This fall I moved back to Dallas after being gone for eight months. (Long story.) When I needed a new voter registration card, here is what I had to do: Show up at the Dallas County Elections headquarters and ask for one.

That's it. I didn't have to show a photo ID or a utility bill. All the clerk needed was my name. After a 10-minute wait I had my new card, which is all I needed to vote for constable, commissioner and president.

Whether I had moved to a new place or moved on to another place, anyone could have showed up at the elections office and received my registration card.

Does that seem right to you?

And while you couldn't possibly swing a presidential election by assuming the identities of a few ineligible voters, what about a small-town city council race? Say in Balch Springs, a tiny burb in southeast Dallas County, where Charlene Rushing won a special election last month by a thunderous 19-15 margin? Talk about a mandate.

Three years ago in Memphis, a politico named Ophelia Ford won a razor-tight primary by 20 votes and a general election by 13 votes, only to to have both triumphs come into question when the names of voters who were either dead or living outside the district were recorded as having pulled the lever. The Tennessee state Senate voted to oust Ford, but she ran again and won.

As our report this week shows, there is no evidence of any systematic voter fraud in Dallas County. But we're not sure what safeguards are in place to prevent fraud from happening here. Because, if you can vote in my place, and I can vote in your place, that's kind of a problem.

The issue of voter ID impossibly divisive, with critics pointing out that many poor and older citizens don't have licenses and don't have the time to wait for a government-issued photo ID. Certainly, any election law that will lower turnout should be considered very, very carefully -- and as a last resort. But it's hard to see why, in Dallas County at least, it is more difficult for a 36-year-old to buy a six pack than pick up a new voter card.

Photo by flickr user yaquina, used via the Creative Commons license.