Submitted by Dennis Lesko, May 6, 2008 11:48

While I agree with tightening voting requirements I find it odd that so much hoopla is going on about voter fraud. I worked as an election official many times during the 1970's and 1980's while attending school. In Connecticut each polling place has a moderator, usually from the party that hs control of either the office of President (in a Federal election) or the party of the Governor in a state or local election. Each party appoints one "Challenger" whose job is to challenge the integrity of the voter who shows up at the polling place. It is their job to ask the voter, in front of a police officer, to provide identification that supports who they claim to be on the voting roll. My experience as moderator and challenger was to press my authority and request that information from as many as possible early on in the voting day. I've even had some walked out in cuffs for claiming to be someone other than who they claimed to be. By doing so early in the day the polling place was not disrupted by holding up the voters since turnout is light during the morning hours but the word got out to the street early in the day that ID's were being checked. I would challenge voters throughout the day and found that later in the day, the people voting were who they said they were. Problem solved. The polling place officials should exercise their authority often . And an arrest or two goes a long way in stemming the fraud.

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