voter ID

As I write, we don't know the victor of most elections across the country, but there is one thing we know for sure about Election 2008: traditional ________ is dead.

Here are 10 items that could be filled in the blank:

1. Polling
2. Fundraising
3. Media
4. Announcing for Office
5. Advertising
6. Debates
7. Voter ID
8. Get-Out-the-Vote
9. Campaign Structures
10. Candidates

Enough said.

I really hate the paradigm of the “hyphenated American”. And I really hate talking about race and politics in such limiting terms. And in an election year where we are debating whether or not a certain presidential candidate will take us into a “post-racial” era (as Matt Bai talks about in the next NYT Magazine), any discussion about how one tries to appeal to different ethnic communities seems to be both very silly and very relevant at the same time.

But Megan Shank of Newsweek wrote one of the first pieces of this cycle on the mystery of the Asian-American voter, and more importantly the mystery of the Asian-American non-voter; as Shank describes, “both naturalized and U.S.-born Asian Americans have lower rates of voter registration than do non-Asians.” As an "American citizen of Korean descent" (that’s my way of getting rid of the hyphen), I felt compelled this one time to respond and really start a discussion about what makes Asian-Americans tick.

Now, what I am about to opine on comes from a combination of life experience being raised by Korean immigrants, my limited experience of dealing with Asian communities around the nation, and maybe some bald assertions about what Asian-Americans care about.

(Sidenote on the title of Shank’s article: it’s “Crouching Voter, Hidden Direction.” Some might find that offensive. I find it hilarious.)

Shank starts out by describing the potential demographics:

“Their numbers might be small compared to other ethnic groups—only 5 percent of the total population—but they’ve been growing nine to 10 times faster than the general population, according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census. That could swing the ballot in key states, according to ‘Awakening the Sleeping Giants?,’ a recent report by researchers at UCLA.”

But it seems as though Shank assumes that larger and growing numbers will automatically lead into some sort of political power. Nothing could be further from the truth. First, the netroots of the Left and the extremist environmentalist movement have shown that a small group only needs very good organizational skills to make an impact. Furthermore, it seems that different ethnic groups have different senses of where “community” lies in their list of priorities. It is obvious that African-American and Latino-American citizens place community about as high they do family. From my experience, this is not true for Asian-Americans. The reason one probably does not see large organized political movements from Asian-Americans is that they place family as the highest priority, far above any other item. Pride in being Chinese, Korean, or Thai ranks far less than the pride in being part of your family. Succeed, and you bring blessings to your family; fail, and you bring shame.

  People in the Kansas City area can move across the state line and re-register to vote, and unknowingly become registered voters in both Kansas and Missouri. Such folks vote in their “new” state and are likely not even aware they are still registered in their “old” state. Legally, a voter cannot vote twice in both states, but it’s unclear whether such a voter accidentally registered in both states could vote in either their “old” state or their “new” state. And who would know if they did?

A prominent member of the Kansas City Star’s staff moved across the state line from Kansas to Missouri and re-registered to vote in Missouri, but is still an “active” registered voter in Kansas — more than 10 years later. For some reason, the Kansas City, Missouri Board of Election Commissioners never notified Johnson County, Kansas the voter re-registered in Missouri.

Meanwhile, the Johnson County, Kansas Election Office mails out voter registration cards to Johnson County voters at least every two years. Likely because family members still lived at the old address, as many as five mailings of voter registration cards were likely never returned as “undeliverable” by the post office, so the Johnson County officials never learned the voter now lives and votes in Missouri.

Federal Law requires that an election office keep a voter on the rolls until they have missed two presidential elections. The Kansas City Star staff member missed the last two presidential elections in Kansas (and all other elections, too, for over 10 years). It’s unclear why Johnson County officials, and other election offices, in Kansas are not more pro-active in removing such names from the list of voters. A Meadowlark article from early this year showed that over 50,000 voters in Kansas have not cast ballots since 1999 and could be removed from the rolls without violating Federal Law.

Acording to voter history from the Missouri Secretary of State, the Star staff member did cast a ballot in the last two presidential elections in Missouri (and a number of of other elections). But there’s nothing stopping this Star staff member from returning and voting in Kansas, since this person is an “active” registered voter in Kansas according to the list of voters recently obtained from the Kansas Secretary of State.

Several weeks ago, Gov. Sebelius vetoed a bill that would require a photo ID to vote in Kansas. This bill may have disenfranchised the Star staff member from voting in Kansas, but that person can still vote in Missouri. Why is it unreasonable to expect a voter to have an ID to vote in Kansas? Why is a voter ID check-and-balance too unreasonable to vote, when one must have two IDs just to work in the U.S.?

In late April the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter ID Law. In Kansas, we should vote for legislators this year are willing to protect the integrity of our elections, especially with the large number of voters on the list of voters who likely should not be on the list. In the next legislative session, we need sufficient legislators to pass this bill again, and override any veto by Gov. Sebelius, if necessary.

[editor’s note: The Kansas City Star staff member has not returned two E-mails requesting information for this article. The person will not be identified by name, without permission, since the person has done nothing to warrant public scrutiny about voter registration. This Kansas-Missouri “connection” was discovered by accident while researching another project.]

From the Kansas Meadowlark, June 6, 2008.

Related:

• Kansas May Have About 190,000 Phantom Voters: Could Voter Fraud in Kansas Be Relatively Easy?, Kansas Meadowlark, Jan 13, 2008.
• Can Google Street Views Be Used to Find Registered Voters at Empty Lots in Wyandotte County?, Kansas Meadowlark, Feb 21, 2008.