Washington, DC - Campaigning for the 2016 Presidential Election got underway this week when Senator Ted Cruz threw his hat in the ring, becoming the first official candidate in the race.
Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker and other Republican hopefuls are likely to make their intentions official soon. And Democrat Hillary Clinton, who is so far unchallenged in her party, is said to be planning an announcement in April.
"But, it was perhaps the Supreme Court that stole the election headlines when it decided to let Wisconsin's photo ID law stand," according to Dan Weber, president of the Association of Mature American Citizens.
"It signaled rational support for tighter voting procedures that aim to reduce ballot box fraud. There are plenty of 'deniers' who have a variety of reasons for wanting anyone who shows up to be able to vote-chief among their motives, to get their candidates into office," he said.
It's not the first time that Court has backed anti-fraud election measures. In 2008 the Supreme Court upheld Indiana's voter ID law. John Paul Stevens was on the bench at that time and he noted that "flagrant examples" of voter scams "have been documented throughout our nation's history by respected historians and journalists." He concluded that: "not only is the risk of voter fraud real, but it could affect the outcome of a close election."
Weber said that the prevention of voter fraud should be a non-partisan objective, but "liberals tend to dismiss the existence of the crime, despite the statistical and anecdotal evidence that it distorts election outcomes-usually in favor of liberal candidates. It is said that Chicago's Richard Daley was a master of phantom voting in his day and that he used so-called 'zombies' to stand in for deceased citizens at polling places in order to get his candidates into office."
That's why, Weber added, it is expected that new challenges will emerge to voter ID laws "that do nothing more than require the same kind of documentation needed to buy liquor or get into a government building."
