In my recent article
on the excellent book Who's Counting?, by John Fund and
Hans von Spakovsky, I noted specifically their reference to the
measures taken in Mexico to verify the identity of voters at the
polls. Mexico is not unusual in this regard. Strict requirements
that voters identify themselves adequately are the rule, and not
the exception, throughout the developed world.
Consider Greece. Like Mexico, Greece has a generally unhappy reputation for corruption in government at all levels. But for all its problems with patronage, bribery, poor tax compliance, and even illegal immigration, Greece holds elections that are far less susceptible to vote fraud than our own.
On a recent evening in Athens, we spoke at length about this with Christina, a partner with a prestigious Athens corporate law firm. She is currently spending most of her time working on the privatization of publicly owned companies in Greece (another story, to be sure!). Our conversation covered a wide range of topics, one of which was measures taken to protect the integrity of elections.
Christina has served as an election official on many occasions, and is very familiar with voter registration and identification procedures in Greece. We learned that, in Greece, attorneys and judges are called on to serve as election officials, somewhat akin to ordinary citizens being summoned for jury duty in the United States.
For all of Greece's other challenges -- and to be sure, Christina and other Greeks are well aware of their difficulties -- fraud at the ballot box is not a problem. There are reasons for this that make a lot of common sense.
Read more: http://spectator.org/archives/2012/09/17/making-an-exception-for-electo
Consider Greece. Like Mexico, Greece has a generally unhappy reputation for corruption in government at all levels. But for all its problems with patronage, bribery, poor tax compliance, and even illegal immigration, Greece holds elections that are far less susceptible to vote fraud than our own.
On a recent evening in Athens, we spoke at length about this with Christina, a partner with a prestigious Athens corporate law firm. She is currently spending most of her time working on the privatization of publicly owned companies in Greece (another story, to be sure!). Our conversation covered a wide range of topics, one of which was measures taken to protect the integrity of elections.
Christina has served as an election official on many occasions, and is very familiar with voter registration and identification procedures in Greece. We learned that, in Greece, attorneys and judges are called on to serve as election officials, somewhat akin to ordinary citizens being summoned for jury duty in the United States.
For all of Greece's other challenges -- and to be sure, Christina and other Greeks are well aware of their difficulties -- fraud at the ballot box is not a problem. There are reasons for this that make a lot of common sense.
Read more: http://spectator.org/archives/2012/09/17/making-an-exception-for-electo
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