From USA Today:
"Voter-ID laws may handicap black voter turnout, Dems fear"
There is good reason why President
Obama's campaign refers to the African-American voting bloc as the "bedrock"
of the president's support. Two million more black voters turned up at the polls in
2008 than in 2004, and central to the president's re-election strategy is
expanding minority participation in 2012. But political analysts and supporters of the president in
the African-American community say that tougher voter-ID laws in the pipeline in
several states — including a few battleground states where the black vote will
be crucial for Obama's re-election hopes — could diminish black voter turnout in
November. In the battleground state of Pennsylvania, where the NAACP
is among the plaintiffs in a lawsuit to block a new voter-ID law there, more
than 9% of the state's registered electorate does not have a driver's license or
an alternative state identification required under new rules, the Philadelphia
Daily News reported last week. In Philadelphia, with a majority
African-American population, more than 18% of registered voters don't have
required IDs. "I support efforts to say, look, we want people to come in
and make sure they're a citizen of the United
States and that they haven't voted multiple times and they're not voting for
someone who's passed away," Romney said at a forum in Chester Township, Pa., in
April. " I know a number of states are doing that, and we have the attorney
general of the United States trying to keep that from happening." More than 5 million Americans could be affected by the new
voting rules, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice at New
York University. These restrictions — including photo ID requirements, proof
of citizenship to register voters and shorter windows for absentee and early
voting — fall heaviest on young, minority and low-income voters, the analysis
said.
^ This is just stupid. I fully support requiring people to show some form of government-issued ID with a photo when they vote. It seems the Democrats, like usual, are trying to find excuses as to why they will probably loose this November and of course to them it has nothing to do with their poor performance since the last election or the health care mandate. Now they are playing the race card. If the Republicans had played the race card back when Obama was first running then they would have been called racist, but for the Democrats to do so now is apparently fine. As far as I understand no state - and my state just passed showing a photo ID card when voting - that requires photo ID is preventing anyone (White, Black, Asian or Hispanic) from getting a driver's license or a non-driving id. They can also use Federally-issued Passports and Passport Cards as well as Military ID Cards and Tribal IDs. The fact that people do not have them is their own, individual fault - especially nowadays when you have needed ID for most things since 9-11. I think it is just plain disgusting to equate a photo ID for voting with the Jim Crow laws of the South or Nazi Germany (I heard the last one on TV.) No one is forcing anyone to take a test or pay a voting tax. They are merely saying that you need to prove you are who you say you are by showing a photo ID and that you are registered to vote at the polling station. Besides isn't voting a privilege and not a right - like driving? Many places don't allow prisoners to vote and no one complains about that. Also, no one complains (or cries "racism") that you have to show photo ID to fly, take a train, go to a medical appointment, take out a loan, buy a car, etc. It is just what we have to do nowadays. To all the people who don't have a photo ID I would tell them to stop complaining and go get one - you have several months before the election. To all the people who say forcing people to show a photo ID to vote I would tell them to "shut up" and focus on more important issues like the economy, Afghanistan, health care, etc.
^
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