Are Voter Identification Laws Discriminatory?

1. 61

   jdmanistaposted 11 years ago

   Are Voter Identification Laws Discriminatory?
   
   States like Texas, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have been sued for enacting "strict" voter identification laws requiring photo IDs to receive a ballot in an attempt to fight voter fraud. Opponents so that these laws "disenfranchise minority, poor and young voters".

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2. 71

   dahoglundposted 11 years ago

   How could they do that. Id is easy to get and people are usually accommodated in getting them. In unusual circumstances where some old people may not have birth certificates, there are ways to very such things through secondary documents. Social Security does that to determine benefits. the same techniques can be used for this. It is absurd not to verify identity for voting which is one of the most important things a citizen does.

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3. 93

   peeplesposted 11 years ago

   I see nothing wrong with having to show proper identification to vote. After all I have to show a birth certificate if my son wants to play soccer. I have been poor but never without an ID. I am a minority, yet still have an ID. Finally I am (on the border of this one) young and I have an ID. They need to stop making excuses.

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4. 78

   junksellerposted 11 years ago

   Absolutely. We don't require sophistication to vote. Not everyone is aware of the requirements. Many people will vote for years one way and then be surprised that they can't do what they have always done. I have seen it estimated that 10% of the population lacks the proper ID for perfectly legitimate reasons. This population is disproportionately democratic groups such as students and minorities. Substantiated cases of voter place fraud by a non-citizen are virtually NONEXISTENT. Doing anything which might result in citizens being unable to vote in order to correct a problem which doesn't even exist is grotesque. It isn't always that easy to get an ID. Especially with limited time.
   
   The fact that these types of efforts always seem to happen months before the election, are primarily pushed by the Republican party, and don't usually (if ever) contain provisions to reach out and educate people about the changes, should automatically raise suspicion about the motives. If these types of efforts were done with bipartisan support in an off year and included strong provisions to ENSURE that no one was disenfranchised than I might buy into the idea that it is legitimately about voter fraud.
   
   Further evidence of the true motive can be seen in some of the other efforts which are being undertaken, such as restricting voter registration efforts, reducing or eliminating early voting, eliminating day of vote registrations, purging voter rolls, etc.
   
   As an example consider Florida and Ohio which have banned voting on Sunday. There is no legitimate reason for this. There is, however, a political reason, as many black churches historically will drive (or march) to voting places after church service.
   
   This is disenfranchisement. Pure and simple. Just one more example of corporate-written legislation passed through ALEC.

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5. 61

   jdmanistaposted 11 years ago

   I am completely confused by the argument that voter ID laws are discriminatory in any way. From what I have seen the Left has two main arguments as to why we should not pass this type of legislation, it discriminates against those that cannot get a photo ID and there is no proof that voter fraud exists.
   
   As to the first argument, what exactly makes this so difficult? They say that the Right waits until the last minute to pass state law requiring a photo ID to vote. And yet, there are dozens of reasons that one may need a photo ID every day, meaning that there is no reason to wait until an election is upcoming to try to get one.
   
   The Left also cites cases in which voting has been banned on Sunday, which decreases black voter turnout because they like to "march" together after church to the voting centers. Seriously? You're going to tell me that black voters would prefer not to vote at all because they couldn't go with all their friends after church? That shows a real dedication to taking part in the electoral process. I'm sorry, but if you have a strong desire to vote, you will find a way instead of making excuses.
   
   As to the point that there is no proof of voter fraud, how about these examples:
       a member of the NAACP’s local executive committee...was sentenced in April to five years in prison for voting in the names of ten voters, including four who were deceased.
       ...the former deputy chief of staff for Washington mayor Vincent Gray, who was forced to resign after news broke that she had voted illegally in the District of Columbia even though she was a Maryland resident.
       ...a copy of an order from a federal immigration court in Florida on a Cuban immigrant who came to the U.S. in April 2004 and promptly registered and voted in the November election.
   
   Again, I just can't understand the argument against requiring a person to have to prove who they are and that they are a valid voter. Voting is possibly the single greatest freedom that a person can have and yet there are those that suggest we shouldn't be able to protect the process. Instead, we should open up the possibility of illegal aliens voting, people voting under assumed identities, people voting under the names of the deceased, people voting multiple times, and on and on. I will never cease to be amazed that anyone can even begin to make that argument.

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   1. 78

      junksellerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      In the Pennsylvania lawsuit on one of these ID laws, the State of PA admitted that there has never been a SINGLE case of in-person voter fraud in PA . EVER. Meanwhile, 750,000 registered voters in PA alone lack the proper ID.

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   2. 61

      jdmanistaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Virginia has requested 39 warrants in their voter fraud case stemming from the 2008 election. Dozens, if not hundreds, of people have been sentenced to jail time for voter fraud across the country.
      
      http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2012/apr/22/tdma

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