Politicizing the FEC

John Fund, who has written a book, Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy about voting fraud, writes about today's upcoming hearing on Bush's nomination of Hans von Spakovsky to head up the FEC. Democrats plan to demonize him for his support of Georgia's new law requiring voters to show a photo ID to vote.

Other critics claim that Mr. von Spakovsky ignored concerns that a Georgia law requiring photo ID at the polls would disenfranchise poor and minority voters who have a hard time obtaining documentation. They note that a federal judge twice blocked the law from going into effect.

But yelling "voter suppression" in a crowded congressional theater should be done with caution. In the Georgia case, the federal judge didn't find evidence that the law was racially discriminatory. He struck it down on other grounds. Also, the Georgia Supreme Court on Monday unanimously threw out a separate challenge to the state's photo ID law.

Indeed, courts have tended to uphold voter ID laws. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned a Ninth Circuit ruling that had blocked an Arizona ID law. In doing so, the Court noted that anyone without an ID is permitted to cast a provisional ballot that could be verified later. The court also noted that fraud "drives honest citizens out of the democratic process."

Voter ID laws are hardly the second coming of Jim Crow. In 2005, 18 out of 21 members of a federal commission headed by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker came out in support of voter ID laws. Andrew Young, Mr. Carter's U.N. ambassador, has said that in an era when people have to show ID to travel or cash a check "requiring ID can help poor people." A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll last year found that voters favor a photo ID requirement by 80%-7%. The idea had overwhelming support among all races.

Do the Democrats really want to block a guy because he found that a photo ID law was okay when he was at the Justice Department? The Democrats like to point out that career lawyers in the Justice Department Civil Rights division disagreed with Spakovsky's interpretation of the law. But who says that these career lawyers are unbiased?

Everyone has reason to be concerned about a politicized Justice Department. But to set up a cartoon version of reality in which principled career lawyers at Justice were battling Bush political appointees bent on voter suppression is absurd. The Civil Rights shop at Justice has been stuffed with liberal activists for decades. Many of the former career Justice lawyers complaining about Mr. von Spakovsky today now work at liberal groups such as People for the American Way. And their imaginative, hyperaggressive enforcement of the Voting Rights Act hasn't fared well in court. During the Clinton years, when their theories were allowed to be put to a legal test, courts assessed Justice over $4.1 million in penalties in a dozen cases where it was found to have engaged in sloppy, over-reaching legal arguments. In one case, the Supreme Court noted "the considerable influence of ACLU advocacy on the voting rights decisions of the Attorney General is an embarrassment."
Voter suppression and fraud both deserve to be vigorously addressed. But those concerned with the first who would paint those worried about the second as racially discriminatory are engaged in a form of willful blindness.