SIVACRACY.NET

In most places, voting twice would require a fair amount planning. Unless registering in two separate states, a person would have to successfully register twice under different names, and then produce identification for both of these identities to actually vote (other than "provisionally"). This is a fairly inefficient way to influence an election. Attempting to vote more than two times would increase your risk of getting caught (and charged with a felony), and also require additional registrations and fake identification. Encouraging other people to vote twice (and teaching them how) would greatly increase the risk of getting caught, and a lot of people would have to vote twice before there was much impact on vote totals.

Most voter fraud happens in other ways: machine totals (and the machines themselves) get manipulated, ballots multiply or disappear etc. Poll watchers are unlikely to observe or detect it. I'm frankly confused about what the partisan poll watchers are going to do other than slow down the physical process of voting (which in my view is the point). I have voted for over 20 years, in five different states, and am always asked for identification by the poll *workers.* Are the poll watchers going to challenge the forms of identification presented? I actually got challenged once, years ago in Philadelphia, when there was some issue about Penn students voting locally. I was taken to a nearby courtroom, sworn in, and required to explain to the judge that I was a qualified voter (he asked me when I had moved to Philadelphia, when I had registered to vote, whether I planned to vote anywhere else, where my permanent residence was, where my car was registered, whether I had a utility bill or envelope with cancelled stamp reflecting my residence on me, etc.), and about half an hour later I was allowed to cast my ballot. If I had not been a feisty first year law student at the time I might have given up; other people getting challenged just walked away.

Here in South Carolina registered voters who do not vote in two consecutive elections get "purged" - unregistered. I find it fascinating that my SC Drivers License is good for five years whether I drive or not, but my voter registration gets purged if I sit out two elections. There is a lot of "gaming" of elections, but I don't see what positive steps a poll watcher can really take, other than making sure poll workers are doing an honest job of monitoring registration lists and checking identifications.