Sixteen years ago I was in Iowa for the caucuses...

As a citizen and, um, a respectable journalist, I was appalled when I learned that you didn't need a valid voter registration card or proof of residency—any identification at all—to take part in Iowa's caucuses. All you had to do was show up at a caucus site and fill out a voter registration card. While Iowa's caucuses don't determine the Democratic or Republican nominee, they play a big role in shaping the presidential race. With huge numbers of volunteers and true believers flooding into the state, the potential for mischief seemed huge.

So I went to a caucus site, gave the address of my hotel in Des Moines as my ''residence'' when I registered (no one asked how long I intended to reside there), and took part in the caucus. As it turned out, I didn't even need to register—when it came time to indicate whom we supported for president, slips of scrap paper were passed out to everyone in the room. There was nothing to stop someone who hadn't signed in, or even registered to vote, from grabbing a piece of paper and jotting down a name. I told this story in my articles. I thought I was being a good citizen, pointing out the flaws in the system. Instead, I was charged with a felony. (I eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and paid a small fine.)

I bring this up now because the ease with which Iowa's caucuses can be abused seems especially problematic this year. Every campaign since the dawn of our democracy has attracted people willing to bend the rules or game the system to get their candidate elected. According to The Des Moines Register, only 61,000 Democrats and 86,000 Republicans participated in the Iowa caucuses in 2000. Throw in a bunch of young, energized, devoted volunteers—like the hordes of Howard Dean supporters I've seen leaving Seattle for Iowa in their hybrid cars over the last couple of weeks—and, well, you get the picture. In a nine-way contest, even a few hundred out-of-state volunteers willing to show up at caucus sites and impersonate Iowans could distort the outcome on behalf of their candidate.

I'm confident I wasn't the first non-Iowan to take part in the caucuses and that I wasn't the last. A word of advice for an rabid Trump/Cruz/Rubio/Jeb supporters from out of state who are tempted to take part tonight's Iowa caucuses: Don't be so foolish as to write about it, kids, and you won't get indicted. Otherwise... knock yourselves out.