For as long as I can remember Republicans have been crying about voter fraud. Truth of the matter is, it’s not voter fraud when Republicans win, it’s only fraud when they lose because, you know, they’re not supposed to lose with all that unaccountable, unregulated corporate money flowing into the coffers of their private expenditure groups. I mean, it flies in the face of the very tenets of capitalism in their minds.
So when Republicans say we have to up the ID requirements to ensure folks like immigrants or *insert the name of group to demonize of the day* whatever aren’t voting illegally I ask what the cost is to our Republic. See, I’ve been using my photo ID for two decades to vote, so it’s no skin off my nose and it keeps me from having to carry around a voter registration card. But I recognize that I’m not like everyone else, and just because I do it, doesn’t mean that everyone else should have to.
Also, if the intent is to ensure that non-citizens don’t vote, perhaps they should check the regulations. There are all kinds of immigration documents that pass for primary identification in the process of getting an ID. All this law requires is a way to check identity, not citizenship status, voting location or anything else. So for the vast majority of folks who have an appropriate ID of any kind, this isn’t going to be that big of a deal.
But the system of laws we have aren’t set up just to protect the majority. There are laws in place, though many Republicans are loathe to admit it, to ensure minorities don’t get kicked around too bad in the legal process. In fact, those laws served Republicans well in the 100+ years that they were relegated to the minority party in this state. Kinda funny what people conveniently forget when they get just a little bit of power.
Anyway, Republicans have been beating this drum since before the 2000 election debacle that gave us 8 years of stupid. During that 8 years the Bush Administration pushed prosecutors to look for voter fraud. They didn’t find much. In fact, what they found was not some kind of big conspiracy, but mostly local yokels buying votes which one would think would fall right in to the Republicans idea of markets regulating themselves, right?
Nope, over and over again reports find that fraud committed by voters is rare. Some have even called this Republican fascination with fraud a hoax. But the real thing that just pisses them off, more than anything else is not the potential of fraud, but who is both gathering and registering to vote.
See, they know that if there are more people voting and jazzed about voting, their block will lose power at the polls. By making it harder for some to vote, like poor people, they can fight a war on two fronts: by working to get people elected that want to dismantle the social safety net, and working to ensure those who benefit from any part of that social safety net have a hard time voting. That’s also what vote caging, purges and other tactics to limit a person’s ability to vote are ultimately all about.
So yeah, there’s a pattern here, don’t get it switched.
In yesterday’s CA, Brent Leatherwood, the flack for the House GOP leadership said
“The only individuals this bill will disenfranchise are dead people whose votes should never count in elections,” he said.
That’s a good sound bite Brent, but it’s just wrong.
Did you know, the new law allows people over 65 to vote absentee without proving their identity? Yep. If you’re over 65 and you’ve got it together enough to request an absentee ballot you can have it delivered to your door, vote, and move on with your life.
Now I love this for folks over 65. In fact, I think this might be a gateway to voting by mail, which I also think is pretty awesome. However, what would stop someone from ordering an absentee ballot for someone who’s no longer alive? How does this stop dead people from voting? If anything, it makes it easier for dead people to vote…absentee anyway.
If the intent is to stop dead people from voting, perhaps Republicans in the state legislature should focus their efforts on removing dead people from the rolls. There are public records you know.
Another thing this bill doesn’t do is stop people who have moved to a neighboring county or state from voting if they’re still registered in Tennessee. Tennessee has weird laws about this. If you live somewhere else, but call Tennessee you home you can vote here. So say I moved to Olive Branch, MS, but still wanted to vote in Memphis. As long as I called Memphis home, I could do it, which means even though I’m not contributing to the tax base in Memphis in any real way I somehow can still have a say in what goes down here. Same is true if I moved t Tipton, Fayette, or any other place. The ID bill is there to verify identity, not residence.
Nope, this bill isn’t about stopping fraud, it’s about voter suppression. It’s about making sure the “right” people vote by erecting barriers to “other” people exercising their right to vote, in this case, mostly poor people.
If the Republicans who just love this bill really want to stop fraud, they should look at FINALLY implementing TVCA and real live paper ballots. But they’re not really concerned about election fraud, they’re concerned about voter fraud.
This isn’t going to stop fraud, it is a well orchestrated attempt to stop some people from voting. That’s it. Claims to the contrary don’t hold any water.