Voting is not only a citizen’s duty, but also the way in which they may express an opinion and point of view. Voting fraud has been evident is Texas and is a growing problem that needs to be stopped.
Catherine Engelbrecht, from Houston, Texas uncovered a voting fraud that was shocking to her. Fox News reported that Engelbrecht and her friends volunteered to work at Houston’s polling places during the 2008 election. During this time she reported, “no one was checking IDs, judges would vote for people that asked for help. It was fraud, and we watched like deer in the headlights.” After discovering this fraud they created a citizen-based grassroots organization that collected publicly available voting data to prove what they witnessed. Engelbrecht and her organization were able to present their findings to both the Texas secretary of state’s office and the Harris County district attorney. The findings showed that only 1,793 of the 25,000 registrations of the Service Employees International Union appeared to be valid. Other registrations included one of a woman who registered six times in the same day and 1,597 registrations that named the same person multiple times, with different signatures.
The new Texas Voter id bill has come under great scrutiny with potential to discourage the poor and minority voters of the state by requiring a photo, but it also has the potential to do good. Many people in the state feel as if their vote does not matter because of the fraud problem. This then leads them to be discouraged to vote in general. The voter id bill will allow the citizens of Texas to display their opinions on paper without the potential of fraud. By allowing various forms of identification such as a driver’s license, a U.S. military ID card and a U.S. passport, most citizens in the state will still have option to vote.
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| Picture from texasinsider.org |
Sources:
-Charli Henderson
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