I thought only about third of Americans have a passport. Is that true? So, what you use for ID - driver's license?
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I thought only about third of Americans have a passport. Is that true? So, what you use for ID - driver's license?
The tide is turning.....
Backlash swells Against Voter Laws
Sep 13, 2012 6:05 PM EDT
The left has attacked voter ID laws and other restrictive legislation as a tool to suppress the votes of minorities and poor people. Suddenly, it seems they’re winning.
Another symbol of just how quickly the political calculus can change ahead of Election Day: crucial swing states Ohio and Florida, along with Texas, South Carolina, and Wisconsin, have won significant—albeit possibly temporary—victories against restrictive voting laws over a span of mere weeks. Voting laws, including the requirement that people carry photo IDs to the ballot box, have became a major source of controversy as the presidential race remains close less than two months ahead of the election.
“The tide has clearly turned,” says Diana Kasdan, counsel for the Democracy Program of Brennan Center, a public policy institute affiliated with New York University. “The results are coming in, court after court is rejecting these restrictive laws.”
The next crucial decision will come out of Pennsylvania. The state’s law requiring all voters to show identification is currently being debated by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court; a decision is forthcoming.
Since the Republican takeover of the House in 2010, voting laws restricting access to the ballot began passing in states across the country. But until two months ago, they had received little national attention. Now, a federal judge has blocked Ohio’s “right church, wrong poll” law that discounts provisional votes cast in the wrong precinct. In Florida, residents incorrectly removed from voter polls for being noncitizens have had their voting rights restored. And a federal court rejected Texas’s voter ID law on Aug. 30. Series about voting rights, such as MSNBC’s “Block the Vote” continuing segment, are now being aired during primetime TV news.
Behind the turnaround is a network of civil rights and advocacy groups, along with branches of the federal government, that have been battling these laws as they crop up. In Ohio, the Obama campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and the Ohio Democratic Party sued Republican Ohio Secretary of State John Husted alleging that the restriction on early voting violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Litigation by the Advancement Project, a national civil rights organization, spearheaded another Ohio suit that challenged the state law that provisional votes mistakenly cast in the wrong precinct could be discounted. The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania has led the charge against that state’s voter ID law.
The Brennan Center has advocated for voting rights from Wisconsin to South Carolina.
The Department of Justice itself, along with other advocacy and civil rights groups, challenged Florida’s so-called “voter purge,” which removed thousands of eligible voters from the rolls in an attempt to crack down on noncitizens voting. The program was reversed on Wednesday.
Voting experts say that beyond the legal attacks from outside groups, the biggest enemy of struck-down voter laws may be the laws themselves.
“These courts smelled a rat,” says Dan Tokaji, a professor of election law at Ohio State University’s Moritz School of Law. “State legislatures overplayed their hand and got greedy. It was transparent that the real reason for these changes was to make it difficult for some people to vote.”
Civil-rights groups like the Advancement Project have claimed that restrictive laws on voting disproportionately affect minority and low-income voters who don’t have access to photo IDs or typically vote via church drives that take place during early voting periods.
Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at UC Irvine and the author of The Voting Wars says “some of these laws are an overreach without good reasons for their enactment—and sometimes run afoul of federal, constitutional or statutory law.”
“These courts smelled a rat.”
“The public got fed up with these laws,” says Kasdan of the Brennan Center.
Voting-rights experts are quick to point out that these victories, while important, are tenuous.
Hasen says some of the rulings may be “ephemeral,” adding that he expects Texas’s voter ID ruling and Ohio’s early voting decision to be overturned, possibly disenfranchising thousands of Americans, before election day.
Kasdan says the Brennan Center will ensure there are plenty of people “on the ground to make sure people know what the law is in their state due to the patchwork of laws across the country. Still, she says, “the game’s not over.”
I'm one of those without a passport. Valid drivers license will work for just about anything. Some agencies/companies require 2 pieces of ID, social security card or birth certificate will work for them.Quote:
Originally Posted by martin48
About 11 percent of U.S. citizens, or roughly 21 million citizens, don't have government-issued photo ID. This figure doesn't represent all voters likely to vote, just those eligible to vote.
People who vote have already jumped through one hoop when they registered to vote. Republicans want 80 year old ladies who don't drive and have been voting at the same place for 50 years to jump through one more hoop to prove they're not one of the tens of people that commit voter fraud.
Right.
Requiring a driver's license to vote is both a poll tax (in my state it costs about ninety bucks to renew a drver's license) and also a voter test (since you have to pass the driver's test). Eleven percent of eligible voters don't have a driver's license. A photo ID will only prevent in-person fraud which essentially doesn't happen. Why suppress a million votes to capture nine tenth of a person attempting in-person fraud? Answer: according to majority republican whip in the State of Pennsylvania, Mike Turzai, it's to secure the State for Romney. There is no argument here. The cat's out of the bag. Turzai has told what photo-iD is all about...voter suppression.
and this
Not a paradox. Making sure everyone has health coverage and making sure everyone can exercise their right to vote are not in conflict. Turzai has already told us what he designed voter-ID law to do: he designed it to suppress the democratic vote and secure his State for Romney. Deny it. You can't.
Only a complete fool would try to put a spin on the issues of health care for every American citizen and the right to vote for every American citizen.
It's a funnier spin that in their efforts to raid the Community Chest, Republicans have to kow-tow to the Rush Limbaugh morons to try and get elected.
They can't win with Onmyknees, and they can't win without him.
REGISTER AND VOTE!!!!!
Well, they are requiring certain photo ID, not necessarily a driver's license, so your argument about a voter test is really a non-starter. However, like I mentioned earlier, I do think it could be considered a poll tax unless they give them out for free.Quote:
Originally Posted by trish
I really have to laugh at all these people who are beside themselves about someone simply proving who they say they are as it relates to voting. The libs have been buying off large chunks of the electorate for decades and suddenly they're interested in the purity of the elections, and to protect their deviousness, they'll stop at nothing. If you listen to them, you'd think the water cannons and German Shepard dogs will be in place at every polling place in America when it will simply be a little old lady asking to see your voter ID card. Here's a party that for generations has taken taxpayer dollars through the thug leadership of the public sector unions (against many of the members will) and given enormous amounts of those taxpayer dollars to liberal politicians in the way of campaign contributions. Follow the bouncing ball....The elected liberal democrats in a quid pro quo then turn around and "negotiate" with the very same thugs who lined their pockets and guess who wins? So emboldened by the generous new contracts, they line the pockets of even more politicians and the downward spiral continues until we reach a point where we are now.....where nearly every major city is operating in the red with public sector pensions and benefit package obligations are at an unsustainable level even to the point of bankrupting cities....even to the point of cutting programs to the poor....who these liberal politicians say they're trying to help ! And this insidious cancerous scheme is perfectly legal....so forgive me if I'm not all broke the fuck up about someone producing an ID at a voting booth..