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I keep hearing how these voting requirements are going to reduce the numbers of democratic voters. But can someone explain to me why they wouldn't also hurt republican voters? Are any republican voters being hurt by these voting requirements?
Just think whose ox is being gored:
Quote:
Republican backers had argued that requiring voters to show ID would cut down on voter fraud and boost public confidence in the integrity of the election process. But Adelman said the state failed to prove that voter fraud is a legitimate problem.
"(V)irtually no voter impersonation occurs in Wisconsin and it is exceedingly unlikely that voter impersonation will become a problem in Wisconsin in the foreseeable future," he wrote in a 90-page opinion.
Wisconsin's Republican-led Legislature passed the photo ID requirement in 2011, scoring a long-sought GOP priority. Former Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, had vetoed a similar requirement three times between 2002 and 2005.
In the end, it was easy for Judge Adelman to find the law unconstitutional under the equal protection clause. “It is absolutely clear,” the judge concluded, that the law “will prevent more legitimate votes from being cast than fraudulent votes.”
Equally important, the judge found that the law also violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits laws that have a disproportionate impact on minority voters. That’s because those voters are more likely to be poor and undereducated, the judge found, which “is traceable to the effects of discrimination in areas such as education, employment, and housing.”
Apparently only Democrat voters are too stupid/lazy/incompetent to get ID.
Maybe not.
Quote:
Many of the advocates can't imagine anyone functioning in 21st-century America without valid proof of identity. So they are skeptical that requiring it could possibly be an obstacle to voting. They also tend to believe that anyone who lacks something so basic deserves no accommodation.
These attitudes reflect a failure to understand the lives of many Americans. In the suit challenging the Wisconsin law, which recently was overturned by a federal court, a parade of people attested that they lacked the required ID and, in many cases, couldn't easily get it. One of them was Ruthelle Frank, a former member of the village board of Brokaw. She has never had a driver's license or state ID, and her 1927 birth certificate has a misspelling. To get it fixed, she would have to undertake a legal process that could cost $200.
Another was Mariannis Ginorio, a young Milwaukee woman. She had no driver's license, and Wisconsin doesn't accept birth certificates from her native Puerto Rico issued before 2010. Sam Bulmer, a homeless Air Force veteran, could offer only a federal Veterans Identification Card -- which is not on the list of IDs recognized by the state. Statewide, the court concluded, 300,000 eligible voters don't have the documents needed for voting. In the normal course of life, people like this don't need them.
By the way, I haven't 'cashed a check' in probably 15 years. ATM's don't require an ID and for everything else, there's my credit card. If I didn't drive, I probably wouldn't have a driver's license.
A supermajority of Americans approve of voter ID laws. If the Democrats want to continue to play up the will of the American people on a host of other issues (e.g., minimum wage), they should acknowledge this as well. And rather than demonizing those that want to have proof of ID, the solution would be very simple and not even expensive - every Social Security card issued would have a photo.
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