In 2005, a British high court judge stunned the nation by pointing to “electoral fraud that would disgrace a banana republic” in the city of Birmingham. It turned out that a group of men, mainly of Kashmiri origin, had been running an industrial-scale scam to return bogus postal votes.
That phrase “banana republic” stuck in my mind. I have been an election observer in Nicaragua and Ecuador, two republics that depend on bananas. What happened in Birmingham — and has since happened in Bradford, East London, and elsewhere — would be impossible in either of those banana republics, since both require voters to present a form of photographic ID known as a cédula.
Election monitors are given a list of things to check to determine whether an election is fair. Are opposition candidates disqualified on technicalities? Is there fair access to the media? Is the electoral commission nonpartisan? But before you get to these issues, the very first test is whether there are checks against impersonation and multiple voting.
In Great Britain, and in 17 U.S. states, there are no such protections. I say “Great Britain” rather than “the United Kingdom” because there are ID requirements in Northern Ireland. That divided province, just as Kashmir, has a tradition of tribal voting, and the parties had become adept at inflating their turnout. When checks were established in 2003, the fraud abruptly ended.
Attempts to extend verification procedures to the rest of the U.K. have prompted the same hysterical reaction from Labour politicians that they do from Democrats in the United States. Asking people to prove who they are, we are told, will somehow disenfranchise poor people and transgender people and black people.
A growing number of politicians and commentators rattle off that litany in response to pretty much anything. Ask them the time of day, and their first instinct is to shout, “Racist!”
“The people the Tories are trying to stop voting will be disproportionately poor and from ethnic minority backgrounds,” was Jeremy Corbyn’s reflex response. But how, in the name of all that is holy, does asking people for their ID discriminate against anyone except an actual fraudster?
We need ID to buy a beer, collect a parcel, open a bank account, or drive a car. We manage those things well enough. But ID for voting is racist? Seriously?
Those Democratic and Labour politicians who make this claim are on thin ice. Even they realize that it would be outrageous to argue that, in effect, minority voters are too dumb to follow the rules. There is no evidence that ID checks have resulted in asymmetric turnout in the 33 states that require them — nor, indeed, in the two pilot schemes run in the U.K.
The charge of racism only works if you are prepared to argue that white voters are less likely to engage in malpractice. As it happens, some of the more vivid cases of fraud have involved minority voters. There was an especially egregious case involving absentee ballot fraud in St. Louis in 2016, which led to a Democratic primary being rerun with a different outcome. In the U.K., the worst cases of postal voter fraud have largely involved people of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin. But it would be scandalous to claim that bad behavior by a few dozen individuals is somehow representative of millions of law-abiding voters with similar origins.
What about the softer objection that with high rates of abstention, especially in the U.S., governments should be doing what they can to make the act of casting a ballot easier? This sounds plausible enough, but there is no evidence that it works. Tony Blair’s government tried all sorts of gimmicks, including e-voting, placing polling stations in supermarkets, and making postal votes easier, but turnout continued to fall.
I wonder whether precisely the opposite approach might work. As the act of voting has become easier, it has also been cheaper. Perhaps adding a tiny hint of ritual, and presenting ID is hardly a Japanese tea ceremony, might add to the sense of occasion.
Literal banana republics usually require voters dip their thumbs in indelible ink so as to prevent repeat votes. Following the Nicaraguan poll, which I had observed as an international monitor, I found myself on a return flight full of expats who were grumpy about the Sandinista comeback. Three young men carried the stigma of uninked thumbs and consequently became the target of waspish comments all the way from Managua to Miami. Making voting visible turns out to encourage civic responsibility.
One way or another, we need to add a sense of dignity to the electoral process. If we want citizens to value their votes, the first thing to do is ensure that they can’t be stolen.
