Not all pictures are created equal

I'm not going to fisk this entire editorial, but I'll address the primary points.

First, we have this tired old argument:

A photo ID requirement for voting - which the Assembly has approved and the Senate is weighing - is premature. Lawmakers should learn first whether identification fraud is a real problem at the polls - an issue investigations now under way promise to clarify.

No, identification fraud hasn't been proven, nor can it ever be proven. If voters do not currently have to prove their identity, how is it possible to prove identification fraud? The only way to prove identification fraud it to match someone who voted under a false identity with an individual ballot. Since we do not require voters to provide proof of their identity, and the ballots are secret, it is not possible to prove identification fraud unless it was caught at the time of voting. Since that time is past, identification fraud will never be proven in the last election.

What we can look at is a preponderance of the evidence. We have thousands more votes than we have voters, which indicates that people may have voted more than once. We have well over a thousand same-day registration forms for which no voter can be verified, indication than many people may have provided false identification. There are many indications that massive voter fraud took place in Wisconsin, but it will never be proven to a certainty.

The editors have set an impossible, and unreasonable, standard for agreeing with the voter ID bill.

Next, they have this to say:

Under the bill in the Legislature, lack of a prescribed ID card would bar you from voting. In contrast, under the library rule, lack of a photo ID card doesn't bar you from checking out books or compact discs or movies. A library attendant simply snaps your picture, which will pop up with your information on a computer screen each time you use your library card.

The library rule may be convenient, but IT DOESN'T PROVE YOUR IDENTITY! The whole purpose of the voter ID bill is that people will have to prove who they are before casting a ballot. If I show up at the polls and say that I'm Brian Jablonski, how does snapping my picture prove that?

It doesn't.

Unless the snapping of a picture involves proving your identity in some other fashion, like a birth certificate, then it is a meaningless gesture that only drives up the cost of elections.

The editors at the MJS are struggling to support the Democrats in opposing the voter ID bill. If they wanted to look like asses... they succeeded.

(Cross-posted @ Boots & Sabers)