WASHINGTON -- Buckle your seat belts. The Voter ID circus is coming to North Carolina. Charges of voter fraud and vote suppression will fly fast and furious. Expect much shouting and name-calling, but expect no one to address the root issue - our outdated voter registration system.
There are two separate but interrelated problems. First, hundreds of thousands of citizens who live, work and pay taxes in North Carolina are not registered to vote due to various barriers and circumstances. This prompts ACORN-like groups to hold registration drives that can generate sloppy and downright phony voter registrations.
That's the second problem. Voter lists become crowded with "Mickey Mouse," household pets and hundreds of names supposedly living in the same vacant lot. Many see an open invitation to election fraud.
Experience shows that Mickey Mouse and other fictitious "voters" do not actually vote. The only fraud is against ACORN's donors. Save your tears for George Soros.
The problem with Voter ID and similar anti-fraud measures is that they can block access to the polls for legitimate voters while failing to address the real problem of bloated, unreliable voter lists. After all, elections are stolen through wholesale absentee fraud, not through multiple voting by individuals. And elections can be stolen by blocking access for legitimate citizens as well as by stuffing ballot boxes.
These problems will persist as long as we leave registration to the tender mercies of partisan officials and people with more money than sense. We can and should have both honest, reliable voter rolls and universal access for eligible citizens. Indeed, the framework for a new system is already in place.
Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act - the NVRA, or Motor Voter law - to eliminate these twin potential sources of corruption, bloated registration lists and barriers to access. It mandated an opportunity to register at each DMV, public assistance and disability services office. It also mandated removing the names of voters when they die, go to prison or move to another county.
Unfortunately (if not surprisingly), Congress left a loophole.
It assumed that every agency official would invite every eligible citizen to register to vote or update registration information, that necessary forms would be available, that the citizen would not think she was signing up for jury duty, that the agency wouldn't lose any application, that it would get to the registrar, that all name and address information would be re-entered accurately, that all agencies would tell each other when the voter died, went to prison or moved - in short, that no government office would ever make a mistake.
The underlying concept is good. Everyone visits one or more of these agencies when they move to another address or face other needs. The problem is too many moving parts, too many things to go wrong.
Some have called for a federal agency to take over voter registration. Do we really need yet another federal agency?
There is a better way to achieve universal and reliable voter registration, a way that involves no new machinery and actually saves time and money. Automatically register qualified citizen customers who use the DMV or a public assistance agency. Register all eligible customers automatically with a click on the computer, and update their address and other information automatically to create a new reliable list.
Automatic registration ensures that voter lists are trustworthy. Motor Voter agencies already make certain that applicants are who they claim to be, and they already screen those who are ineligible to vote for any reason. They don't give driver's licenses or public assistance checks to just anyone. They update address and eligibility information regularly.
Automatic registration can promptly replace the outdated, fraud-prone voter rolls with voter lists are both trustworthy and complete. And integrating registration in a single electronic process eliminates the waste and duplication of an amateur, paper-based system. It actually saves money.
North Carolina can simultaneously register all eligible citizens to vote under secure conditions and make registration problems a thing of the past. With everyone registered, ACORN's heirs would have nothing to do. It is a classic win-win opportunity.
The alternative is more troubled registration drives, more legitimate citizens denied their right to vote and more distraction, division and demagoguery. North Carolina can solve two persistent problems and save money in the process. It is an easy choice. And at bottom, it is a character test.
John Tanner is a former chief of the U.S. Justice Department's Voting Section.
