Are voter ID laws effective tools at *suppressing* voter fraud? Recent bickering over who should require what to vote where have suggested that requiring a person bring some form of ID to the poll might help alleviate fraud. This makes important assumptions: 1. Requiring ID's from voters will make a difference in the rate of fraudulent votes. 2. The difference in the rate of fraudulence is significant enough to matter in elections. My guess is that both make a difference, but I am only guessing, I don't have any statistics to back this up.

Suggested reading: _The Truth About Voter Fraud_ by Justin Levitt (2007, PDF, 303 KB) at the Brennan Center for Justice, New York University School of Law. He cites numerous cases of alleged voter fraud that were too insignificant to make a difference in the elections or could not have been prevented by screening voters based on their photo ID (e.g. vote-buying, which rigs the election with the help of valid, eligible voters).