Voter I.D. = Disenfranchising?

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

Wisconsin recently passed legislation requiring voters to present I.D. when voting. Starting in 2012, Wisconsin voters will be required to produce a state-issued photo I.D. or other acceptable form of photo I.D. when voting. This is nothing that's unheard of and it's already being done in several states. Here's a map from 2008 discussing I.D. requirements in voting:



The latest information on state-required voter I.D. states that voter I.D. is required in 30 states currently. In 14 states, the I.D. must have a photo and in the remaining 16 states, non-photo I.D.'s are acceptable. [Source - National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL)]

However, the current issue in Wisconsin is the closure of DMV offices. Around 10 DMV offices may be closed across Wisconsin in order to extend hours at other DMV offices within the state. The argument is that the offices being closed are in Democrat voting districts while the offices with hours extending are in Republican districts. DOT officials say no final call's been made on the closures but if they go through, they could take effect starting in January. The reason given for the DMV closures is that certain offices haven't met hour requirements mandated by the state budget. The state currently operates 88 DMV centers across 72 counties.

When the voter I.D. issue was initially approached, many considered it a step by Republicans to disenfranchise voters, particularly in poor areas. Is this really a concern? Considering the vast availability of internet access to people in large cities (and even in smaller cities via schools, public libraries, and various charity organizations and centers), how hard would it be for someone to obtain a valid, state-issued I.D., even if they're impoverished?

The Wisconsin DMV website offers FREE Wisconsin ID cards for the purpose of voting to anyone of voting age who requests one and doesn't have a valid driver's license or an I.D. that's not eligible for renewal as long as they're eligible to vote in the state. With this in mind, where does the argument go?

(X-posted from my blog)

Comments

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

And? If the government shuts down 10 DMV centers, that leaves 78 centers in 72 counties. That leaves 6 counties with more than one center, and I have no doubt that each center isn't smack-dab in the middle of each county.

Also, you don't need to show up in-person to collect government benefits, so what makes you think people just can't send in scanned copies of proof of citizenship? Pretty much the only thing they'd have to show up for is to get their photo taken. If people want an I.D. badly enough to vote, they'll get one, just like they'll get one to drive a car or purchase alcohol/tobacco.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Just like poll taxes, this is just a way to get poor people from voting. There's no reason that you have to present a photo I.D. to vote. Everywhere else a voter registration card is required, and that should be enough. You can't get one of those without proving you're a citizen first.

It's one of those things that sounds okay on the surface, but when you get into the history of these kinds of things and the implications of it, it gets a lot more nefarious. To get a photo ID costs money, you need time out of your work week to go get one, which is very difficult to obtain if you're poor and working long hours, especially in this economic environment.

[sizequeen.livejournal.com]

THIS. This will also affect the elderly and college students. These people tend not to have legal ID because they do not need one. Also, poor people tend to be out of the loop, without transportation, without internet access, and without extra funds, so anything out of the ordinary is a big hassle.

Recently, my district changed the voting location from the Water Department building, which is on a bus route and centrally located in a poor area, to the Fire Department building a mile or so a way. The voting was downstairs, and there was no handicap access. I had to help a man with one leg hop down the steps. It was terrifying. Also, the FD building is off the main bus route. Believe me, the voting rate plummeted. People just couldn't do it.

There are so many thing middle class people consider essential that is basically a privilege for the poor---checking accounts, credit and debit cards, auto (if they have cars) and health insurance, computers, internet service. The lack of these basic amenities make life much more difficult. You have to deal with check cashing places which cost extra, payday loan stores, buses (can you imagine going to the grocery with your children on the bus?), whatever public internet service is available (one hour a day at my local library). The list goes on.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Just like poll taxes, this is just a way to get poor people from voting.

If the ID is free, how?

There's no reason that you have to present a photo I.D. to vote.

How else does the person running the polls know who I am?

Everywhere else a voter registration card is required, and that should be enough.

Incorrect. A "voter registration card" would be an ID in this case. Right now, in Massachusetts? I simply walk up to the desk and say "my name is Jeff," and they hand me a ballot. They don't know me - I could say I'm Robert, or Kylin, or anyone else, and if that person doesn't actually bother to vote, it will never, ever be caught.

It's one of those things that sounds okay on the surface, but when you get into the history of these kinds of things and the implications of it, it gets a lot more nefarious.

Stop seeing things through a framework of injustice and start looking at it in a framework of fairness.

. To get a photo ID costs money, you need time out of your work week to go get one, which is very difficult to obtain if you're poor and working long hours, especially in this economic environment.

See the link: again, untrue.

That an ID to vote is not standard is nothing short of ridiculous, period.

[hikarugenji.livejournal.com]

Also the poorer and less educated you are, the less likely you are to know about the necessity for having such ID until it's too late. As you said, this is a 21st-century poll tax.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Hm. Do you consider states with a stop and identify law that requires producing personal ID to be a class-based issue?

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

I've got to agree with jeff. Here in NJ I just walk up to the "S-Z" table, state my name, sign a chit and head to the booth. If you knew my name you could walk in a half hour before me and vote under my name with very little trouble.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

I have a buddy on SSI who gets 834 per month. Rents for 1 bedroom are 1000 per month and milk is 3-5 bucks per half gallon.

It aint much and he literally couldn't afford the bus ride to the DMV to get his ID. My friend gave him a ride and probably paid his fee too.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Small government Republicans must be outraged.

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

Not the ones actually in the government.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

particularly the ones without id's. If you got yours, no problems.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

There are only a few people in this community more libertarian than i am, and I don't see what the big deal is. Honestly. If you are dirt poor and motivated enough to register to vote, which requires getting to the Post Office, filling out forms and proving identity, then I don't see how asking for a photo ID is prima facia disenfranchisement. When I go vote I just state my name, they find me in the book, I sign a ticket with my illegible scrawl and into the booth I go. I know a half dozen people in my neighborhood who I could impersonate and vote in their place, disenfranchising them 9/10. Requiring someone to minimally identify themselves just seems like common sense to me.

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

I have to agree. That you need some sort of ID for anything with the government isn't news and I don't think we should assume that people are clueless just because they're poor.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Why do libertarians support this particular law and the regulations around it? Because it's 'not a big deal'? Okay, then I can just say all the other regulations aren't a big deal. Now they're justified.

Again, your state isn't affected by this, but it could be in the future.

[msretro.livejournal.com]

It's getting harder to get ID in Florida, as a result of our illegal immigrant paranoia. You can only get it replaced online once, and, you now need quite a lot of proof of who you are to get it in person.

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

Given the raise in ID theft a hell of a lot of proof for government ID doesn't seem unreasonable.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/hava/compliance_manual/chpt7_voter_identification_requirements_final.pdf
California requires voter identification, it just can be when you register and doesn't have to be at the polls (although for Federal elections, you do have to show ID at the polls). I don't see any problem with requiring this, and I don't see a significant difference between requiring ID at registration time or requiring it at poll time.

If you look at California's requirements, there are 28 different ways to prove your I.D., only one of which is a state photo I.D. I don't see why Wisconsin can't do the same.

[enasisabitch.livejournal.com]

I have voted in California you do need your ID to get a ballot. Personally I think its strange to not have an ID but I live in socal so pretty much everyone has at least a drivers license

[telemann.livejournal.com]

The issue is a lot broader than you're stating in your post. Several of these states with solidly Republican state houses and governors have passed stringent requirements, not just simple photo IDs. Florida and Ohio are great examples: poorer voter precincts and urban centers get overwhelmed with heavy voting, so several states passed early voting periods to ease that up. Republicans halved the early voter time from 14 days to 7. They targeted voter driver groups such as the League of Women Voters, Boy Scouts, and Church groups, imposing strict fines for each instance, essentially forcing these groups to stop their registration drives. Felons who have served their sentences are prevented from voting for another five years AFTER they've served their sentence and up to 7 years depending on the crime. Kansas changed its voter laws to require a copy of your birth certificate be presented at the time of voting. All of this done without a shred of proof any wrongdoing is an issue at a systemic level. A federal judge threw out the previous Florida law saying the cause of harm to potential voters and their right to vote wasn't warranted by the state's lack of proof of significant voter fraud. The current law in Florida is being challenged again in Federal court, and will more than likely be thrown out for the same reasons it was in 2007.

It's a hoot when you have right wingers even suggesting it's ok to disenfranchise voters:

JOHN STOSSEL (9/28/2010): Why do we have these campaigns saying, we have to get all the young people to vote? Young people often don't know anything. ... Let's stop saying everyone should vote.

RUSH LIMBAUGH (12/3/2010): If people cannot even feed and clothe themselves, should they be allowed to vote? (audience groans in disgust) Should they be voting?

JUDSON PHILLIPS (11/17/2010): If you're not a property owner, you know, I'm sorry but property owners have a little bit more of a vested stake in the community than not property owners do. (audience groans in disgust again). As Steven Colbert [1] noted And that's Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips. He knows the Founding Fathers were property owners, and some of the descendants of that property just shouldn't vote.

[1.] Source with video clip here. (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/21/996884/-Stephen-Colbert-highlights-GOP-voter-suppression-efforts-around-the-country)

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

To be fair, Stossel isn't saying the same thing the other two are.

It's not so controversial to suggest that encouraging everyone, regardless of intelligence or the wisdom experience can bring to the table, has no deleterious effect on the system, and hence, on everyone. He wasn't saying people shouldn't be allowed to vote, only that there are some people who probably shouldn't be encouraged to vote, and I don't think there's anyone of any political persuasion who hasn't at least tacitly thought that.

And I've seen how Dailykos and sites other sites like MediaMatters dice up clips and quotes dishonestly, because I've seen some of the clips in their original airings which gives context they *ahem* forget to include.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Until there is a Constitutional requirement for some form of universal photo id for citizens, I do not think there should be a photo id requirement to exercise your Constitutional right to vote.

I understand a valid concern about voter fraud, but there is zero evidence of a voter fraud problem that could even effect the margin for error in vote counting methodology -- the "cure" of adding a condition to voting that is not a condition of citizenship is therefore far in excess of the problem.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

But right now were essentially working on faith based voting. Most places do not verify the identity of a person voting. Only that the name given is a valid name.

How can you be certain of anything when you reject any validation?

[xforge.livejournal.com]

None of this would really even be a problem for anyone if there were even the slightest evidence of anyone attempting voter fraud ever in the history of ever. To say nothing of the fact these efforts are really, really blatantly slanted toward keeping poor people and minorities from voting, I mean really now.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Its wierd how often the dead vote in Chicago.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I might note that in Jim Crow times there were never laws that explicitly disfranchised anyone, because the 15th and 14th Amendments made that impossible. Instead you had poll taxes, literacy tests, the grandfather clause, a whole mess of niceties that never applied to blacks same as they did whites. It might be nice to think that would not repeat itself, but it would be hopelessly optimistic.

[404.livejournal.com]

Your attempt to turn this into a racial issue is noted.

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

Just as some feel any extra paperwork to purchase a gun is an intrusion on the basic right to bear arms, others feel any extra paperwork to be able to vote is also an impediment to that right.

This is nothing but an obstacle put in to discourage poor people from voting, using the non-issue smoke screen of "voter fraud" as an excuse. However I'd still be okay with it if IDs are provided free and if locations that are more accessible to the poor are opened up to minimize the hassle. In fact I'd say it would be constitutionally required to have these stipulations, because otherwise it would just be a new version of the poll tax.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

The logic of enacting law to prevent hypotheticals blows my mind. You can technically just walk into a hospital with a bomb strapped to your chest and blow it up. Do we need TSA scanners at hospital entrances? You can do all sorts of things that harm other things and people and break laws so do we need to account for every possible situation? This shit is PATRIOT ACT logic here, folks.

Why not prove that there's an actual problem before you go regulating laws that allegedly prevent it.

The best part is most of the rare, known instances of voter fraud are not things that are solved by photo voter IDs.

[404.livejournal.com]

The idea that people don't have some sort of government ID blows my mind. There are so many day to day activities that require an ID that I don't see how anyone doesn't have an ID over the legal age, and those that don't, I don't see why they would even want to vote anyways.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2011/07/25-2

Seriously, how does anyone not see this?