Keep Away the Vote

Today's editorial in The New York Times is about as inflammatory as anything uttered by Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the past few days.

"Keep Away the Vote" sounds like something Michael Moore or Kanye West or Barbra Streisand would come up with.

It stands as one of the lamest editorials to come from The Times.

One of the cornerstones of the Republican Party’s strategy for winning elections these days is voter suppression, intentionally putting up barriers between eligible voters and the ballot box. The House of Representatives took a shameful step in this direction yesterday, voting largely along party lines for onerous new voter ID requirements. Laws of this kind are unconstitutional, as an array of courts have already held, and profoundly undemocratic. The Senate should not go along with this cynical, un-American electoral strategy.

That's ridiculous.

Really. It's nuts!

It's unconstitutional to have to prove your identity? Since when?

Identification is required for all sorts of things. You need proper ID to get a driver's license, a marriage license, to register to go to school, to get on a plane, to buy beer.

Is that unconstitutional? Is that un-American?

The bill the House passed yesterday would require people to show photo ID to vote in 2008. Starting in 2010, that photo ID would have to be something like a passport, or an enhanced kind of driver’s license or non-driver’s identification, containing proof of citizenship. This is a level of identification that many Americans simply do not have.

How many Americans have no photo ID?

What are the numbers? The Dems keep claiming this is discriminatory, but that's just a smokescreen.

The reality is the Dems don't want to assure the integrity of U.S. elections via voter ID because they believe that they benefit by holes in the system.

Their arguments against it are silly. If one is able to get out and vote, surely one is capable of getting a photo ID.

And if Dems are so freaked out about the move, why not have "Get out the camera" drives?

If the Dems are so worried about this measure, then why not organize to make sure that their base has proper identification and is ready to vote?

It's not that difficult, especially since the overwhelming majority of Americans have photo identification.

The bill was sold as a means of deterring vote fraud, but that is a phony argument. There is no evidence that a significant number of people are showing up at the polls pretending to be other people, or that a significant number of noncitizens are voting.

Noncitizens, particularly undocumented ones, are so wary of getting into trouble with the law that it is hard to imagine them showing up in any numbers and trying to vote. The real threat of voter fraud on a large scale lies with electronic voting, a threat Congress has refused to do anything about.

No evidence?

Look at Milwaukee for instances of voter fraud.

The actual reason for this bill is the political calculus that certain kinds of people — the poor, minorities, disabled people and the elderly — are less likely to have valid ID. They are less likely to have cars, and therefore to have drivers’ licenses. There are ways for nondrivers to get special ID cards, but the bill’s supporters know that many people will not go to the effort if they don’t need them to drive.

No.

The actual reason for this bill is so that registered voters are not disenfranchised by crooks. Voter fraud is an attack on every person who votes, including "the poor, minorities, disabled people and the elderly."

One doesn't need a car to get a photo ID.

Furthermore, if people that don't drive are too lazy to make the effort to get an ID so they can vote, then I doubt that they would be bothering to go to vote in the first place.

If this bill passed the Senate and became law, the electorate would likely become more middle-aged, whiter and richer — and, its sponsors are anticipating, more Republican.

That's exactly why the Dems oppose it.

However, that premise is false.

The claim that the electorate would "become more middle-aged, whiter and richer" is an insult to so many Americans.

"The Greatest Generation," now elderly, wouldn't stop voting because of this bill.

Just because one is less well-off financially doesn't mean that one doesn't possess ID or is not smart enough to get one.

And what does race have to with people being able to get a photo ID if they're without one?

Being old, non-white, and less rich doesn't mean that one is stupid and helpless, as The Times suggests.

Moreover, the bill spells out that states must provide photo ID cards free of charge if citizens can't afford one.

How is that discriminatory in any way?

Court after court has held that voter ID laws of this kind are unconstitutional. This week, yet another judge in Georgia struck down that state’s voter ID law.

Last week, a judge in Missouri held its voter ID law to be unconstitutional. Supporters of the House bill are no doubt hoping that they may get lucky, and that the current conservative Supreme Court might uphold their plan.

Court after court of liberal activist judges strike down laws.

So what else is new?

That doesn't prove anything. That's not an indication of the soundness of the ruling.

America has a proud tradition of opening up the franchise to new groups, notably women and blacks, who were once denied it. It is disgraceful that, for partisan political reasons, some people are trying to reverse the tide, and standing in the way of people who have every right to vote.

That is absolutely ridiculous!

A photo ID bill in no way reverses the tide of opening up the franchise to new groups.

The Times, (meaning the libs, meaning the Dems), fails to provide any convincing arguments that show Americans eligible to vote would be denied that right because of a photo ID bill.

To the contrary, such a bill upholds the integrity of our elections and helps to guarantee that the poor, minorities, the disabled, the elderly, and every other American eligible to vote is not disenfranchised by those seeking to abuse the system.

The Dems always seem to be the first to cry that an election was stolen. So, let's take measures to ensure one person, one vote.

Is that asking too much?

Governor Jim Doyle of Wisconsin has vetoed a photo ID measure THREE TIMES.

Why?

I think it's because a photo ID bill is not in the best interests of Wisconsin Dems. It would reduce opportunities for voter fraud in the state. That could cost Dems elections.

Failing to take steps to eliminate voter fraud only helps those benefiting from the fraud.

I hope that the federal government is able to put a photo ID law in place, especially since Jim Doyle is blocking it in Wisconsin.

I want my vote to count. That's all.