The startling discovery that 32 dead people have donated nearly $600k to political candidates and parties since 2009 officially puts the number of confirmed reports of zombie donors well above the number of confirmed reports of zombie voters. This raises the obvious question that if concerns of hypothetical zombie voters warrant restrictive photo ID requirements for voters, then shouldn’t instances of actual zombie donors warrant restrictive photo ID requirements for donors?
Taking our cues from the restrictive voter ID laws enacted throughout the country, the CLC Blog has put together a few helpful tips for designing a restrictive photo ID requirement for donors. The first step in drafting the restrictive donor ID law is to make it restrictive. Really restrictive. Here are some best practices:
- Don’t accept student IDs, even when they are issued by state run schools and show a picture of the student wanting to vote donate.
- Don’t accept Veterans Identification Cards, even when they are issued by the federal government and show a picture of the veteran wanting to votedonate.
- Don’t accept passports, even though they are issued by the federal government and show a picture of the person wanting to vote donate. If you do accept passports, make sure you charge serious $ for them to discourage those wishing to vote donate.
- No utility bills, bank statements or government checks even when they are issued by the government and show the name and address of the person wanting to vote donate.
- But gun licenses are totally fine, especially in Texas!
The restrictive donor ID law will be particularly effective in stopping future zombie donors if you create some administrative hurdles—zombie donors hate administrative hurdles:
- Make sure that a third of your state’s counties don’t have offices that can distribute the required ID.
- If you’re going to make the required ID “free,” make the bureaucratic process confusing or at least cumbersome.
- And be sure to require costly secondary documents for the “free” ID, like birth certificates, marriage licenses and social security cards.
Now you may be worried about the impact such a law would have on the nation’s donors—after all, study after study shows that voter ID requirements tend to disproportionately affect minorities, the elderly, students and poor voters—but take a cue from voter ID proponents: Ignore the impact and immediately say, “If you need an ID to buy a beer or a pack of cigarettes, why not to buy an election?”
If you’re still unconvinced, then perhaps lawmakers could just close the loophole that allows deceased persons to donate funds to influence elections.
This parody was composed by Derek Clinger, who serves as a law student intern at the Campaign Legal Center. Derek is not deceased.