Woman Registers a Dog to Vote
Details here. I was going to write an essay on the benefits of disclosing vulnerabilities, but Ed Felten already wrote it.
Comments
Alexander Forst-Rakoczy • July 18, 2007 3:19 PM
Could anybody please explain to me how a telephone bill can be used as an identification paper in order to register as a voter?
jkohen • July 18, 2007 3:19 PM
Interesting point but I don’t think it’s a fair comparison. Dogs in the USA are not subject to the same immigration laws as humans.
Yeah, I could make a few jokes about dogs and fair comparisons, too.
Fred P • July 18, 2007 3:21 PM
@Alexander Forst-Rakoczy
It’s evidence of residing at the given address. In many states, a bill (even a fake one) is pretty much all you need to register and vote.
Timbo • July 18, 2007 3:33 PM
“[She] registered her pet to protest a change in the law that she said made it too easy for non-citizens to cast ballots…. [She] was charged in King County Superior Court with making a false or misleading statement to a public servant, a misdemeanor. She pleaded not guilty.”
Is ‘not guilty’ the right plea to make on the trail to getting a law overturned?
monopole • July 18, 2007 3:36 PM
If this occurs widely Mitt Romney is doomed:
http://dogsagainstromney.blogspot.com/
Timbo • July 18, 2007 3:36 PM
Of course, I didn’t notice this at first, but the two articles conflict: the Times-Union says she plead not guilty, Felton says she plead guilty. The Times-Union has a more recent datestamp.
GiggleStick • July 18, 2007 4:04 PM
@Timbo
I think so. If you plead guilty, then there is no trial and you just get sentenced. Also, I don’t know if you can appeal it, so that’s just the end of it.
Sez Me • July 18, 2007 4:10 PM
There are illegal voters, duplicate voters, and dead voters. Now dog voters. I bet I can guess which direction upwards of 90% of these fraudulent votes go.
rapier57 • July 18, 2007 5:02 PM
Yes, we have all those types of voters in King County–and other counties in Washington. My question is, how can those who are so incompetent in their public roles, repeating the same stupid things, and keep their jobs? This has been going on for years. BTW, the director quoted in the article is a political appointment, not elected.
derf • July 18, 2007 5:28 PM
@Sez Me
You are completely out of line and totally politically incorrect! How dare you insult the one voting block that delivers 99% of its votes in each election to the democrats, especially in Chicago! They prefer to be called “living impaired”.
partdavid • July 18, 2007 6:31 PM
These kinds of stunts pop up pretty regularly. They are never a case of a dog (or kid, or pumpkin, or whatever) registering to vote (or get a credit card, or whatever). They are a case of someone registering to vote using an alias (which happens to be their dog’s name); possibly fraudulently.
ARM • July 18, 2007 7:30 PM
Here’s a local newspaper link:
Satan luvvs Repugs • July 18, 2007 11:29 PM
The similarity to Ann Coulter falsely registering (and voting!) is purely coincidental, I’m sure.
Love the dog, prosecute the handler, I suppose.
lowkey • July 19, 2007 11:24 AM
Last election, when I went to vote, the officials were accepting utility or phone bills as identification, but would NOT accept my VOTER IDENTIFICATION CARD as ID. Even though it listed my name, address and everything on the bill.
I never got a good answer as to why they wouldn’t accept it other than it wasn’t on the list of approved “ID”.
C Gomez • July 20, 2007 8:11 AM
@lowkey:
Depends on where you go to vote.
In California, there are no voter id cards, and they are not allowed to accept driver’s licenses as proof of residency. They can accept things like a utility bill.
The reason? Poll workers don’t know, but the answer is that an illegal voter can get a utility bill. They can not legally get a driver’s license (whether they do is another discussion). If we made people show driver’s licenses, that would eliminate many illegal voters, and we can’t have that!
I don’t really care about registering a dog or a rock. I don’t even care if it’s illegal. I just think if you try to vote as that dog or rock, that’s when you should be arrested.
DBH • July 20, 2007 4:43 PM
Voter fraud is a fraud. Lots of wingnuts like to trump this up as an ‘issue’, but in reality it is just a way to suppress low income vote (lots of low income voters don’t have a car, much less a drivers license)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/28/AR2007032801969.html
and for more about the real issue:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/staff/greg_gordon/story/17532.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200704u/rove-voter-fraud
averros • July 21, 2007 4:06 AM
The whole concept of voting to elect someone who represents “the will of the people” is a fraud. How exactly those who voted for a losing candidate (or wishing to appoint a representative who is not on the ballot at all) are represented? A significant portion of electorate in representative democracy is not represented at all, at any time.
Now, could anyone explain me why we’re getting so upset about dogs with votes? This small fraud really adds nothing significant to the big fraud the “honest” elections are.
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jkohen • July 18, 2007 3:19 PM
Interesting point but I don’t think it’s a fair comparison. Dogs in the USA are not subjected to the same immigration laws as humans.
Yeah, I could make a few jokes about dogs and fair comparisons, too.