice between keeping a job and voting, most will decide to keep the job.
Another method of suppression is to prevent registration. This IS illegal but, if the local law enforcement officials do not want to enforce the law, it can still be done. Many a person during the 1960s in the US encountered this forceful repression (or suppression) of the access to the vote. The Voting Rights Act had aspects which clarified enforcement against these measures. Alas, the current Supreme Court, in their highly dubious wisdom, decided that these enforcement measures were “no longer needed” so many of them have come into active use once again.
A current attempt at voter suppression is trying to create additional hurdles to prove identification. As mentioned earlier, there is no significant voter fraud in the US. Making it more difficult for people to identify themselves is just another variant of voter suppression. Require a driver’s license (or identity card issued by the state). Sounds reasonable doesn’t it? Perhaps. But not within the context of having to go more than 50 miles to get such an identification. Many poor do not have access to transport — or allowed the time off from work to make the journey — to do such. (This assumes they will even be allowed to get the identification.) Base documents, such as birth certificates, may be difficult for the poor, or rural, person to obtain. In Canada, any one of nine different types of identification is allowed. Current US legislation is focused on preventing the poor from being able to vote.
Access to polling places. Hurdles to registration. Roadblocks to identification. There are other, even sneakier, methods used to curtail voting by eligible people.
On the other side, after votes have been cast, methods can be used to suppress votes. In Florida, in the year 2000, it was decided that voting cards which had not had their votes completely marked (look up “hanging chads”) were invalid. It went to the Supreme Court. In order to speed up the results of the election, it was determined that they could be considered invalid. In my opinion, the elections-in-question SHOULD have been redone. Once again, this COULD have been potentially okay if the rule was used for ALL votes. Somehow, only certain counties of Florida had this particular problem and, thus, only votes that were cast a certain way tended to be thrown out.
Summary
Democracy is not easy. So said “the Founding Fathers”. That has been proven time after time. It requires educated, and informed, voters. Educated means being able to find, verify, and use, information. It does not necessarily mean going to school. It requires enough people to want to see democracy work correctly. It is a forever struggle.
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