Q: But have you thought about using the bully pulpit of the White House to
talk about election reform and an election integrity agenda that would put the
Democrats back on the defensive?

ROVE: Yes, it's an interesting idea. We've got a few more things to do
before the political silly season gets going, really hot and heavy. But yes,
this is a real problem. What is it -- five wards in the city of Milwaukee have
more voters than adults?

With all due respect to the City of Brotherly Love, Norcross Roanblank's
(ph) home turf, I do not believe that 100 percent of the living adults in this
city of Philadelphia are registered, which is what election statistics would
lead you to believe.

I mean, there are parts of Texas where we haven't been able to pull that
thing off.

(LAUGHTER)

And we've been after it for a great many years.

So I mean, this is a growing problem.

The spectacle in Washington state; the attempts, in the aftermath of the
2000 election to disqualify military voters in Florida, or to, in one instance,
disqualify every absentee voter in Seminole county -- I mean, these are pretty
extraordinary measures that should give us all pause.

The efforts in St. Louis to keep the polls opened -- open in selected
precincts -- I mean, I would love to have that happen as long, as I could pick
the precincts.

This is a real problem. And it is not going away.

I mean, Bernalillo County, New Mexico will have a problem after the next
election, just like it has had after the last two elections.

I mean, I remember election night, 2000, when they said, oops, we just made
a little mistake; we failed to count 55,000 ballots in Bernalillo; we'll be back
to you tomorrow.

That is a problem. And I don't care whether you're a Republican or a
Democrat, a vegetarian or a beef-eater, this is an issue that ought to concern
you because, at the heart of it, our democracy depends upon the integrity of the
ballot place. And if you cannot...

I have to admit, too -- look, I'm not a lawyer. So all I've got to rely on
is common sense. But what is the matter? I go to the grocery store and I want to
cash a check to pay for my groceries, I've got to show a little bit of
ID.

Why should it not be reasonable and responsible to say that when people
show up at the voting place, they ought to be able to prove who they are by
showing some form of ID?

We can make arrangements for those who don't have driver's licenses. We can
have provisional ballots, so that if there is a question that arises, we have a
way to check that ballot. But it is fundamentally fair and appropriate to say,
if you're going to show up and claim to be somebody, you better be able to prove
it, when it comes to the most sacred thing we have been a democracy, which is
our right of expression at the ballot.

And if not, let's just not kid ourselves, that elections will not be about
the true expression of the people in electing their government, it will be a
question of who can stuff it the best and most. And that is not
healthy.

QUESTION: I've been reading some articles about different states, notably
in the west, going to mail-in ballots and maybe even toying with the idea of
online ballots. Are you concerned about this, in the sense of a mass potential,
obviously, for voter fraud that this might have in the West?

ROVE: Yes. And I'm really worried about online voting, because we do not
know all the ways that one can jimmy the system. All we know is that there are
many ways to jimmy the system.

I'm also concerned about the increasing problems with mail-in ballots. Having last night cast my mail-in ballot for the April 11 run-off in Texas, in which there was one race left in Kerr County to settle -- but I am worried about it because the mail-in ballots, particularly in the Northwest, strike me as problematic.

I remember in 2000, that we had reports of people -- you know, the practice
in Oregon is everybody gets their ballot mailed to them and then you fill it
out.

And one of the practices is that people will go to political rallies and
turn in their ballots. And we received reports in the 2000 election -- which,
remember we lost Oregon by 5000 votes -- we got reports of people showing up at
Republican rallies and passing around the holder to get your ballot, and then
people not being able to recognize who those people were and not certain that
all those ballots got turned in.

On Election Day, I remember, in the city of Portland, Multnomah County --
I'm going to mispronounce the name -- but there were four of voting places in
the city, for those of you who don't get the ballots, well, we had to put out
100 lawyers that day in Portland, because we had people showing up with library
cards, voting at multiple places.

I mean, why was it that those young people showed up at all four places,
showing their library card from one library in the Portland area? I mean,
there's a problem with this.

And I know we need to make arrangements for those people who don't live in
the community in which they are registered to vote or for people who are going
to be away for Election Day or who are ill or for whom it's a real difficulty to
get to the polls. But we need to have procedures in place that allow us to
monitor it.

And in the city of Portland, we could not monitor. If somebody showed up at
one of those four voting locations, we couldn't monitor whether they had already
cast their mail-in ballot or not.

And we lost the state by 5,000 votes.

I mean, come on. What kind of confidence can you have in that system? So
yes, we've got to do more about it.