Bismarck Tribune - North Dakota News

Keep elections clean

Sep 03, 2008 - 04:05:36 CDT

North Dakota has no voter registration. The apparent lack of voter fraud in the state suggests there's no need for additional rules and regulations, including registration. The same stands for the referral and initiative process. It's one of those things the state takes pride in.

That's why it was worrisome when Secretary of State Al Jaeger announced 610 signatures on petitions to reduce personal and corporate income tax had to be thrown out. A random mailing of post cards to petition signers revealed problems:fake names and addresses and, in one case, a person who was deceased.

Two people were charged with providing false information.

North Dakota should continue to be vigilant in maintaining fair elections for measures as well as candidates. Honest elections are not the norm in many nations. Not even in every city and state in the union can voters be assured of a fair count. What North Dakota has in terms of easy access to the ballot box, and thereby to representative democracy, is special, and should be jealously guarded.

Lets be clear. North Dakota hasn't been perfect in this regard. There have been problems in past elections, in particular, in the initiative and referendum process. The most vulnerable part of that process is in the gathering of signatures. And that's the reason for those post cards. It keeps the system honest.

Enough additional signatures were turned in so that the proposal to reduce income tax will be on the ballot. It will be Measure 2. If it passes muster on Nov.4, it will cut individual income tax rates by 50 percent and corporate income tax rates by 15 percent. This editorial isn't about the merits of the measure, rather, about keeping the process that put it on the ballot fair and honest.

The best protectors of North Dakota's election process are the state's informed voters.

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Comments

Westernite wrote on Sep 3, 2008 5:10 PM:

" If I were a pollworker (and I may just volunteer this time around to keep it fair) I would be worried about non U.S. Residents voting in the upcoming election in Dickinson. Now that the city mafioso has decided that no wasn't good enough the first time around for a huge college football stadium, college students will once again be given rides to the polls by those who support this project and probably telling foreign students it is OK to vote, as they did with the community center several years back. Now, to be fair, those votes would not have changed the outcome but it was a crime and as far as I know there were no charges filed for the fraudulent voting that occured. Just for the record, YOU MUST BE A UNITED STATES CITIZEN TO VOTE IN a U.S. ELECTION AND DON'T LET ANYONE TELL YOU DIFFERENT. "

BabyT wrote on Sep 3, 2008 8:00 AM:

" In THEORY it should make the candidates nervous, at least that would be true if we weren't one of the reddest states in the nation. Republican's aren't really nervous at all, in fact they are fairly confident. "

voter registration wrote on Sep 3, 2008 5:27 AM:

" I agree with the article, voter registration does not reduce voter fraud. Voter registration is merely a tactic used by political parties to influence voters. Think of it as a form of gerrymandering without local and state boundaries. A person's political party affiliation should never have to be made public. Let the candidate make his/her case to me then I'll decide. ND has truly a free voting system because we don't have to register our affiliation. That makes political parties nervous, because they don't know how I as an individual will typically vote. The rest of the nation should be like this. Keep ND strong, do not require voter registration. We will not be made into sheep. If someone wants/proposes this, tell them to go to Montana, where men are men and sheep are scared. ;) "

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