There are so many things to love about this photograph!
From a hyperbolic op-ed piece on NYTimes.com:
We should be in a rage over the widespread attempts to disenfranchise voters, from the gutting of the Voting Rights Act to the rise of the Voter ID movement — a near-naked attempt by conservatives to diminish the number of Democratic voters.
And as over-the-top as this rhetoric is, come to find out the left side of the political spectrum is just getting warmed up. Here’s more inflammatory rhetoric from our Vice President, speaking in February:
… Vice President Joe Biden blamed “hatred” as the motivating force behind voter identification laws in states such as North Carolina, Alabama, and Texas. Biden wants new laws to block “former slave holding states in the south” from discrimination against blacks and other minorities.
Biden, speaking at a reception at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., in celebration of African-American History Month, said that, “These guys never go away. Hatred never, never goes away. The zealotry of those who wish to limit the franchise cannot be smothered by reason.”
So, according to Vice President Biden, I’m a hater. Because I wish to limit the franchise of voting, I must hate people. It’s true that I grew up in a former slave-holding state, so I must hate people. After all, slavery was only abolished 89 years before I was born, so I must still be a hater.
Me, a hater? Puh-leeze.
But, seriously, can someone please explain to me exactly why the voter ID movement is bad? If requiring you to show a picture ID is going to diminish the number of Democratic voters … am I to understand that there are a significant number of people that have NO ID in today’s world? Or, to be very specific, that there are a significant number of potentially Democratic voters that have NO ID today?
Seriously?
You have to show an ID to cash a check. You have to show an ID to use a credit card. You have to show an ID to pick up a child from school. You need an ID to get a library card.
I do not understand why showing an ID when I want to vote for a sheriff, a city councilman or a President is a bad thing. Can someone explain that to me, please?
There is a lawsuit now moving forward in Kansas that’s illustrative. Arthur Spry and Charles Hamner, residents of a retirement home in Overbrook, KS, are suing that they were denied their right to vote, as they did not have a driver’s license, computer, or access to the birth records needed to secure a photo ID and vote in a recent election. Interesting … I’ll just note that they might not have the ability to access their birth records, but they apparently did have the resources to file a lawsuit. Just sayin’.
There are anecdotal stories on both side of the equation for people to point to. Perhaps some people in nursing homes have been marginalized, and didn’t have the resources/time/understanding to get IDs, so they couldn’t vote. On the other side, there are stories of people proudly declaring that they voted for Obama 5 times in the last election.
I think both kinds of incidents are relatively insignificant. The thing I do believe, however, is that each citizen should vote … once. Non-citizens? They don’t get a vote.
Today, voter ID laws have been enacted in 30 states. Photo IDs are required in 12 states currently. 13 more states have photo ID legislation pending. Importantly, federal law requires that any such ID must be free. Free. It’s in the constitution, even. Check the 24th amendment, which was passed in 1964. Poll taxes, or charging people for the right to vote, cannot be done in federal elections … or now, in any civic election. Since IDs are free, what are the Democrats so afraid of? Could it be that would-be Democratic voters are incapable of getting a free ID when it’s offered?
So, if the cost of an ID is not the issue … what is it, exactly? That the government shouldn’t need to know if their voters are citizens when they step up to the ballot box?
Personally, I don’t think this is a left/right, Republican/Democrat or an entitled/downtrodden thing. It’s, simply, a right/wrong thing.
But wait! There was actual research done on the topic by my beloved Mizzou … and guess what the study, described in BreitBart.com, found?
A 2008 University of Missouri study actually demonstrated that those who argue that Voter ID laws would suppress the vote are misguided. The study showed that Voter ID laws had little effect on voter turnout. Moreover, Jeffrey Milyo, professor of economics and public affairs at the University of Missouri and a scholar in the Center for Applied Economics at the University of Kansas, notes that overall voter turnout in Indiana actually increased after the implementation of photo ID.
I won’t go so far as to say that I think making a required photo ID will encourage more people to vote … but I am definitely of the opinion that having people prove their identity is a reasonable requirement before a person is allowed to vote. And, again, federal law requires that IDs be FREE to voters.
Can you prove that you’re you? Are you OK to prove that you’re you?
More
New York Times: We Should Be In A Rage
