AEI-Brookings discussion video and transcripts are now available

[Wilms]

A Brookings-AEI Election Reform Project Briefing
Brookings and the American Enterprise Institute Launch Joint Election Reform Project

Wednesday, February 08, 2006


# Senator Obama's address, video.
http://media.brookings.edu/MediaArchive/20060208_ElectionReform_Keynote.mwv

# Senator Obama's address, transcript.
http://www.brookings.edu/comm/events/20060208obama.pdf

# Panels, transcript.
http://www.brookings.edu/comm/events/20060208panels.pdf


http://www.brookings.edu/comm/events/20060208.htm

[Wilms]

1. Obama nails "Voter Fraud"

snip

"But I have to say that, if you look at the evidence over the last several elections, you are hard-pressed to find any evidence that in fact voter fraud is a significant problem."

snip

"Of course, the problem with waving the banner of ballot security is that it leads to laws that keep people away from the polls even further, by restricting their access—laws like Georgia's photo ID requirement, which would require 150,000 Georgians without a photo ID, the majority of whom are poor, elderly, or disabled, to purchase background documents, find birth certificates, and drive miles and miles to the nearest federal building so that they can pick up their ID. All this after Georgia's secretary of state said she couldn't remember one single documented case of voter fraud in her 10 years of running the state's elections."

"Whether voter initiatives like this one are intentionally designed to keep people away from the polls or not, the effect is the same. Not only are they undemocratic, they're unnecessary."

snip