Videos of homeless people on LA’s Skid Row who appear to say that they were paid to vote are the latest reason for the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division to intervene immediately to protect the right to vote in LA.
The right to vote is a cherished civil right. It belongs to everyone — homeless people, too.
But if homeless people are exploited by party operatives who — in theory — register them to vote just to “get ahold of “harvest” their mail-in ballots; or if the homeless are exploited by organizers who pay them to register, and possibly to vote, then everyone’s vote is being diluted by unfair, and possibly illegal, tricks.
Earlier this week, The California Post reported that thousands of homeless people had registered to vote at addresses associated with shelters and other institutions — many more people than could actually live in those shelters at any given time. One center with 185 registered voters offers no overnight beds at all.
It is legal for homeless people to give such addresses when they register. But they have to pick up their ballots there — or re-register using a different address if they move on, which almost all of them do.
It is illegal to pay people to vote — and illegal to pay them to register. One paid signature collector was convicted earlier this year of paying homeless people to register to vote, using her own home address.
The videos, many of which were shared widely on social media, need to be investigated by federal authorities. And the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division needs to intervene — to protect the homeless from being abused, and to protect the rights of other voters.
The homeless should be helped off the street — not kept there as voting fodder for whoever can organize the best, or pay the most.
Joel Pollak is Opinion editor of The California Post.
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