Why I struggle with taking claims of racism seriously
Lawmakers in Georgia and Indiana walked out to protest a racist bill. This particular racist bill was one that would require someone show photo ID at the polls. This hysteria involved references to Jim Crow so I assume they’re saying it’s racist. They don’t say the law is racist, of course, but that it is not friendly to the homeless.
How is showing an ID racist? As Spoons says:
More Americans need to wake up to this. There are some lawmakers who believe it’s practically their constitutional right to rig elections, and are so terrified of anything that makes it harder for them to rack up phony votes, that they’ll go on strike to prevent it.
Honestly, I can think of no good reason not to require a photo ID to vote.
April 1st, 2005 at 10:51 am
well, i think a photo id, or the things you have to have to get a photo id.
An A or B list, is the way it work in TN if you want a drivers license.
(ssn card, pay check stubs, showing you live the in area, passport, are just some of the things i would think would work)
April 1st, 2005 at 11:14 am
According to the Georgia AARP, a large percentage of senior citizens do not have a form of id that would be acceptable under the new law, despite being eligible to vote.
April 2nd, 2005 at 6:21 pm
smijer: If you mean that these seniors don’t have a driver’s license (generally because they can’t pass the vision test), then why doesn’t the state license bureau issue a photo ID for non-drivers? If you can’t get a photo ID, you’ve got worse problems than getting into the voting booth.
Of course, anyone who really is an American citizen can get a federal photo ID – it’s called a passport.
But I decided Georgia was going to hell (in the secular sense) when they insisted that their new touchscreen voting machines had to be bilingual. If you want to be a citizen, learn the language of your country.
April 2nd, 2005 at 9:54 pm
I think it is a good idea to make sure that voters are who they say they are. On the other hand, photo IDs require you to pay a fee when you get one (at least where I live). Now, I know that you can’t make someone pay a fee to vote (aka poll tax), so I doubt you can make them pay a fee to get a photo ID so that they can vote.
April 4th, 2005 at 1:23 pm
Again, I’m torn on this one. There’s nothing inherently racist about requiring ID, but we unfortunately have a history of minorities being abused by authority figures, even recently. So that mistrust of authority that develops as a result can indeed deter some from voting.
I think we absolutely need to get to where ID is required for voting, but there are larger problems that need to be solved first.
For what it’s worth, I don’t know about where you live, but where I live the lack of a photo ID check doesn’t mean that there isn’t any check. You have to have registered, you have to vote at the appropriate location where you’re on the voter rolls, you have to know your registered address, etc. Where I vote, there’s also a signature check (they have your signature on file from your registration, and when you sign in, the signatures have to match).
Yes, there’s still room for fraud (there always will be, even with an ID check), and no the system isn’t perfect, but it’s not as if I could just walk in off the street, identify myself as “Say Uncle,” vote, and have that vote count.