The exception rule

A few years ago, I was involved in a nonprofit project that faced a number of bureaucratic hurdles. The project eventually overcame those hurdles, due largely to the persistent advice of an Eskimo woman who had worked for one of the native corporations in Alaska.

Oddly enough, her advice to me was almost always the same. Even more oddly, it was almost always right. "Oh, don't worry about it," she used to say. "There's always a checkbox somewhere on those forms for an exception. Just check that and then explain what you're trying to do."

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I'm reminded of the "exception rule" as I thumb through the Oregon Voters' Pamphlet. Voting fraud is much in the news – from Seattle to New Orleans – where the black mayor wanted to bus enough blacks in from out of state to assure his re-election.

In Oregon, of course, busing would be unnecessary: Anyone can simply mail in their ballot. I decided to actually read Oregon's voter registration requirements, which were printed in the Voters' Pamphlet. They didn't look too bad – you have to be a U.S. citizen, resident of Oregon, and at least 18 years old. You must register before the election. And on the face of it, even the identification required to register didn't seem too shabby: valid Oregon driver's license or state ID card.

Then, like Lady Thatcher warned, they went wobbly on me. If you don't have an Oregon driver's license, you must "affirm this" and "make a circle in section 4a." Then you have to provide the last four digits of your Social Security number. Well, they're still trying.

But what if you want to register and don't have a driver's license or Social Security number? "You must affirm this by marking the circle in 4a."

OK, so you fall into the "none of the above" category. Are you excluded from voting? Good grief, no! There's another exception – in fact, there's six!

• Valid photo identification
• Paycheck stub
• Utility bill
• Bank statement
• Government document
• Military ID

But having outsourced voter identification to fruit processing plants, utilities, and banks, Oregon still wasn't finished being "inclusive." At the end of the list is this little gem:

If you do not provide valid identification, you will not be eligible to vote for federal races. You will, however, still be eligible to vote for state and local contests.

Are you a terrorist in residence at Yale? No problem – you can still vote in Portland, Ore. Does your firm hire illegals to keep that payroll from expanding? No problem – printing pay stubs is as good as a direct computer link to the voter registration rolls. Are you a bank? Cash in on those remittance checks going south each month. Your bank statement doubles as a voter registration document.

In other words, Oregon's voter registration requirements are a sham. Their only purpose seems to be the continued employment of a bureaucracy, which holds out a series of hoops for law-abiding citizens to jump through on Tuesdays and Thursdays, while the rest of the week they issue voting registrations via exception to people with no lawful right to be in the country.

While there is a lot of talk about the "war on terror," there is precious little talk about the war on citizens being carried out by our elected representatives. It is a well-organized battle plan devised by growing numbers of dishonest legislators who purposely misrepresent the intent and effect of their legislation, by adding fine print exceptions that trump the boldfaced rules. It's thievery, plain and simple.