Voter Suppression

What is the deal on voter suppression? I read an en entire issue of The Nation on the subject and I still have no idea. Is there something wrong with the requirement that people provide photo IDs in order to vote? I don’t see anything hugely unreasonable about that.

Now, registering to vote is, of course, a very bizarre practice. Why can’t everybody just get a citizenship card automatically, like they do in Canada, and use it to vote? I don’t think I heard of any other country where voting rights aren’t automatically granted to all citizens.

So why is there so much drama over an issue that could be solved easily, once and for all?

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47 responses to “Voter Suppression”

Leah Jane

October 6, 2012

The reason the voter ID issue is a serious one is because it disproportionately affects certain groups- groups who are, on average, more likely to vote Democrat than Republican. Students, for instance, (Student IDs are not considered a valid form of ID, as I found out once in Montana, so I had to go home to fetch my passport, lacking a driver’s license) the elderly, Native Americans, black Americans, Hispanics, poor people, and the disabled.
These groups are far less likely to have passports and driver’s licenses, and may have difficulty accessing ways of obtaining these IDs, which are the only ones considered “valid” for voting. Also, voter suppression can also involve tactics of intimidation right at the booth. In the last Montana election, at my place of polling (which was, not coincidentally, the place where most students were registered to go vote) there were some very large, intimidating men barking at people, asking questions about our identifications, scrutinizing our cards, and telling us which was and wasn’t proper photo ID. I’m not sure how many people gave up and went home because of their tactics, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a few did, after being told that their student cards weren’t valid and that they needed a driver’s license or a passport.

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bloggerclarissa

October 6, 2012

But why doesn’t everybody just get a citizenship card at birth and just be done with it? Like in Canada. Why is such an issue made out of it here in the Us when the problem could be avoided very easily?

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1. Leah Jane
  
  October 6, 2012
  
  Because any politician who tells you that they want these laws in place in order to prevent voter fraud is either very naive, or a liar. These laws are passed almost always by Republicans who deliberately want to keep those groups from being able to vote, so that they can stay in office, no matter how badly they disenfranchise them.
  
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2. Leah Jane
  
  October 6, 2012
  
  And Canadian politicians have their own clever ways of pulling off voter suppression: Remember last election, when people in swing ridings or ones which had large Liberal/NDP leanings got robocalls telling them that the polling place and time had been changed, so they’d have to spend all day on a wild goose chase trying to vote, and may not even arrive on time before the polls close for the day? That’s a form of it right there.
  
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3. Anonymous
  
  October 6, 2012
  
  Beginning a few years ago, everyone started getting a Social Security Card at birth, but that would not be considered a valid ID for voting because it lacks a photograph.
  
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October 6, 2012

Long story but part of the concept of freedom in US is not being required to have a national identity number, not required to register place of residence with police, etc. Europe has those forms of oppression and it is one of the reasons I prefer living here.
There is a lot of good in different authorities having limited jurisdictions, and people who complain about “lack of cooperation among law enforcement agencies” and so on are not always thinking about this.

You have to register to vote in a place so one person cannot just go about voting everywhere. This is the point of being registered to vote.

When you register to vote, you are on the rolls at a particular address and you have a voter identification card. You go and vote near your place of residence, and the polls are manned by volunteers also living in that precinct. You sign the register by your name and then you vote, and you have voted, and you vote once: where you are registered, signing that you have voted.

Much has been done over the centuries to prevent people from registering, and then from voting. For the powerful it is very desirable to prevent minorities, the poor, etc. from voting or from feeling they have rights generally.

It is not as easy for rural people, the poor, etc. to have photo ID and under current name etc. as it may be for the middle classes.

There is a whole lot more to say but I can say this: given the number and type of questions you generally have about US history and politics I think you should actually take US history at the college level. The questions you have are of a depth that cannot adequately be addressed via blogs, reading “conservative” and “liberal” blogs, etc. … it is sort of like thinking the blog Feministe is “U.S. feminism,” and so on.

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bloggerclarissa

October 6, 2012

“There is a whole lot more to say but I can say this: given the number and type of questions you generally have about US history and politics I think you should actually take US history at the college level.”

– It is really curious how unsolicited condescending advice always starts coming in on Saturdays. I have got to wonder why Saturday is such a special day for that. If you don’t want to participate in a discussion then don’t. Why it might seem to anybody like a good idea to offer advice to a person who has said on numerous occasions that she detests this form of condescension is beyond me. Why it is so difficult to trust that a person of my age, educational and professional credentials knows what she is doing and why she is doing it is equally beyond me.

I have got to ask, do male bloggers get as inundated with “you should” comments?

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Evelina Anville

October 6, 2012

“Long story but part of the concept of freedom in US is not being required to have a national identity number”
@ Z. I’m American but I’m not sure I understand what you mean here. Americans do have a national ID number: our social security number. There really is no reason why the SSN shouldn’t it be enough to vote.

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Evelina Anville

October 6, 2012

Leah Jane explained it well. To extend on what she says, in some ways the problem is that the “Driver’s License” is the “ID currency” in this country. So who are the people who generally don’t have drivers’ licenses? Those who are elderly, those who are minorities, those who live in cities etc etc. Now there are “State Issued ID’s” that serve the same purpose as driver’s licenses. (I have one for example.) But for people who work many hours a week, or who don’t need an official ID on a regular basis (like the elderly), they are a pain to acquire and throws one more “obstacle” in the way of voting. And the ID’s are unnecessary. Most states do NOT have Voter ID laws and no evidence of voter corruption has been found in those states.

And like Leah says, nearly _every_ group that gets affected by “Voter ID Laws” are groups that largely vote Democratic (in states with Republican governors.) So it’s really just a thinly disguised attempt by Conservative law makers to skew the vote.

I agree that the process of “registering to vote” is suspect in and of itself and I wish we could do away with it. But we seem to be stuck with the process for now and in order to avoid disenfranchising large segments of the American population, we should make voting as easy, rather than as difficult, as possible.

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bloggerclarissa

October 6, 2012

The thing is, we have people show photo I’d even to take final exams. And voting is a lot more crucial than some final exam. I don’t understand how people can come and vote without proving their identity in some way. Of course, once again, this could be easily solved with a citizenship card.

Photo IDs are acquired at the same place as driving licenses, so this is not a driving issue at all.

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1. Evelina Anville
  
  October 6, 2012
  
  Well those without drivers licenses are less inclined to get state issued ID’s; instead, they rely on work or student ID’s…which don’t count as “official ID’s” for voting purposes……But it really just boils down to the fact that 1) States who don’t require ID’s have no history of voter corruption…even after extensive investigation. So why change the system to require IDs? 2) Those who do not have state issued IDs overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. 3) Every single state that has “ID to vote laws” are those with Republican governorships. So altogether it just adds up to an ugly situation.
  
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2. David Bellamy
  
  October 6, 2012
  
  I have twice worked as a polling place worker. We required every voter to sign a card and then compared the signature to the one on file. I think this is a much better way of preventing impersonation. I, at least, have trouble deciding whether a person in front of me is the same as the one pictired on an ID card. My brain seems not to identify faces very well, especially from photographs. I have no trouble at all comparing signatures; they are very distinctive.
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    October 6, 2012
    
    Now a question from people who are taking part in the debate off line: if there is still voter registration, then why not distribute these photo IDs during voter registration? Snapping a photo takes seconds nowadays.
    
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  2. bloggerclarissa
    
    October 6, 2012
    
    I don’t know about comparing signatures. I don’t think I’d be able to identify my own signature from a few years ago.
    
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3. Evelina Anville
  
  October 6, 2012
  
  “if there is still voter registration, then why not distribute these photo IDs during voter registration? Snapping a photo takes seconds nowadays.”
  
  Well that would make sense if the true point of the ID law was to avoid voter fraud. But instead what we have is an effort to suppress the Democratic vote in swing states. The whole situation is really quite nefarious.
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    October 6, 2012
    
    Did the Democrats ever suggest doing this all the times they were in power?
    
    I find it very curious that this issue keeps coming up every single time 5 minutes before an election. And then everybody just forgets about it. Did the Dems not know during th past 4 years that this will be an issue? Are they just discovering this right now?
    
    Obviously, the Republicans are playing a dirty game here. But I have a feeling thjat so are the Democrats. Otherwise, they would have done something to address this constantly recurring issue already.
    
    Who wants to bet that we will be having th exact same discussion with the exact same arguments 4 years from now?
    
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4. Evelina Anville
  
  October 6, 2012
  
  I agree that Demoncrats should have been more forward thinking and made sure that their constiuents would have IDs in Republican dominated counties. However, this push for “Voter ID’s” is somewhat new and wasn’t really mentioned or promoted until Obama was elected. And as the election has drawn closer, Republicans keep coming up with increasingly restrictive laws.
  
  But I do agree with you that voting is much more complicated than it needs to be in this country. I remember that I didn’t vote in the 2000 election (it’s only one I have ever missed.) And it’s partly because I was young and less motivated than I am now. Partly it’s because I was living in a very red state and it felt like my vote didn’t count. But it’s also partly because I had recently moved, and I needed to register at my new residence. And in order to do that, I had to prove my residence (with an energy bill) and then I couldn’t find one and it was such a pain that I just gave up and didn’t register or vote that year. I wouldn’t do that today as I take voting quite seriously.
  
  So I really can understand how someone who is working a lot or who doesn’t understand the procedure or who doesn’t have much time, would get frustrated and just decide not to vote. It’s sad that _any_ red tape accompanies voting and I personally think we should all resist any additional red tape in the process (which includes resisting voter ID laws.)
  
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October 6, 2012

You don’t have to present ID in the UK. Prior to the election you register to vote, and then come polling day, you roll up, say who you are, get ticked off the list, and vote. They do send you a polling card in the post, but you don’t need it to vote.

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FD

October 6, 2012

rats, not sure why that posted . It does seem to me that these ‘anti-fraud’ voter ID schemes seem to be likely to have the side effect of disenfranchising portions of the populace that are already vulnerable. Forcing people to produce specific kinds of ID seems to me to simply an an extra onerous step for very little benefit.

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Brittany-Ann

October 6, 2012

The problem with voter ID laws is the montumentous pain in the ass it is to get an ID in the first place. You have to have your social security card and birth certificate, go to the county clerk’s office, wait in line, and pay a fee. If you have the paperwork, the money, and are able to get off work to go to the clerk’s office, then it’s just a PITA. If you don’t have one or all these things, then well, it’s graduated from PITA to something bigger. I’m at a loss for the proper descriptor, to be honest.

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bloggerclarissa

October 6, 2012

The citizenship card, on the other hand, doesn’t even have an expiration date.

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1. FD
  
  October 6, 2012
  
  Ah but Clarissa, don’t you understand, you can’t let the evil government know who you are? Quoth they, “I’m an American, not a number!”
  
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Rob F

October 6, 2012

Paraphrasing from what I’ve said elsewhere:

Voter and electoral fraud are most certainly not problems in the United States. Voter ID laws would not make any significant difference. And this is the evidence to back up my claim:

The Bush administration looked hard for voter fraud. What did they find? 120 charges and 86 convictions, out of millions of voters. Of those incidents, most of those were due to vote-buying (bribery) in local races, or people who are ineligible to vote (like convicted criminals) voting or attempting to register. The Bush Administration did not find any evidence of a conspiracy.

Notice that the only form of voter fraud ID laws actually prevent is voter impersonation. It would not prevent someone from taking bribes and it would not prevent someone ineligible from actually registering. Therefore, voter ID laws would not have made any difference regarding what actually was found.

The Brennan Institute studied voter fraud and found that voter impersonation is less likely to happen then being struck by lightning. The majority of the supposed examples were really clerical errors or minor mismatches between lists (like middle names versus a middle initials), or the lists not being updated simultaneously (such as if the person moves, and their address is updated at one list but not the other).

Here’s an online article about voter fraud:

Perhaps the strongest evidence against claims of widespread voter fraud is that it would make no sense. Imagine what you’d have to do to perpetrate such a scheme. You’d first have to recruit a large number of voters willing to cooperate, each of whom would risk five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Then you’d have to get them all registered, which would require fake IDs and mailing addresses. (The mailing address would have to be real so they could receive their registration cards.) The names and addresses would then get checked against a central state database. If the database fails to find a match, the voter’s registration gets flagged for a follow-up check of their Social Security Number or driver’s license number. Then on Election Day, they’d have to show their fake ID again and lie to a poll worker’s face. At each point—registration, the database check, voting—they’d run the risk of getting caught. And the more people involved in the scheme, the more likely someone slips up. All it would take is one unlucky person for the whole plan to unravel.

If there really is a widespread attempt to sway elections (needing hundreds and more likely thousands of people to significantly influence a national election), where is the evidence of it?

When you look at the state level, you get the same result as at the national. During a challenge to it’s voter ID law, the state of Pennsylvania admitted in court that they had no examples of in-person fraud. Out of more than 13 million votes in Texas, there were five complaints (which are not convictions). Of all of the complaints of electoral fraud in Virginia, none would have been impacted by voter ID. And again, in New Mexico, the state attorney general found only 19 votes that could possibly have been fraudulent. None of them involved impersonation and therefore none would have been affected by voter ID.

Tbe obvious conclusion from the state level investigations is that there is hardly any electoral fraud. Of the examples that do exist it is due to illegal registration, and nothing that would be affected by voter ID.

And that’s why voter ID laws aren’t really about fighting voter fraud. They are really about making it more difficult for Democratic-leaning demographics such as the poor and students to vote.

I’m not the only one saying this. This is Pennsylvania state representative Mike Turzai saying, on camera, that “Voter ID – which is going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania – [is] done”:

Notice that Turzai did not claim to enact laws causing a clean and honest election, which is what someone fighting real electoral/voter fraud would say.

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Cicero

October 6, 2012

I am not saying that some Republicans are saying that ID laws will help them win (instead of talking about fair elections).

I am questioning some of the conclusions that end with, “therefore there is no voter fraud.”

That would be, except the fraud they didn’t find. Proving a negative is very difficult.

Also, the bulk of your argument seemed against the registration of fake individuals…I put forth a nefarious scheme that didn’t involve that — it used actual voters with actual credentials who are already registered. All I have to do — as an evil vote swayer — is know their information AND know they aren’t going to vote. If no ID is checked, it seems relatively easy to have someone walk in instead of them. And I ask again — HOW would this be caught? If stopped and asked for ID, they can simply say, “darn it, I forgot it” and leave. NO time in jail. No fine. Nothing.

Am I missing something really simple here? Some groups seem to have gone to a lot of trouble to “prove” this cannot happen. I think I’ve stumbled upon a rather simple way for either party to get votes. As I pointed out earlier, in our recent elections, voter turnout has been a huge feature, this sort of fraud could be very useful.

And, as it turns out, an ID card would help prevent this sort of fraud. Well, I guess then you could argue fake ID cards and going to the neighborhood to collect cards to get your “proxy voters” to use…

The only point I’m making is that one side seems very very intent on “proving” that the other side is evil and biased. Very intent. Maybe…intent enough that they are sliding a few facts under the carpet?

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1. FD
  
  October 6, 2012
  
  Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence? Of course, it also isn’t evidence of a conspiracy.
  
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2. Cicero
  
  October 6, 2012
  
  I am neither saying there is no fraud or there is fraud. I am not saying there is a conspiracy. I am simply saying that to me there seems to be a lot to gain by saying “there is no voter fraud”…and several groups have found no voter fraud. And then I asked the question about a certain type of fraud,namely, “why wouldn’t this work?”
  
  That is all I am saying.
  
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Cicero

October 6, 2012

Ok, I’m going to ask a dumb question here and possibly just get ridiculed…I have read lots of articles on Voter Suppression and how voter fraud doesn’t exist and is just a Republican ploy to keep people from voting so they will win.

The problem I see here is that there is no other side. I didn’t do hours of research, but every article I read stated categorically that Republicans are evil and this is a non-issue. To me, that is suspicious.

As for voter fraud, this is the thought process I used: Most things I have read state that modern elections (at least at the presidential level) hinge on voter turnout, not convincing people to vote. In recent elections (10 years or so), our populace has been so evenly divided that the party that gets more people to vote wins.

So, in a situation where you have no id except a signature, let’s say you have an overzealous local party manager. They have the lists of voters — they have been calling and sending fliers for weeks. What’s to stop this overzealous person from going into the polling place late in the day and having people sign in for those people who haven’t made it yet? How would you even detect this sort of fraud? I mean, we know how they were going to vote, right? It isn’t really fraud since they would have voted? How would this sort of fraud be detected?

I have heard the argument that such voter fraud doesn’t happen because it is so dangerous — the penalty is too severe. Yet I also hear about bullying at polling places to keep people away. We know that THAT is illegal; if people care enough to physically threaten people not to vote, isn’t it logical that they might also use information in their possession to cast votes for registered voters who don’t show up?

I am trying to accept the argument that is being presented all over the internet, but it seems fishy to me.

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bloggerclarissa

October 6, 2012

Cicero: I have very similar misgivings to yours. The entire debate seems fishy. Especially since, as I just said, between the elections nobody seems to care and this all becomes a big deal 2 minutes before an election.

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1. FD
  
  October 6, 2012
  
  Well, as an outsider looking in, I don’t actually think any underhand politics are required for an explanation of the repeating cycle of hoo-ha.
  1. changes to the voter registration system which create additional complexity are obviously not appealing to the D side for reasons described well by Leah Jane above.
  2. changes which could simplify such as permanent citizen’s ID are not popular with either Ds or Rs, due to the perennial American paranoia about ‘gubmint’.
  3. Ds therefore have reason to oppose changes proposed by Rs, but no incentive to make changes between elections that might reduce attempts by Rs to introduce changes of the type that are opposed by Ds in step 1.
  
  I actually also think that the R party doesn’t actually need to have ill intent for proposing step 1 type changes – the generalised paranoia and suspicion which seems to be infecting US conservatives lately is enough of a driver all by itself. That doesn’t of course mean that there isn’t some form of centralised policy such as in the TRAP law phenomenon, but it isn’t necessary to explain it.
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    October 6, 2012
    
    This regular hullabaloo about voter fraud serves a very useful, practical purpose. It allows both sides to explain why they lost the elections. It’s simply a very easy way to shift the responsibility for conducting a lousy campaign onto the voting laws.
    
    I remember when Kerry lost the elections, there were endless attempts to blame that loss on a series of TV ads run by the Republicans. Of course, that was easier than recognizing that Kerry was a lousy candidate who ran an unconvincing campaign. Even I, who burned with passionate hatred of Bush, was not convinced by Kerry.
    
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Lindsay

October 6, 2012

Hi, Cicero. I don’t think it’s a dumb question at all.

I have actually read about the kind of fraud you describe happening — it seems to be more common than in-person fraud by people pretending to be registered voters. (THAT is the one that almost never happens). Just recently the state of Florida started investigating some fraudulent voter registration forms that this private company, Strategic Allied Consulting, had sent to the Florida Republican Party — apparently they were using that company to find likely Republican voters who weren’t already registered and register them. I don’t know the details of the case — whether the fishy forms registered completely fictional people, or people who were real but not legal Florida voters, or what — but I do know that the Republican Party didn’t know about it, and fired the company as soon as they found out about the possible fraud.

So sometimes fraud can come from the third-party entities that political parties sometimes rely on for voter registration drives.

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1. NancyP
  
  October 8, 2012
  
  The firm , under the same management but with a slightly different name, had been caught using the same tactics in earlier elections. Some dumbs*it state Republican party official thought that the party could hire this Republican consulting firm and not have it be noticed. Clue – the Internet Wayback Machine contains a LOT of news files, and both sides have opposition researchers.
  
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Cicero

October 6, 2012

The “paranoia” used to just be amusing and something to make fun of. Now I see power structures using it to influence people. I am an American — I have a question: Do Americans seem overly paranoid about things like “government interfering”? Compared to how it is in other nations? In my mind, the case for “if we register with an ID card the government will take away all our rights” seems rather flimsy. On the other hand, we are the most litigious society in the world. Maybe once lawyers could track your every move you could get sued a lot more.

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bloggerclarissa

October 6, 2012

There is definitely a huge anti-government paranoia in the US which is curious given that the actual existing government is quite weak.

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1. Cicero
  
  October 6, 2012
  
  I don’t get it, Clarissa. Maybe the paranoid and the people using them just yell more loudly than the sane people who are watching from the sidelines. I don’t know. Scared people are easier to manipulate…or is that just me falling prey to yet another level of paranoia?
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    October 6, 2012
    
    I agree with you completely. Scared people – especially those who are scared of something vague and hard to define – are easily manipulated.
    
    It’s curious how bad the Dems are at manipulating through fear than the Repubicans. In the debate on Wednesday, Romney managed to bring up “death boards” twice. Twice! That is masterful. And did Obama at least try to mention the transvaginal probes? No. Did he mention a possible nuclear war with Iran? Did he mention Osama? Bush? No, no, and no. He just rolled off numbers. That made him sound weak.
    
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2. Cicero
  
  October 6, 2012
  
  During the debate the President didn’t use those fear tactics. I actually respect him for that. (Perhaps they would have worked well in a debate format…) I haven’t actually gone back and counted, but both sides seem pretty adept at using fear when it suits them.
  
  Isn’t it possible that the current, “don’t let the Republicans make ID laws — your vote won’t count!” is an example of that?
  
  Which brings us to the point where we have to wonder if our fear of fear mongering is just paranoia or is it justified fear…
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    October 6, 2012
    
    “Isn’t it possible that the current, “don’t let the Republicans make ID laws — your vote won’t count!” is an example of that?”
    
    – That’s what I suspect is happening. And it bothers me because I believe that it shows that the Dems are not confident they will win. This is disturbing given that they have the incumbency and the lack of a convincing candidate among the Republicans on their side. If they can’t defeat a candidate as weak as Romney, they are in very big trouble.
    
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3. Cicero
  
  October 6, 2012
  
  Well, as for not being confident they will win…I think both sides are scared. The nation has been split so close to even for so long…I do wish we could just have people state their views, then cast our votes and be done with it. That seems much more honest than all this.
  
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Cicero

October 6, 2012

Ok, I have another question.

What is the goal? In an election.

Everyone has a vote? Even children and convicts? Who should NOT have the right to vote?

Should we make it like jury duty? Force people to vote?
Can someone cast your vote for you if you don’t want to.
Can you sell your vote?

In a system where voter turnout matters more than actual decision making, should we make it easier to vote? Or harder? Should we punish groups who make it harder to vote more harshly? Or should going to vote be like other civic rights and duties?

To me, ‘tricking people not to vote’ (or busing people in to vote and then telling them who to vote for) seems like a mockery of a representative system of government.

But, it also seems a mockery when elections are won on ads that contain obvious mistakes (I’ll be kind and not say “lies”) and how well a person looks on TV carries more weight than what they actually plan to do if elected. Whether or not they can speak without a script is more important than what sort of person they are.

Maybe this question is too far off topic…but it seems all the talk of fraud and fear and all that hinges on people agreeing on what the election process should be DOING in the first place. Maybe we don’t agree on that point.

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bloggerclarissa

October 6, 2012

“Should we make it like jury duty? Force people to vote?”

– I forget which countries specifically have such requirements but there are countries that require that everybody vote in national elections or pay a fine. I think that’s a great system. It works, too, because voter turnout in such countries is over 99%.

“Whether or not they can speak without a script is more important than what sort of person they are.”

– Both should be completely irrelevant. I will barf if I hear one more story about a candidates grandmother, father, brother, and favorite poodle. Enough with these boring stories already! But I do realize that if these stories keep being peddled it’s because that’s what the voters want. How many times have we heard about Obama bruning a carpet with a joint in college? And about Romney’s dog transported on top of a car? How on earth is any of this relevant?

“But, it also seems a mockery when elections are won on ads that contain obvious mistakes (I’ll be kind and not say “lies”) and how well a person looks on TV carries more weight than what they actually plan to do if elected.”

– We simply need voters who are much more educated and a lot less apathetic to make this true.

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NancyP

October 8, 2012

Ask how many people have been prosecuted successfully for voter fraud consisting of intentionally voting when ineligible (as opposed to voting in wrong district, honest mistake) or voting twice, once under an assumed name. Perhaps 1 in a million or 1 in 10 million people have been prosecuted, and if one in 20 million have been convicted, I would be surprised. Say, 20 people convicted IN THE ENTIRE USA per Presidential or mid-term election.

Now spend great effort to enact a law against an exceedingly rare event. In fact, coordinate many state governments to enact substantially the same model law drafted by a partisan group.

Some city alderman (councilman) might lobby for and get passed a law against owning pet miniature pigs in the City of St. Louis, because he happens to live next door to the one and only household in St. Louis keeping pigs in their back yard. That pig-keeping would be a rare event, one in 100,000 to 200,000 households (St. Louis City has approximately 350,000 human residents. Imagine the same scenario going on in multiple cities. You would expect the bill’s initial sponsor’s political party to be more or less random. (At least I don’t know of any surveys showing party affiliation to be correlated with owning peculiar pets).

Ask yourself why ALL of the “Voter ID” (see note) laws have been sponsored and enacted by Republicans. Surely, they must expect a party gain, particularly because the Voter ID laws have been a very recent phenomenon. Voter ID laws NARROW the acceptable ID options to people with driver’s licenses. Guess who doesn’t have driver’s licenses? Elderly nursing home residents, other elderly non-drivers, poor or young people who can’t afford a car, other people who manage just fine with public transit (implies urban location) and bicycle riding. What? Minority voters are over-represented? Well, who could have predicted that? The Republican party strategists, that’s who.

Note:
“Voter ID” language tends to lead people to believe that there never were voter ID requirements before the current bill/law was presented. False. Most jurisdictions had a large list of acceptable IDs. For St. Louis, this included any two of: current utility bills including your address, voter registration card, tax ID including your address, photo ID from work or school, two individuals ready to swear an affidavit concerning the voter’s identity and residence, or “known to two election officials” (ie, the judges who live in the voter’s district). Of course, a driver’s license with current address will also do.

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bloggerclarissa

October 8, 2012

I have to insist that this has nothing whatsoever to do with driving licenses. I don’t have a driving license and I know for a fact that a state picture ID can be acquired with no driving exam or anything connected to driving at the same place where people get driving licenses. If there were any bias against non-drivers here, I would definitely notice. But this simply isn’t the case.

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1. NancyP
  
  October 8, 2012
  
  That’s fine for the physically fit who live within walking distance of a state office that is open at a time when the person doesn’t have to miss work (and get fired) in order to get the ID.
  
  Look, the Republicans put these laws in place to take effect for the current election, didn’t allocate extra resources to equip people with IDs, and have made a show of assisting a few old folks only after the courts slapped the legislators’ knuckles. The Republicans have put other laws in place to make it risky for ordinary citizens to register people to vote. Voter suppression, in the form of “literacy laws” (unequally applied), has been around for a long time, generally to prevent brown and black people from voting.
  
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NancyP

October 8, 2012

For the older generation, it can take up to $100.00 to assemble the required paperwork for an ID nowadays, and the paperwork can take considerable time to arrive. The clerk of vital records eventually gets around to searching the dead tree files.

There seems to be some assumption that hordes of “illegal alien” non-citizens are just dying to bring attention to themselves by voting early and often for a bribe of a few bucks. You would think that someone would have noticed and prosecuted, if this scenario was indeed true.

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