Spare us any more hooey about "preventing fraud" and "protecting the integrity of the ballot box." The Republican-led crusade for voter ID laws is revealed as a cynical ploy to disenfranchise as many likely Democratic voters as possible, with poor people and minorities the main targets.
Recent developments in Pennsylvania — one of more than a dozen states where voting rights are under siege — should be enough to erase any lingering doubt: The GOP is trying to pull off an unconscionable crime.
Late last month, the majority leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Mike Turzai, was addressing a meeting of the Republican State Committee. He must have felt at ease among friends because he spoke a bit too frankly.
Ticking off a list of recent accomplishments by the GOP-controlled Legislature, he mentioned the new law forcing voters to show a photo ID at the polls. Said Turzai, with more than a hint of triumph: "Voter ID, which is going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania — done."
That's not even slightly ambiguous. The Democratic presidential candidate has won Pennsylvania in every election since 1992. But now the top Republican in the Pennsylvania House is boasting that because of the new voter ID law, Mitt Romney will defy history and capture the state's 20 electoral votes in November.
Why on earth would Turzai imagine such a result? After all, the law applies to all voters, regardless of party affiliation. It is ostensibly meant only to safeguard the electoral process and eliminate fraud. Why would a neutral law have such partisan impact?
Thanks to figures released last week by state officials, we know the answer. It turns out that 758,939 registered Pennsylvania voters do not have the most easily obtained and widely used photo ID, a state driver's license. That's an incredible 9.2 percent of the registered electorate.
Most of the voters without driver's licenses live in urban areas — which just happen to be places where poor people and minorities tend to live. More than 185,000 of these voters without licenses, about one-fourth of the total, live in Philadelphia — which just happens to be a Democratic stronghold where African-Americans are a plurality.
Could suppressing the urban minority vote really give Pennsylvania to Romney? It probably wouldn't have made a difference in 2008, when Obama trounced John McCain handily. But the statewide contest is often much closer — and turnout in Philadelphia typically is key to a Democratic candidate's prospects. In 2004, for example, John Kerry's margin over George W. Bush in the state was a mere 144,248.
Perhaps these numbers are so intoxicating that Turzai forgot the cover story about how voter ID is supposed to protect the franchise rather than selectively restrict it. His spokesman later explained that Turzai meant "the Republican presidential candidate will be on a more even keel thanks to voter ID" — in other words, there will be a level playing field once the new law eliminates all that pesky voter fraud.
That might be reasonable, except for one fact: There's no fraud to eliminate.
Prodded by GOP political activists, the Justice Department under Bush conducted an extensive, nationwide, five-year probe of voter fraud — and ended up convicting a grand total of 86 individuals, according to a 2007 New York Times report. Most of the cases involved felons or immigrants who may not have known they were ineligible to vote.
Not one case involved the only kind of fraud that voter ID could theoretically prevent: impersonation of a registered voter by someone else. Pennsylvania and other voter ID states have, in a sense, passed laws that will be highly effective in eradicating unicorns.
The Pennsylvania law and others like it are under attack in the courts; this week, a federal three-judge panel in Washington is hearing arguments on Texas' year-old law, with a ruling expected next month. Meanwhile, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a conservative Republican, broke with orthodoxy last week and vetoed bills that would have toughened an existing voter ID statute. Maybe the tide is turning. If it doesn't, these laws will potentially disenfranchise or discourage millions of qualified voters.
In a previous column I wrote that voter ID was a solution in search of a problem. I was wrong: The problem seems to be that too many of the wrong kind of voters — low income, urban, African-American, Hispanic — are showing up at the polls. Republican candidates have been vowing to "take back" the country. Now we know how.
Eugene Robinson writes for the Washington Post. Email him at eugenerobinson@washpost.com.
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Comments » 146
Lets_Be_Truthful writes:
Voter fraud is so minute this is a waste of time. What really should be looked at are the lies publicly aired in campaign ads to sway ignorant voters minds. This is done by both candidates. I have yet to hear how a candidate is going to help our country via a smear campaign.
Forever_Young writes:
Liberals love to laugh off voter fraud.
Forever_Young writes:
Democrats would have us believe that they are rigidly honest and that all persons who come to vote enjoy the same sanctity of honesty and would never vote illegally.
ceeyh805 writes:
The Supreme Court has ruled providing an ID to vote is lawful, unless your a Democrat most people have no problem providing identification when stopped by a cop or when voting. Only those who can't follow or break the law fear having to identify themselves.
My guess is Robinsons just a scared liberal and is simply calling peoples motives into question, because he knows voter frauds easy and he surely knows his main man Obamas gonna need all the help he can get in November.
gdawg2112 writes:
If, by your argument, voter fraud is so minute that requiring an ID would have no effect on results - then why oppose it?
Lets_Be_Truthful writes:
I'm not opposed to it if you are not opposed to tax payers subsidizing fund to pay for those that can not afford to obtain the necessary ID you require in order to vote. Once again, this is really a non-issue. Tax cheats are a much greater problem to our country than this.
Decline2State writes:
What is truly remarkable to me, beyond the obvious lack of a voter fraud problem in this country, is that all the conservative right wing folks on this site immediately allege voter fraud only occurs on the liberal left. This of course is because of the strong sense of honesty and patriotism and adherence to constitutional principals that is embodied in the conservative side of the equation, right. Well if the conservatives are so interested in preserving constitutional principals, then why are we revisiting and relitigating what amounts to civil rights poll taxes that were outlawed by the SCOTUS?
Me thinks the cries of patriotism and preserving the constitution that bellow from the right are just touch disingenuos. The sad thing is that if the right is really trying to persuade people like me who are and always have been TRULY Independent voters, this does nothing but alienate us from your views. What this looks like is the right is trying to win at any cost even if that means they have to disenfranchise millions of Americans to do it. That's no way to win a battle of competing visions for our country, that's just winning by false pretenses.
Barney writes:
Don't you need an ID to cash a welfare check?
Chilibreath writes:
Dude, by your posted comments you are not an Independent, so don't don't jump and down feigning that you are; your comments reveal who you are way better than your protestations.
As for posted comments that the VCS censor has a penchant for removing comments that lean right; what the heck did you rubes expect? Along with the entertainment industry and academia, the mainstream media is known to be the venue of stone-cold liberals, and their influence over the masses they have the hammer. So don't expect fair and balanced reporting/editing anytime soon, especially this close to a presidential election that promises to be just about 50-50.
Hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned ... or a liberal afraid of losing an election!
Barney writes:
Each state offers the option for an ID which is not a drivers license. The argument that not everyone drives is only used by the uninformed.
Again, Elias argues that this will affect the poor. Don't you need ID to cash a welfare check?
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/dl/dl_info.htm#...
k_cappella writes:
Does that mean my son, who is 34 will not longer be able to vote, since he lost his drivers license do to poverty? He currently has no photo id, he paid $25 to the DMV months ago, (they could have sent ID without the drivers license but they chose not to)
and it never came, and their only reply is to pay over $2,000 for a seat belt violation, a hairline-cracked windshield and a jay-walking ticket, the guy would have paid if he were able, he appeared but they laughed him off, so he currently has no ID. Not like he didn't try and get it.
VenturaMusician writes:
This is the part of the argument that liberals have no answer for. IDs are necessary for so many things, including writing checks, the police will even arrest you in most states for not being able to produce an ID and we know blacks are harrassed more than whites by the police.
We have to show ID to excercise our 2nd amendment rights and the left is perfectly fine with that, I just don't get what the fight over voter IDs are.
JohnInSimi writes:
Sounds like whether or not he can make it to a voting booth in November is the least of his worries. Probably getting something to eat would be higher on the priority list.
JohnInSimi writes:
By the way, why aren't you lending your own son a hand to get back on his feet?
eng42 writes:
It is a myth that the media is biased. If they are so biased why were they so silent when Shrub was lying us into the war in Iraq? One little small newspaper in Oregon was pointing out all the problems with the so called evidence. No main stream newspaper nor TV mentioned it.
eng42 writes:
Dumbsmuir, apparently you have trouble reading. What fraud are you talking about? The investigation proved that it is almost non existent!
ARealRealityCheck writes:
Why is it when Atty. Gen. Eric Holder makes a speech to the NAA(L)CP, attendees have to provide two forms of I.D., including a government I.D.?
Why is it that a person doing research on voter fraud is allowed to go to Eric Holder's voting place and get a ballot in the Atty. Gen's. name and is able to vote in the name of Holder? (The investigator never voted.)
People who flaunt the law and their supporters want NO oversight and/or laws preventing said criminal activity. Look no further than the illegal aliens supporters who will allow illegal aliens to run roughshod over our country.
It is documented that elections are stolen in every election cycle. Even LBJ admitted cheating in his first run for Senate.
Everything wrong with America has a liberal bent.
eng42 writes:
Apparently you also have trouble reading. In Pennsylvania alone, over 700,000 legal residents do not have the required ID.
gdawg2112 writes:
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
unclneal#217443 writes:
To get a credit card, you must have ID.
To get a job, you must show ID and a Social Security card.
To get on a plane, you must show ID.
To cash a check, you must show ID.
To open a bank account, you must show ID.
To apply for unemployment benefits, you must supply a Social Security number.
Why is showing an ID to vote so controversial? The liberal argument about "disenfrancising" voter is so bogus... Only law abiding citizens have no problem showing ID for just about anything, but illegal aliens are allowed to enter our country, commit crimes, buy cars and drive without a license (and in Los Angeles they won't impound your vehicle if you have no license)...
I just don't get it. When is our country truly going to be secure????
Lets_Be_Truthful writes:
Me thinks if a person paints all conservatives with a broad brush believing all conservatives are the same, that person needs to think again. We know all liberals are not lock stepping brainwashed marxists.
eng42 writes:
I see the problem now. You can read, but not understand. Look up "obstensibly" and you will see there is no conflict in what Robinson says.
Chilibreath writes:
You can't possibly believe what you posted, and if you do then this is why there is such a great (GREAT!) divide between the left and the right. Your side has the media, the entertainment industry and academia; all bastions of liberal thought and philosophy. But the right has the heart and soul of mainstream America, and even with all the airtime the left is gifted with, serious national elections are literally split right down the middle, and this is why your side is feeling a bit uneasy in the lower bowel over the coming November election. Think about it; one right-wing tobacco chewing gun owning pickup truck driving conservative vote will cancel out your environmentally conscious save the whale vote. Ya gotta love it!
eng42 writes:
1. Because they do not "wish to assure honesty" since it has been proven that is it a non existent problem.
Their real aim it to suppress the vote.
2. I am not eager, I just realize it is a not a problem.
3. Once again the laws are not weak and they are not a problem.
It is well known that the Republicans don't want people to vote.
Here they admit it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsF...
raylaw43#321876 writes:
The laws require a PHOTO ID, not a Social Security card. My mother-in-law is 94 and she hasn't had a drivers license for 10 years. She is disabled. She was born in Bayonne,NJ, but she has no photo id. If she lived in Texas or PA, she could not vote although she has voted for more than 70 years.
In Texas, you can vote if you have an NRA card but not if you have a student ID card from the U. of Texas.
States charge for photo ids. To require them would be a poll tax. My mother-in-law does not drive, write checks or have credit cards.
TheCrusader writes:
Sounds like it may be time to use the RICO laws against the GOP in order to save our Constitution and Democracy!
rationalthinker writes:
Where in the Constitution does it say that a voter must have a photo id? It doesn't. Some fool will say that there were no photographs way back when. But the Constitution does not require any kind of ID. Custom, practice and the law simply require the voter declare his name and address to the poll worker and no more. If we follow the original intent arguments usually put forth by the wrongheaded right wing, there is no justification whatsoever for requiring ID.
If we are to require some sort of ID, it must be issued free of charge by the agency charged with enforcing voting laws. The burden of rejecting any registrant should be on the State agency to affirmatively establish that the individual voter is not entitled to vote, especially since all of the data tends to show that fraudulent voting is not significant. This is particularly true where voters of many yearss registration are suddenly "dumped" from the rolls without cause. Make the government justify with actual evidence the basis for depriving a voter of his or her franchise.
Thewholesale "dumping" of voter retistration rolls is a fraudulent politically ased exercise in voter suppression & little else.
I suspect the bigger problem in voter fraud is comprised of individuals of means who have multiple residences and who register to vote in multiple districts. As I recall, the late Sonny Bono, a Republican from the Palm Springs area actually professed that this practice should be considered legitimate.
JohnInSimi writes:
Uh huh, so all Republicans are guilty of racketeering? Would you send them to Gitmo after the kangaroo courts have finished their work?
Barney writes:
No, GITMO's closing. The only question is will it close before or after the soccer fields built? Promises, promises.
ridgewalker_101 writes:
You can't send them to Gitmo. Pres ladies tee closed it... uh, oh, wait....
JettBadger writes:
It is not the voters who decide an election, but those who count the ballots.
gdawg2112 writes:
Where does it say that an NRA card is acceptable? It is not listed as one of the acceptable forms of ID in the law. Please provide your source.
In Texas, the law requires (according to the NCSL):
Driver's license
Election identification certificate
Dept. of Public Safety personal ID card
U.S. military ID
U.S. citizenship certificate
U.S. passport
License to carry a concealed handgun issued by the Dept. of Public Safety
All of the above must include a photo of the voter. With the exception of the certificate of citizenship, these forms of ID cannot be expired, or cannot have expired more than 60 days before the election.
I'm sure your Mother-in-law could get one of those docs with a little help from you.
None of them amount to a poll tax any more than the cost of public transportation to get to a polling place.
gdawg2112 writes:
Intelligent people know the difference between "could care less" and "could not care less."
engineardude writes:
Great insight American_3 & unclneal...
What amazes me is those that keep saying any comments that are pro-conservative or anti-Lib/anti-Obama - must be DittoHeads or devout followers of Fox News.
Yet they will never sway from their own Liberal, "ahem" - I mean Progressive tea servers.
What is wrong with having voters present ID's at the polling place? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
This has nothing to do with race, class warfare, etc.
It just makes sense.
And if you can't make it to your local voting location - vote absentee!
BCChick writes:
BTW, if you have a Green card or other permit to live in the USA you can get a driver's license or other ID. So having a DL or ID does not ensure that you are a CITIZEN but simply that you are a resident.
When you register to vote, that is when your eligibility as a citizen should be checked. That way when you show up to vote it is already established whether you have the right to vote or not.
eng42 writes:
What a pathetic, elitist way of thinking.
By "IGNORANT, UNQUALIFIED, or UNINFORMED" voters"
are you referring to those tea baggers and lower class whites who vote against their own interests by voting Republican?
It has been proven many times over that those with a higher education are more likely to vote for the Democrats.
Yes, I would love it if all the people were better informed. As one time 70% of the people thought Saddam had something to do with 9-11.
The least educated were more than twice as likely to believe that.
Other studies have shown that Fox news viewers were the worst informed voters. So don't give me that bullpucky that the Republicans was informed voters. They want automaton voters, just like they want an automaton president with just enough digit to sign the legislation they put in front of him.
eng42 writes:
You're another one who needs to learn how to read! What is wrong with it is that it will disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters.
You need to read this part again
"Prodded by GOP political activists, the Justice Department under Bush conducted an extensive, nationwide, five-year probe of voter fraud — and ended up convicting a grand total of 86 individuals, according to a 2007 New York Times report. Most of the cases involved felons or immigrants who may not have known they were ineligible to vote."
ENVIROSCIGUY writes:
As LBJ told Bill Moyers after just signing the Voting Rights Act, the South had been handed over to Republicans for 50 years. http://presidentialrecordings.rotunda...
Since then, the conservatives (in their effort to conserve institutionalized racism) have used all kinds of "southern strategies" to avenge the "treachery of one of their own".
LBJ had to reject the nomination, another Kennedy (and a whole bunch of black leaders) had to be killed, a convention in Chicago had to be turned into a riot, and one election had to be outright stolen. Then IT happened, and a Northern Democrat finally became President (mostly because of another Texan - GWB).
LBJ's prediction was cut short by 9 years, because Southern blacks "got out to vote". Some whites in the Peripheral South voted for Obama, but the Deep South whites said "Heck No". http://www.southernstudies.org/2008/1...
Since then, the Deep South has taken their frustrations out on mountain tops, women, and the LGBT community. They have also told their Peripheral neighbors to "fix the problem" and spread this strategy to the Northern states hit worst by unemployment.
Some of you "blame the immigrants for everything" people have been lured into their clutches. Some of you "believe the Breitbart conspiracy theories" folks also have been captured. But this stuff only REALLY matters in the swing states. Can they suppress the voter turnouts THERE? If so, the South will have risen once again - but "unfortunately" in a year when the Republican candidate is a Yankee.
raylaw43#321876 writes:
If what you posted had any merit, why do the majority of people with college education vote Democratic and whites with a high school education or less vote Republican?
The proof of that is the demographics of the red states and the blue states. The Pubs pander to those folks who put exceptional value on guns and God; the Dems on those that value education, health and the environment. Which voters are the more well-informed?
MalibuDriver writes:
I am surprised at the number of people saying you need a photo id to cash a check. Most transactions are handled electronically through direct deposit or debit cards. I deposit checks in my account every month at the ATM but I rarely ever write a check. At stores the clerk sometimes asks for id when paying by credit card, but they never do so when paying with a debit card. I needed a photo id when opening my bank account but that was twenty years ago and haven't needed it for banking since then.
My wallet was stolen once and I didn't bother getting a new drivers' license for quite a while. Even the cop who pulled me over didn't seem to care because I knew my drivers license number.
I can imagine that there are many people who have no need for picture id. Having to make an appointment at the DMV to get a picture id just to vote will clearly prevent some legal registered voters from voting. Even getting to the DMV is a burden when you don't drive.
I agree with the author, to pass laws like these without evidence that there is a fraud problem indicates that they are being passed to gain a political advantage. It is sad that so many people don't think voting should be encouraged.
raylaw43#321876 writes:
Thank you for making my point.
Drivers license: probably a Texas drivers license.
Election identification certificate: what is that, how do you get it and how much does it cost? If it costs one penny, it is a poll tax by definition, a charge to vote.
What is a "Dept of Public Safety personal ID card? How do you get one; how much does it cost? It sounds like something that was issued by the Gestapo or KGB.
"U.S. citizen certificate". How do you get one? Who issues it? What is it?
Finally, the NRA ID, the license to carry a concealed handgun. Can a 94 year old disabled woman qualify for one?
Lets_Be_Truthful writes:
You know what is sad about the study in regards to how well informed views of particular news media are? The numbers. If one was to tout how well the non-Fox News viewers did based on their results of the questions they were asked, those people would still fail a high school political science test. Not good for any of us. :(
rationalthinker writes:
In response to the following:
"1) WHY DO YOU AND OTHER LIBERALS FIGHT THOSE WHO WISH TO ASSURE HONESTY AT THE VOTING POLLS?
Let's be clear, you and the voter suppression crowd do not "wish to assure honesty at the voting polls." There is absolutely no evidence ever presented by any State that there is any significant voting by individuals who are not qualified to vote by law. But the right seems to view "unqualified" to mean Blacks, Hispanics, students, the poor, the elderly. The only persistent, consistent dishonesty appears to be on the part of the voter suppression crowd.
2) WHY ARE YOU SO EAGER TO GIVE ILLEGAL VOTERS THE OPPORTUNITY TO VOTE IN OUR LEGITIMATE ELECTIONS EVEN IF THEY DO NOT QUALIFY TO VOTE?
See above. Show any factual evidence that persons not legally qualified to vote are registered and voting. Proponents of voter supression, including the "author" of the questions above have not shown and cannot show any pattern of such voting or any evidence of any pattern of voting by persons no lawfully entitled to vote by their citizenship, or voting by citizens otherwise lawfully permitted to vote who are subject to loss of that right by reason of a felony criminal conviction or other disability.
3) IF OUTRIGHT VOTING DECEPTION OR VOTING FRAUD IS NOT YOUR ULTIMATE GOAL, WHY MUST YOU RELY ON LAWS THAT MAKE ILLEGAL VOTING SO EASY, AND WHAT IS IT THAT CAUSES YOU TO WANT TO MAINTAIN THOSE WEAK VOTING LAWS?
Where is there any evidence that "illegal voting is so easy"? Or that the laws are weak? There is none and you know it, so the only reasonable rational conclusion is that right wing voter suppressors want to keep legitimate voters who are likely to vote against conservatives from voting by all sorts of machinations.
The author of the "questions" above is the most prolific of the voter suppressors to post in this blog. He certainly has never referred to any actual fact which would indicate that there is any voter fraud, certainly none that would be cured by requiring photo id.
The whole issue is fabricated. it is aa diversion and an attempt to prevent qualified voters from voting.
Barney writes:
You make me ROTFLMAO. Intelligent people know that while voter fraud could be a person other than the person registered voting. A picture ID would solve that kind of fraud.
Again, how do the poor cash a welfare check or, in your example, the disabled cash a disability check?
I think identification would be beneficial for stemming all fraud.
TyRollings writes:
Without identification, one can go to a voting precinct and claim to be someone else taking away his right to vote (you can only vote once). I can go to where my friend (or enemy) votes, beat him to the precinct early and vote on his behalf. Now, is the price of obtaining an ID more expensive than preventing someone to take away another's right to vote?
d2m writes:
I find it hard to believe that over 700K people didn't have any type of ID. In fact I believe that number is total BS. Voter fraud is a problem in multiple states, including Florida, Texas, and lets not forget Illinois (vote early and often)!
Holder didn't seem to mind the requirement that individuals show a valid ID to enter and listen to him speak at the NAACP conference. Nor does he seem to mind that you can't get in any federal buildings without showind an ID.
gdawg2112 writes:
For the uninformed, an NRA ID card is not the same as a license to carry a concealed weapon. So, you lied on the your first post. All of the ID methods I listed are shown in the law. What they are and how much they cost are on the Texas website. The Election Identification Certificate is free, they even cover postage. So, you are wrong, not a poll tax. You did a good job parroting AG Holder's talking points though. You get high marks for regurgitation.
eng42 writes:
As was proven by the Republican Congress investigation, that does not happen! The person who tried it would risk jail. People at the polls often know the people who are voting. It is too risky, for little gain, and that is why it doesn't happen.
You are worried about the non existent problem of someone losing the right to vote due to fraud and yet willing to take that voting right away from hundreds thousands.
eng42 writes:
Baloney! Show some proof! You have evidence that the Republican congress could not find?
gdawg2112 writes:
Why would you believe a Republican Congress? I guess Congress was right on Iraq?
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