Badoom-tish!
Unfortunately, there's nothing funny about screwing over the poor, the elderly, and students like me. It's about time this issue starts getting the mainstream coverage it deserves. Via the NYT, a story about the nationwide Republican push to further limit the franchise:
“There is not one documented case [of voter fraud in South Carolina] that has been presented to us, and we had numerous hearings,” said State Senator Brad Hutto of South Carolina, a Democrat. “Republicans have to have some reason to do this because it doesn’t sound good to say, ‘We don’t want Latinos or African-Americans voting.’ ”
For full coverage of this issue, I encourage you to check
Campus Progress, which has followed and reported on GOP efforts to limit the franchise like a hawk. They've been on this beat for months, if not years, so if you're interested, check them out. I've summed up this battle and my bit below.
Republicans are suddenly worried about voter fraud. With the risk of those of lower income and minorities standing up and being counted in 2012 as large as it was in 2008, the right is scared. Time to throw needless impediments in the way of a fundamental right!
I must admit: for a student, I'm lucky. I come from a single-parent family, and though I've had a driver's permit for a while, we never had the dough to fork over for the insurance I would have to buy if I got a license. Since I've gone off to college, my permit has expired, and under Missouri's proposed law, I would be disenfranchised--or so I thought. Fortunately, as those who follow me may have deduced, I have a passport, valid until 2019. If I were among the 67% of Americans who didn't, however, I'd be in trouble.
Similarly in trouble are thousands of UW-Madison students, who are historically leftist and have been a thorn in the side of Wisconsin Republicans for years. Scott Walker signed legislation that bars the current form of student ID being used, and even if the ID is changed next year, requires students to dig out a receipt the vast majority do not keep on file.
South Carolina, Texas, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Maine, Ohio, and even Democrat-heavy Rhode Island are considering or have passed photo ID requirements recently. Republicans have done their best to downplay the requirements: South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has said the requirement is on par with the requirement to show photo ID when boarding an airplane or when buying Sudafed, and a conservative I know comparing it to buying beer, but none of that changes the fact that voting is a fundamental right, and should be as accessible as possible to qualified citizens.
There is a cost--in time and in money--to getting a photo ID, and those costs are heaviest on the poor and the elderly, who often cannot get out, especially during the workday when government agencies are open, to get ID.
On some level, Republicans know these laws are rotten, needless, dirty tricks, explaining, perhaps, why they wouldn't want you to notice:
“Remarkably, most of these significant changes are going under the radar,” he added. “A lot of voters are going to be surprised and dismayed when they go to their polling place and find that the rules have changed.”
Furthermore, the franchise is not threatened, no matter what BS people like Florida Republican Dennis Baxley spew:
“When we fail to protect every ballot, we disenfranchise people who participate legitimately.”
The truth is that there is simply no such threat. Even during Bush's "crackdown," from 2002 to 2007, a period spanning four federal elections, the grand total number of convictions was--wait for it--fewer than ninety, several of which were accidents. The bulk of Republican arguments for voter photo ID laws are based on pure fiction--illegal immigrants registering to vote! people stealing municipal voter cards from mailboxes!--and many others have been refuted, mainly due to the facts that dead people, though they may be registered, do not vote, and Mickey Mouse, though a form may be turned in bearing his name, will not be registered. In fact, it's worth pointing out that a far larger threat to those who "participate legitimately" in the electoral process comes in the form of misinformation campaigns by the right.
Please, call your governor, especially if you live in Missouri (That number is 573-751-3222). Write to your paper. Odds are strong that you know someone who could be affected by these terrible laws, and you can do a heck of a lot by fighting right-wing misinformation.