Election Integrity: It Matters

In 2009, Catherine Engelbrecht of Houston volunteered to be a poll watcher. From that moment forward, her life changed.

During her time as an election volunteer, she saw people come in with duplicate registrations and people coming into the polling place to vote only to find out someone else had already voted for them through the mail. This, among other reasons, is why Engelbrecht founded True the Vote, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending voter fraud. True the Vote started with the intention of working locally, but quickly expanded to more than 35 states in just three short years.

“When you just talk to average American voters, they’re concerned which is why True the Vote has become such a national movement in a short period of time,” Engelbrecht said, stressing that currently only half of the necessary poll watchers needed are available, which is why True the Vote plans to mobilize one million volunteers for Election Day 2012.

Thursday, The Heritage Foundation held a summit about voter fraud and Voter ID featuring Engelbrecht, Kansas Secretary of State Chris Kobach, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, South Carolina Secretary of State Alan Wilson and former Alabama Congressman Artur Davis.

According to Rasmussen Reports, 64 percent of voters believe voter fraud is a problem while nearly 70 percent believe the requirement of photo ID to vote makes sense, yet the Obama Justice Department headed by Attorney General Eric Holder has been attacking state based Voter ID laws for months.

“There is a disconnect between what the voters want and what the politicians want,” Engelbrecht said. “A confident, engaged electorate leads to a united America.”

Kansas Secretary of State Chris Kobach recently lead the effort to get the SAFE program or Secure and Fair Elections Act passed by both Republicans and Democrats in his state. The act was passed in April 2011 and early results of the SAFE act are already positive. In the first six months after the law went into effect, the state held 53 local elections. During those elections, 68,000 votes were cast and of the 68,000 voters just 84 people showed up at the polls without photo ID although most of those people actually had ID but chose not to bring it to the polls for one reason or another. Out of 1.6 million registered voters, only 32 people in the entire state took advantage of the free photo ID offer from Kansas' government. PAGE TWO>>