Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Who Needs ACORN When You Have Salt Lake County
Today was a momentous day for me and my wife, Anna. This morning, along with 195 others from 62 different countries, my wife raised her right hand and took the oath of citizenship of the United States of America. Immediately after the oath, a microphone was passed around to various new citizens who were given the opportunity to publicly state what being a U.S. citizen meant to them. The heartfelt statements coming from people hailing from Palestine, Venezuela, Russia, Canada, U.K., India, etc was enough to cause me to come to the conclusion that no matter how divided we seem to be now, this country--the principles upon which it was founded--is far more robust than what I realized. At the end of the ceremony, the new citizens were reminded that there was still time for them to vote and were advised to take their new certificates of citizenship with them to the Salt Lake County Courthouse and register. My wife has been looking forward to being able to participate in this election for some time.
At the County Clerk’s office, Anna filled out the voter registration form and handed it to a young woman who took it, said “thanks”, and turned to walk away. “Excuse me,” Anna said. “Do you need to see any kind of ID?”
The young woman looked at my wife with true bewilderment.
“I have an accent, I’d think you would want to make sure I’m even eligible to vote.”
“Uh, okay,” the voter registration woman said.
Anna pulled out the certificate of citizenship and held it out to the woman who barely put in the effort to look at it before walking away.
This didn’t sit well with my wife. Her view is that the very foundation upon which this country is built is the election process. To treat the process so shoddily is shocking. So, while driving home, she decided to call the County Clerk’s office and ask them just how, exactly, do they determine the eligibility of those registering to vote. She’s only been a citizen for an hour and already she’s raising hell. Gotta love her.
She actually managed to get a hold of someone and expressed her concern at not being asked for some form of ID or proof of eligibility to vote and wanted to know what processes were employed to verify the eligibility of voters. Anna was told she had no need to worry about it, that measures would be taken. She pressed the County employee about the measures and was told that that was privileged information.
“Privileged? asked Anna. “I pay taxes that pay your salary. I have every right to expect you to tell me about the measures you take to verify the eligibility of voters.” At this point, she was forwarded to a higher-up who basically told her that they “trust” people. When asked why they don’t at least check ID’s, the higher-up told her that doing so makes some people angry.
Huh?
Anna’s take is that there should be some sort of verification of eligibility to vote especially if you are obviously not a natural born citizen.
I think that she’s right. It just leaves too many holes through which voter fraud can take place. I used to be against the notion of a requirement that all U.S. citizens have a passport, but now I’m thinking that the possession and display of a passport should be the requirement to both register and vote.
I’m just saying.
