King County Elections Director Sherril Huff has removed Duncan M. MacDonald, from the voter rolls. No, he is not a felon or been declared “non compos mentis” (second item). He is a Canine American. Jane Balogh, 66, had registered her dog to vote in April 2006 to protest a state voter-registration law passed the previous year that she contends makes it too easy for noncitizens to vote because the ID requirements are extremely lax.
How lax are they?
They are so lax that Balogh put her phone bill in Duncan’s name, then used it as ID to register him as a new voter.
How lax are they?
They are so lax that Balogh returned mail ballots in two elections with paw prints on the signature line (she wrote “void” on the ballots to ensure they wouldn’t be counted).
How lax are they?
They are so lax that even “[a]fter telling an election worker last November that Duncan is a dog … he received a ballot for a Federal Way school bond vote in May,” reports The Seattle Times.
Balogh has pleaded not guilty to a gross misdemeanor charge of making a false statement to a public official by signing a declaration in Duncan’s name saying he was over 18 and a U.S. citizen. If convicted, she can be imprisoned for up to 90 days and fined $1,000.
Her attorney, Kristen Anderson, said Balogh was not going to contest the charge, but changed her mind when election officials took the position that “her case showed the system worked,” according to The Associated Press.
Balogh is not barking up the wrong tree with her concerns about illegal aliens voting in WA elections.
Posting onSound Politics, a blog that provides “Sound Commentary on Current Events in Seattle, Puget Sound and Washington State,” Stefan Sharkanskywrites:
The evidence I’ve found to date suggests that non-citizens register to vote in King County, and a few do vote. Bureaucrats at both the local and federal level are aware of the phenomenon, but prefer to deal with it quietly, after the fact, and only when the non-citizen comes forward. I’ve yet to see any indication that any non-citizen has been penalized for registering to vote or voting (both of which entail signing an oath attesting to citizenship and/or eligibility). I haven’t seen any indication that any official has ever attempted to quantify the scale of non-citizen voting. Nor have I seen any indication that any official has investigated to determine the processes through which these non-citizens become registered in the first place. …
[V]oter registration is already sloppy and immigration records are already sloppy. And the “immigrants rights” mafia will unleash a furore on any public official who wrinkles their brow in the wrong way that might hint that they might be contemplating measures that might in some cases be perceived to hurt the feelings of someone in the Undocumented-American community.
Every vote that is fraudulent nullifies a vote that is lawful. And in closely decided elections, suspicions of voter fraud fuel conspiracy theories, undermine the legitimacy of the declared winner and poison the political atmosphere in which elected officials have to do their jobs.
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