Of course, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial Board has weighed in on yesterday's U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding Indiana's voter photo ID law.
The Board declares: "Voting should be easy."
I agree. Voting should be easy. However, the Board fails to acknowledge that voter fraud should not be easy.
Following a 6-3 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Monday upholding Indiana's strict voter ID law, the state Legislature and the governor should resist efforts to enact such a law here.
Such a law would be antithetical to Wisconsin's long tradition of high voter turnout, spurred by having as few obstacles as possible to citizens exercising their right to the ballot.
Translation: We believe Doyle and the Dems should continue to maintain Wisconsin as fertile ground for voter fraud.
The court majority downplayed both the obstacles that a photo ID requirement will impose and the obvious partisan motivation for wanting such a requirement.
A PHOTO ID WILL NOT IMPOSE OBSTACLES.
It's a false argument.
"The obvious partisan motivation for wanting such a requirement" line is a joke.
What about Doyle and the Dems' partisan motivation for blocking such a requirement?
The dissenting justices got it right. Without a valid state photo ID or passport, it is no small feat to get one - if, for instance, you don't have a birth certificate or other official documentation handy to prove identity, don't know how to go about getting them and have uneven access to the money and transportation to make all this happen.
When the government offers to provide free photo IDs to voters, it's a very small feat to get one. These voters manage to get to the polls. They should be able to get an ID.
...The court said the Indiana law is non-discriminatory. However, to get there the justices had to ignore who are most likely not to have photo IDs. That would be the elderly, the poor and minority groups, folks who tend to vote Democratic.
Is it a widespread phenomenon that the elderly, poor, and minorities don't possess any photo ID or identifying documents?
Has that ever been analyzed?
The court dispensed with the partisan underpinnings of voter ID laws much too easily. Arguments for the law "should not be disregarded simply because partisan interests may have provided one motivation for the votes of individual legislators," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote.
In other words, even though widespread voter fraud doesn't exist in Indiana, Wisconsin or in the rest of the nation, we still should ignore that hurdles have just been placed, mostly by GOP legislators, before traditionally disadvantaged groups that - wink, wink - just happen to vote for the other party.
What's with all the winking by the Board? Has this Supreme Court decision caused it to develop a tic?
When photo IDs are made available to all at no cost, there are no hurdles.
Those evil GOP legislators want to make sure that our elections are clean, but those compassionate Dem legislators - wink, wink - are against it. Pretty screwy.
The Editorial Board should be ashamed for claiming that the elderly, poor, and minorities are incapable of doing something as simple as getting a free photo ID and suggesting that large numbers of these people don't already have any photo ID.
They're categorizing them as victims and helpless.
If the Dems really care about them, wouldn't a program to give them photo IDs be a boost for these disadvantaged Americans?
Why not allow them to have what us well-to-do Americans have, a photo ID?
2 comments:
I don't know how it is in Wisconsin, but in Virginia, Maryland, and Kansas (the last three states I've lived in) you have to have some kind of legal photo ID to prove your identity to dao just abput everything. Either a driver's license or a state ID card with your photo on it is the only acceptable legal means of Identification.
How would requiring one to have a photo ID prevent any legal citizen from voting? I don't get it.
In Wisconsin, we have two problems: NO ID of any sort required to vote and same day, on-site voter registration.
Here's a report on voter fraud in Milwaukee in the 2004 election.
I'll sum up the 67-page report: The election in Milwaukee was tainted.
Wisconsin's Dem governor has vetoed a photo ID bill THREE times!
The WI Dems claim the bill is racist and discriminates against the poor and elderly because they supposedly don't have a photo ID. Even when free IDs would be made available, they still cling to that argument.
There's no rational explanation to be against a photo ID requirement other than having a self-interest in voter fraud.
Post a Comment