GOP still trying hard to make voting harder?!!

[christiefan915]

SS card or birth certificate, but young don't get government assistance. In Alaska when you register to vote, you get a voters iD card which you can use to vote.

That raises an interesting point. Why wasn't the photo ID implemented when the person registers to vote? Why afterwards?

I just don't understand how it's constitutional to require a photo ID for voting.

[christiefan915]

(leaving voting aside) This comment probably makes me out of touch but it seems hard to do many things if you don't have an ID. Now if you are dirt poor you may not have a credit card, a car or a bank account. But don't people need ID's to receive government assistance or no?

This wasn't a concern when people first registered to vote, why now?

[christiefan915]

it has to do with the dead, the people who no longer live where they are registered to vote, felons and other Democrats.......

Uh-huh. Two hundred plus years of voting and suddenly we need photo IDs. If your scenario is valid, photo IDs should have been required around the time Daguerre invented the camera.

[Liberty]

By Jonathan Alter
Bloomberg News

Mitt Romney campaigned in Michigan last week, where he faces a steep challenge because of his opposition to the auto bailout. But Romney has a strong ally there: legislation being pushed this month by his fellow Republicans aimed at preventing the League of Women Voters from undertaking the voter-registration drives it has sponsored for nearly a century.

Across the country, Republicans are carefully orchestrating plans to make voting harder – let’s call it the Voter Suppression Project – in order to help them win elections.

The Republican effort to restrict voting isn’t just anti-Democrat; it’s anti-democratic. No fair-minded person believes the tall tales of voters pretending they were someone else, which have been debunked by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law and others. What fool would risk prison or deportation to cast a single vote?

This isn’t about stopping vote-stealing and other corruption, for which there already are plenty of laws on the books. It’s about rigging the system to keep power.

First we saw the efforts during the George W. Bush administration by Karl Rove and Justice Department officials to get rid of U.S. attorneys who refused to pursue bogus voter-fraud cases.

Then came Crawford v. Marion County, the 2008 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that mandatory photo-identification laws were constitutional on the basis of ballot protection. The evidence presented included not a single case of in-person impersonation fraud – the only fraud that photo-ID laws can prevent. And the millions of Americans – mostly less-affluent seniors – without driver’s licenses? Good luck.

The big Republican victory in the 2010 election was essential to the Voter Suppression Project. With the help of the American Legislative Exchange Council, Republicans moved with lightning speed to implement their scheme. Since 2011, 18 states have enacted voter-suppression bills, with similar ones pending in 12 more.

In the presidential race, it’s hand-to-hand legal combat, with almost every battleground state embroiled in a struggle over voter eligibility.

Michigan’s bills attack the League of Women Voters by requiring some volunteers to attend state-approved training sessions before they can register voters.

The catch is that the bill makes no provisions for such sessions. It does threaten them with penalties for registration offenses that aren’t specified.

The bill is modeled on Florida’s, parts of which a federal judge invalidated May 31 because he said they had “no purpose other than to discourage” constitutionally protected activity.

In Ohio, the Obama campaign helped collect enough signatures to put a referendum on the ballot repealing restrictions on absentee voting. Preferring not to face the voters directly on voter suppression, the Republican-controlled legislature repealed its own law, although it left intact a related measure that prohibits early voting on the three days before an election. That’s designed to discourage the tradition in black communities of busing worshippers from church to the polling place.

Several battleground states have new photo-ID requirements. Pennsylvania’s law allows valid student ID, but with a number of restrictions. Same in Wisconsin, which attached a series of bring-me-the-witch’s-broomstick demands for students looking to use a school ID. Fortunately, a state judge ruled against the Wisconsin law, although it’s being appealed.

The Obama campaign is obviously concerned about these ballot-access issues for political reasons. But even those with no dog in this fight should recognize that a great democracy doesn’t sully itself by suppressing the precious right to vote.

I'd be happy if they could restrict the "vote me money" people from voting, because it seems to be my money they're voting to take.

[Superfreak]

It has nothing to do with illegals. It's got lots to do with the poor, elderly, students, and the military.

Checks, Alcohol, Bank Account, Credit Cards, Debit cards, Employment, tobacco, food stamps, welfare, unemployment etc... all things that require an ID.

Tell us, how do the poor get welfare if they don't have an ID?

This constant excuse that it is too hard to get an ID is bogus. How many students do you think don't have ID's? It is minimal cost ($10 typically) and free to those that are low income (in most states).

[Superfreak]

(leaving voting aside) This comment probably makes me out of touch but it seems hard to do many things if you don't have an ID. Now if you are dirt poor you may not have a credit card, a car or a bank account. But don't people need ID's to receive government assistance or no?

yes, they need an ID to get welfare benefits.

[leaningright]

yes, they need an ID to get welfare benefits.

Are they picture ID's and does the government provide them?

[christiefan915]

Checks, Alcohol, Bank Account, Credit Cards, Debit cards, Employment, tobacco, food stamps, welfare, unemployment etc... all things that require an ID.

Tell us, how do the poor get welfare if they don't have an ID?

This constant excuse that it is too hard to get an ID is bogus. How many students do you think don't have ID's? It is minimal cost ($10 typically) and free to those that are low income (in most states).

You're correct in saying most of those thing require ID... but they don't all require a photo ID.

[Superfreak]

Are they picture ID's and does the government provide them?

It is typically a state by state issue. Here, if people cannot 'afford' the $10, they can get it free. Here a photo ID is needed.

[cawacko]

This wasn't a concern when people first registered to vote, why now?

I said leaving voting aside as in not talking about voting. I was asking from a living life on a day-to-day perspective. It wasn't an ask one thing so I can later ask what I really want Jarod type question.

[Superfreak]

You're correct in saying most of those thing require ID... but they don't all require a photo ID.

every single one of them require a photo ID. As I just mentioned to leaning... each state can be different with regards to welfare, but it is most common that an ID be required. Bottom line, a state photo ID is not hard to get for the vast majority of people, especially those in urban areas. To proclaim it is too hard is nothing more than an excuse.

[christiefan915]

I said leaving voting aside as in not talking about voting. I was asking from a living life on a day-to-day perspective. It wasn't an ask one thing so I can later ask what I really want Jarod type question.

Well on a day-to-day perspective here, the only time I have to show photo ID is in Costco.

[christiefan915]

every single one of them require a photo ID. As I just mentioned to leaning... each state can be different with regards to welfare, but it is most common that an ID be required. Bottom line, a state photo ID is not hard to get for the vast majority of people, especially those in urban areas. To proclaim it is too hard is nothing more than an excuse.

Speaking for PA only, that's untrue. I don't need a photo ID for checks, bank account, or credit cards. I don't use food stamps, welfare, unemployment or tobacco so can't comment on them. I don't have a debit card but my son does and he didn't need photo ID to get it. That leaves alcohol, employment, driver's license and passport. Oh, and Costco.

[Rationalist]

Well on a day-to-day perspective here, the only time I have to show photo ID is in Costco.

PA is more than welcome to fuck up their own elections if that is their desire, but they should not be permitted to fuck up the Presidential race. There should be a federal law requiring photo ID for federal elections. It's common sense.

You, along with other Democrats, are just worried that Obama will lose without support from dead people, illegal aliens, etc. And that is probably true.

[Rationalist]

Speaking for PA only, that's untrue. I don't need a photo ID for checks, bank account, or credit cards. I don't use food stamps, welfare, unemployment or tobacco so can't comment on them. I don't have a debit card but my son does and he didn't need photo ID to get it. That leaves alcohol, employment, driver's license and passport. Oh, and Costco.

Sounds like an identity thief's paradise.