Month: August 2012

There is no need to play the 'numbers game.'  The photo ID requirement is a matter of principle. 

Anyone with common sense ought to be able to appreciate that voting must be conducted in an orderly manner, a manner to inspire confidence in the citizenry, and that only citizens who have registered to vote and have satisfied the minimal requirements of age, etc., are to be allowed into the voting booth. Given the possibility of fraud, it is therefore necessary to verify the identities of those who present themselves at the polling place. To do this, voters must be required to present a government-issued photo ID card, a driver's license being only one example of such. It is a reasonable requirement and any reasonable person should be able to see it as one.

But if you want to play the 'numbers game' voter fraud  does occur often enough to be a serious problem.

Here we go again:

First, a voter restriction is like a poll tax when its authors use voting  fraud as a pretext for legislation that has little to do with voting fraud.

Second, it is like a poll tax when it creates only a small nuisance to some  voters, but for other groups it erects serious barriers to the ballot.

Third, it is like a poll tax when it has crude partisan advantage as its most  immediate aim.

1.  Presumably the issue concerns the requirement that voters produce government-issued photo ID at polling places.  Voting fraud is obviously not a 'pretext' for such a requirement but a good reason to put such a requirement in place.  The claim that photo ID legislation has little to do with voting fraud is ludicrous.  The whole point of it is to prevent fraud.

2.  It is just silly to claim that phtoto ID "erects a serious barrier to the ballot."  If you don't have a driver's license, you can easily acquire photo ID from a DMV office for a nominal sum.  You are going to need it anyway for all sorts of other purposes such as cashing checks.  In the state  of Arizona, the ID is free for those 65 and older and for those on Social Security disability.  For others the fee is nominal: $12 for an ID valid for 12 years. 

3.  Those who support photo ID are aiming at "crude partisan advantage?"  How is that supposed to work?  Do non-Democrats get such an advantage when they stop  voter fraud?  Is the idea that it it par for the course that Dems should cheat, and so, when they are prevented from cheating, their opponents secure a"crude partisan advantage?"

What we have is crude psychological projection.  Unable to own up to their own unsavory win-at-all-costs motivations, liberals impute to conservatives unsavory motives.  "You want to disenfranchise blaxcks and Hispanics!"  As if these minorities are so bereft of life skills that they lack, or cannot acquire, a simple photo ID.  Note also the trademark liberal misuse of language. 

To disenfranchise is to deprive of a right, in particular, the right to vote.  But only some people have the right to vote.  Felons and children do not have the right to vote, nor do non-citizens.  You do not have the right to vote in a certain geographical area simply because you are a sentient being residing in that area.  Otrherwise, my cats would have the right to vote. Now a requirement that one prove that one has the right to vote is not to be confused with a denial of the right to vote.

My right to vote is one thing, my ability to prove I have the right another.  If I cannot prove that I am who I claim to be on a given occasion, then I won't be able to exercise my right to vote on that occasion; but that is not to say that I have been 'disefranchised.'  For I haven't be deprived of my right to vote; I have merely been prevented from exercising my right due to my inability do prove my identity.

I am still looking for a decent argument against photo ID.