There really needs to be a means of voting and elections that strongly ensures little to no fraud. I don't know how that can be done - we have such complex structures across so many jurisdictions, I don't see how it can be done.
You can almost always tell a person's political leanings by the first response they give to this issue - when they say "there's no documented cases of voter fraud", which is a kind of weaselly way of avoiding say "it doesn't happen" (because everyone knows it does).
But they usually change their tune if it's their ox that gets gored - for example, in the 2004 election, when Kerry got thumped by Bush - an election they were sure they wouldn't lose, even though polling pretty much predicted the outcome exactly. The ONLY difference being is that in some of the charges, they claim tampering - which technically isn't voter fraud, because voters aren't to blame. They're still complaining about that one. So the fact is, everyone has something to gain - or lose - if we tighten the rules.
As I understand it, states have their own laws regarding how elections are run - so there's not any single method that can be established for everyone. And I don't know of ANY single mechanism that will ensure that all the various kinds of vote tampering aren't done. But it's a disgrace that in this republic we make any effort to pretend that we elect our leaders by the people, when a well-heeled political apparatus can change that. It spells the end of the republic.
However - it seems to me that the simplest, simplest, easiest thing to do is check an ID. I was listening to Alan Colmes defend the idea of having local data for each person so that the voter could bring in a bill and the registrar could verify the identity by checking the data - to which Bill countered with "Or they could bring in a picture ID and they can just LOOK at it".
I have to admit, I'm deeply disturbed by the idea that districts have more votes cast than registered voters, or nearly the entire district votes exactly the same way. THAT is amazing, and I don't care what people think. I can't find a random group of people - not even from my own family - that all agrees on politics.
