The Victims of Voter ID Laws

From YT: Last year, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker passed a law requiring citizens to show identification at the polls. While two state judges have blocked the law from going into effect, if the injunction is lifted the law would likely disenfranchise thousands of voters. The Center for American Progress visited the state during the contentious recall election to investigate.
messengersays...

That's some *dark minds that came up with an idea like this to deny the other party so many of their legitimate votes. I'm surprised the narrator never mentioned that this is a Republican idea, and most of the disenfranchised groups tend to vote Democratic.

RFlaggsays...

Easy only if you have the money and all the documents needed on hand. If you don't it is expensive and time consuming, especially if you don't have the documentation like a birth certificate and social security card on hand. It is a poll tax, a violation of the 24th Amendment. Also, the Republicans have admitted that it was just to hand the election to Romney, at least the guy in PA did. In Ohio here, they tried to stop extended early voting hours from happening at times the working poor would be able to make it, oddly enough only in Democratic counties, while Republican ones were allowed to extend hours (he eventually then said the restrictions would apply state wide after a national scandal. then when the federal courts said he would have to allow extended hours across the state he refused to comply for a few days).

Voter fraud at the polls pretty much never happens, so we are forcing the working poor to expend a lot of time and money ($30 or so may not seem much to some, but to a person working retail, fast food or something that is a lot of money) to stop something that mathematically has a lower chance of happening than one of them being hit by lightning.

What about people like the old lady here who can't get the birth certificate to get her photo id, do we just disenfranchise her?

Then there is the timing of all these just before a Presidential election. They didn't try this in an off year so that it would have time to make it to the US Supreme Court and have it heard out. They are doing now because if it gets overturned, the damage can already done and their guy might be in office.

Want to pass voter ID laws? Fine, then make photo ID (even if it is only good for elections) free to get, and the documentation needed to get it free to get. Nobody would object then as there would be no fees... so long as they didn't time it again just months before a Presidential election.

>> ^maestro156:

It is trivial to obtain a photo ID in the US. Any objection to the law on difficulty is just being silly.

maestro156says...

There may well have been evil intent in these voter ID laws, and in fact, they may be doing their best to reduce the voter rolls with unfair voting hours. I'm not defending those tactics.

$30 every few 5-10 years is trivial by any measure. However, in researching the topic, I discovered that in Wisconsin, you can already get a free ID for voting purposes: "If you are a U.S. citizen, will be at least 18 years of age by the next election, and would like a Wisconsin ID card to vote (although it's not currently required), please check the ID for FREE box when completing the MV3004 (Wisconsin Identification Card (ID) application) or when applying online" http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/drivers/drivers/apply/idcard.htm

In the case of someone who does not have a birth certificate, there are processes in place to resolve that. You do not lose your identity when you lose your identification papers, it's just a pain to fix it. In this case, the state lost the papers, and it is the responsibility of the state to re-certify the birth of the person in question. Most likely it can be done with a court appearance and a few sworn statements, if there's no other way of proving identity.

Even if the intent behind this bill is evil and unjust, the requirement of identification at the voting booth is neither unreasonable, nor unjustly burdensome. The _burden_ is the same for everyone, a half-day in the DMV.

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