Dog days

Those who argue that reforms intended to make it easier to vote often lack the protections necessary to guard against election fraud are routinely accused of seeking to prevent the poor and minorities from participating in our democracy.

Witness the fact that it is actually considered controversial in some circles to embrace laws demanding voters be required to produce identification before requesting an absentee ballot or casting a vote at the polls.

Washington state is one location that has embraced liberal registration laws. So liberal, in fact, that it took more than a year and three elections before officials actually removed Duncan M. McDonald from the voter rolls. Duncan, you see, is an Australian shepherd-terrier mix. A dog.

Duncan's owner, 66-year-old Jane K. Balogh, holds the opinion that Washington's election laws make it too easy for non-citizens to cast ballots. To prove her point, she put her phone bill in her dog's name and used that as identification when she mailed in a voter registration form for her pet in April 2006.

When the dog received an absentee ballot for last November's election, Ms. Balogh "wrote 'VOID' across the document and returned it with an image of a paw print on the signature line," The Associated Press reported.

But the dog subsequently received absentee ballots for local school board elections in February and May.

"Quite frankly, the process did take too long, and it should have been addressed after the November election," said Bobbie Egan, a spokeswoman for Seattle's King County elections office.

Of course, Seattle officials now vow to redouble their efforts to root out voter fraud -- but don't expect that to involve implementing more stringent identification procedures for those registering to vote.

And, in the meantime ... you saw this coming, right? ... the Seattle bureaucrats are prosecuting Ms. Balogh for making a false or misleading statement to a public official on the registration application.

Really.