Married women in Arizona are being denied the right to vote by the new Voter ID law, according to the LA Times -- which doesn't quite say so, but we know how to read between the lines. It reports that the "stringent voter identification law being put into effect in Arizona -- designed to keep illegal immigrants from voting -- is also preventing thousands of legitimate voters from casting ballots" in this Tuesday's election.
Much attention in many states has been given to the Voter ID laws' disenfranchisement of minorities, who tend to vote Democrat.
But it turns out that the Voter ID laws also disenfranchise women -- the majority of the Democratic voters for decades in presidential elections as well as many state and local elections.
See http://www.latimes.com/...
In Maricopa County alone, home to Phoenix -- and the fourth-most populous county in the country (kudos to Joan Reports for that significant point that the LA Times also neglected to mention) . . . more than 10,000 people trying to register have been rejected for being unable to prove their citizenship. Yvonne Reed, a spokeswoman for the recorder's office, said most are probably U.S. citizens whose married names differ from the ones on their birth certificates," the LA Times reports.
Which group of voters is most likely to change their names upon marriage? The LA Times doesn't say it, but we can:
Women.
Republicans are repealing the Nineteenth Amendment, the result of the "century of struggle" by woman suffragists.
The struggle is not over. The struggle is on again -- not just for Roe v. Wade, not just for the right to birth control, but even for the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
And note that this also is a struggle for all the state laws that allowed women to vote in some or all elections even sooner, as early as 1869 in a territory in the West.
That's how regressive Republicans really are.