NO on Prop. 52

Posted Sun, Oct 20, 2002 at 8:04 pm

Proposition 52 would allow you to register to vote on the day of an election. All you'd need to do to vote would be to show up on election day with either a CA driver's license or two pieces of mail in your name, and you could vote. Not only that, your (possibly fraudulent) vote would be mixed in with all the other votes, so there would be no way to, ahem, unring the bell.

The TV ads in favor of 52 say that this would solve those horrible, extremely prevalent cases where "those who turn 18 or move a few weeks before an election could be deprived of the right to vote." As soon as I heard that, I knew something else was afoot. That something else could be a) voting by illegal immigrants and other non-citizens, and b) the CA version of that good ol' Chicago saying, "vote early and often."

Proponents also tell us that "states with laws like Prop 52 lead the nation in voter turnout." Those states are: ID, ME, MN, NH, WI, and WY. Those states are not exactly on the front lines of illegal immigration, and their high turnout is probably due more to historical habits than same-day registration.

Check out both sites, and decide for yourself. I suggest you vote NO, but if you decide to vote yes, be aware you're on the same side as Danny Glover and Antonio Villaraigosa.

Comments

Echo Kern (not verified)

Fri, 11/01/2002 - 09:30

I think you should vote yes on Prop. 52

lindsey (not verified)

Tue, 10/29/2002 - 20:55

I would say that you should vote no on prop 52 for a number of reasons. The cause of the initiative is to increase voter turnout by making it legal for unregistered members of the eligible electorate to register on voting day at the polls. I don not believe that this is a necessary luxury. Reasons stated as a need for this proposition are if a person has turned 18 in between the filing period for registration and the actual voting day. This, however, is not a problem in the first place, being that you don’t need to be 18 years old the day you register, only on the day you vote. Therefore, citizens who really care about voting and truly see it as a civil duty will take the time to register ahead of time. I realize that voter apathy is a huge problem, but I do not believe that this is the solution. Do you really want people who haven’t taken the time to even register to be able to vote. How hard could this person could have thought about his or her decisions if they weren’t even sure they were going to vote until election day. In contrast to what is predicted, I believe that this proposition will make voting more of a “hassle” than it is now. Longer, more time consuming lines will fill small voting polls making everyone irritable. There is already a huge shortage of people who are willing to help at the polls as it is, increasing the expectations and responsibilities of volunteers would make them fewer and farther between. Also, you would have to hire and pay trained officials to register voters, as a volunteer of the streets cannot be let to register people to vote in an election. This is an unnecessary cost for something that could have easily been avoided. As for people in the military on leave directly before an election, absentee voting is becoming more and more convenient fore people even if they aren’t out of the country during the election. This is an easy solution that is a already in place, making the new law and obsolete one.
What’s more, under proposition 52, photo id is not needed. Anyone could walk up with anyone else’s electric bill and get a 2nd vote. Doing this would go in the opposite direction that everyone wanted to take after the infamous “Florida Election Chad Crisis”. America screamed for tougher voter fraud laws and more accountability for voters. Under prop 52, the new laws against voter fraud would be useless because proving a crime would be virtually impossible due to the lack of substantial ID and the absence of time to evaluate legitimacy of registration. There is currently a cutoff date of 15 days before the election for registering. This is so there is some amount of time for investigation and hopefully realization of voter fraud. Without this period of time, people who aren’t even citizens would be able to get their hands on a ballot as long as they have a few things with their name on it, or anyone’s name for that matter. I guarantee that the number of dead people voting in elections would sky rocket if this proposition passed.