I would like to commend Oklahoma's Democratic Governor Brad Henry for vetoing Senate Bill 4, or the Voter ID bill, that had passed the Republican controlled legislature. This bill would force voters to show state issued ID cards or county issued voter registration cards. This would disenfranchise thousands of voters, mostly Democratic voters.
It is good to know that someone sees how idiotic it is to try and fix a problem that doesn't exist. The first rule of any policy should be trying to find a problem and then looking for a solution to that problem. In the last election, 1.4 million people voted in Oklahoma and there were 6 reported cases of voter fraud. All 6 cases happened when someone showed up to vote, and someone had signed next to their name. All 6 were an accident where the person signed the wrong line. Also, the Justice Department did a 3 year study on voter fraud and came up with 13 convictions and 11 guilty pleas. That is 8 voter fraud cases a year in a nation of more than 300 million people. Again, not a problem.
In a statement, Gov. Henry said:
The right to vote is one of our most precious freedoms, guaranteed to all eligible U.S. citizens regardless of their race, gender, religion, income level or social status, and policymakers must be especially careful when tinkering with this fundamental right.
Aside from the actual bill, it passed the House without any debate. This was after Democratic Representative Rebecca Hamilton motioned to proceed without further questions to the authors while House Democrats were trying to figure out a few specifics on county issued voter ID cards. The Oklahoma GOP has tried to position itself as the reform party. It would be nice to see some transparency and more debate.
Right after the veto, the House and Senate passed a measure to put the issue to a vote of the people. The Governor can decide when it will be voted upon. When that happens, people on the side of voting rights should work hard to convince that we should not be so quick to give up our rights to fix a problem that doesn't exist.