You can't fly, buy alcohol,tobacco, or lottery tickets without a photo ID. You cannot do any sort of banking, or even just cash a check without an ID. The notion that getting a legitimate state issued ID (Drivers license or non driving ID) is in some way, shape or form a hardship to lower socioeconomic voters is complete and utter nonsense. What is truly remarkable is that I have voted in over 30 elections and never been asked to show ID.
I don't see why anyone would be against ensuring only those legally eligible to vote are the only ones voting. I don't care if you don't have an ID, do what you need to do to get one. Go to the Social Security office and get your SS card, go to the health department and get your birth certificate and then take that stuff and go get your picture ID. Sure it may take a little effort on the part of someone looking to get an ID, so what. How it can be considered harder for minorities, which seems to be a slant taken by many reports, is beyond me. The access is there, sure like John Oliver points out the one in Sauk City is only open 4 days a year, guess the one that is 14 miles away in Baraboo is just too far away. These reports and articles always pull those oddities out as if it is the norm but when an office only serves 2200 people, like Sauk City, it doesn't need to be open very often. That is probably why half of WI, AL and MS ID offices are open 4 days a week instead of 5 but that shouldn't matter. If I know I can't get beer on Sunday I am going to make sure I get to the store Saturday before they close, is it that hard for someone to find out the days the office is open and go on that day?
I must have a very honest face then. While I have not attempted to take a commercial flight without identification, I was only required to show ID to buy alcohol once in the past few decades, and that by a septuagenarian at Citifield due to some ridiculous corporate rule, not any law. I could buy tobacco any day of the week without it and have never even heard of having to produce identification to buy a lottery ticket. I have shown ID when opening a bank account but have never been required to produce it to conduct any transaction. But this is not about my honest face or yours that prompted such suspicion, it is about my mother who never drove or my WWII vet father who gave up his license in his late eighties which rendered both largely housebound. They were not in the "lower socioeconomic" class and had voted for more than sixty years but would have been disenfranchised by such a law. You don't get to decide for anyone other than yourself what constitutes a hardship and what you perceive as nonsense is...complete and utter nonsense.
^ I have a right to a gun too. So I must have missed when they had the day for me to get my free one without producing proof of citizenship This idea that because it is harder for some than others shouldn't dictate our protocol. Obviously there are people out there trying to stop people from voting and that's an issue. Requiring proof of citizenship just isn't IMO
So what would be the big hassle with them going to get an ID to ensure only those actually eligible to vote are the ones voting?
It would involve getting off their asses. Oh wait, this is about the old and infirm and people who live REALLY far away from where they'd need to go get an ID--that old red herring. _
The problem isn't so much that you should have an ID in order to vote. Its the uneven application of this depending on what is in the political party's best interest. Recognizing that folks who cannot afford to go out and get an ID aren't typically the type to vote for them for example, a political party leading that particular jurisdiction typically will be more likely to ensure their jurisdiction is more strict with the policy. A poor black neighborhood in a typically republican state like South Carolina for example. Its not just one party that has the monopoly on this stuff though, that's just an example, and that's why I am against anything that makes it more difficult for anyone to vote no matter how seemingly insignificant it might be. If there is a way for established political engines to take advantage of it - they will.
Bah. This has been going on since before forever. Before he was Chief Justice, William Rehnquist ran a voter suppression operation in Arizona where he would quiz latinos who barely spoke English on various provisions of the constitution in order to determine if they met the local literacy standards.
South Carolina makes available IDs for the purposes of voting at no cost. Sure if they don't have a birth certificate they will have to pay $12-$15 or so to get one and then use that to get the ID card but there are other forms of ID that can be used to get the voter ID.
So the Reps. are trying to take away the votes of the minorities while the Dems. are trying to make sure all illegal aliens can vote. Just want to make sure I have both sides covered. Rehnquist denied any involvement in Operation Eagle Eye but past voter suppression efforts, whether true or not, should not be a basis for making sure only legal voters are voting.
...past voter suppression efforts, whether true or not, should not be a basis for making sure only legal voters are voting.
They should err on the side of people not having their rights taken away. If fraud is suspected then go ahead and investigate and charge to the fullest extent of the law, but don't take away people's right to vote because they don't have an ID for whatever reason.
but we don't really have a problem with too many people voting that shouldn't be. We have the opposite problem in this country. Embarrassingly low voter turn out. IMO we should work on that first. voter ID laws hurt that even more
