Is a woman named Peggy Nighswonger, who serves as election director in Wyoming. She was in charge when the state legislature passed a law aimed at combating voter fraud by making voting more difficult. See page 82 of this report:
The bill authorizes the state to issue provisional ballots to voters who have their eligibility questioned at the polls. The ballots will be counted only if it can be confirmed that the voter is qualified to vote.
Another provision of the bill requires all first-time voters in Wyoming – one of six states allowing election-day registration – to present identification when they register to vote, whether by mail or at the polls. It also clarifies a number of other aspects of the state’s election code. For example, only ballots that are properly marked will count. Previously, a ballot could be tabulated if the intent of the voter could be determined. All of these changes will go into effect at the beginning of 2003....
Wyoming election director Peggy Nighswonger [said], “We have a very good working relationship with [the elections] committees in the legislature”....
“We were trying to comply with anything that may come down from the feds,” Nighswonger said. “We haven’t had problems with ID before because we are such a small state, but we figured it was something that probably needed to be put in there."
Of course anti-voter fraud measures dovetail nicely with voter intimidation. But some members of the EAC seemed completely intent upon obscuring that connection. Here's the New York Times again:
The original report on fraud cites “evidence of some continued outright intimidation and suppression” of voters by local officials, especially in some American Indian communities, while the final report says only that voter “intimidation is also a topic of some debate because there is little agreement concerning what constitutes actionable voter intimidation.”
The original report said most experts believe that “false registration forms have not resulted in polling place fraud,” but the final report cites “registration drives by nongovernmental groups as a source of fraud.”
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