More fuel on the photo ID fire
The Missouri House just passed a contentious resolution asking for a constitutional amendment to require an official photo ID to cast a ballot.
At virtually the same moment, opponents of the measure ramped up their protests at a news conference in St. Louis, reiterating their claims that the measure would keep some people – particularly poor, elderly and minority citizens – out of the voting both.
These are only the latest development in a lengthy debate over photo ID requirements in Missouri. Republicans in 2006 passed a law requiring government issued photo ID, but the state supreme court ruled the the requirements violated the state constitution.
But last month, a decision by the U.S. high court breathed new life into the issue. The justices ruled that Indiana’s photo ID law was constitutional on the federal level.
That gave heart to Missouri Republicans who scrambled to fast-track the proposed ballot question, which asks voters whether the state constitution should be amended to require government-issued photo ID at the polls.
Supporters of the measure say that photo ID requirements are a nominal burden and yet go a long way toward the goal of preventing voter fraud. Most people, they say, already have or could easily get the required ID.
“When you go to vote, you should be able to prove who you are,” said Rep. Stanley Cox, R-Sedalia, who sponsored resolution.
The measure passed the house 88 to 69 after about an hour of highly partisan debate. No Democrats voted yes; only Rep. Jim Guest, R-King City, crossed party lines.
One of the most vocal critics of the idea, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, a Democrat, held a press conference at the same time in St. Louis to stress her opposition. Carnahan said it was her job “to protect every voter’s right to vote, not 95 percent of voters.”
“These laws are detrimental and harmful to these people who want to exercise their right to vote,” Carnahan said.
Other local residents also spoke out against the measure. Two nuns said elderly sisters of their orders typically don’t have drivers licenses. A woman originally from Mississippi said her birth certificate, once held there in Jackson, was destroyed in a fire.
Opponents say the requirement could be discriminatory – that elderly, poor and minority residents will feel the burden more, as they’re less likely to have an up-to-date drivers license, state ID or passport. Critics also see the cost and process to obtain a birth certificate to get a such an ID as simply too high a hurdle.
Still, during the press conference, the resolution’s passing was announced as expected. Carnahan then suggested that voters call their state senators, who have only days to pass the measure.
(Thanks to Lee Logan, of the Post-Dispatch Jeff City bureau, for reporting on the bill’s passage from the House.)
Missouri is such a queer place. People here want to use the state constitution for the funniest reasons. What a travesty that a document that is supposed to guarantee rights has been so misused and abused to discriminate against minorities.
Anyone who thinks it such a horrible burden to provide something as trivial as an id before they vote doesn’t deserve to vote in the first place. When someone commits fraud to cast a vote in an election, it diminishes the power of each legitimate vote in the community by diluting them. Fraudulent voting perverts the results, and worse, it instills a mistrust of the democratic processes that undergird our Republic. For a party that wet itself in 2001 with false charges of stolen elections, fighting against a simple and reasonable measure that helps ensure fairness seems, well, stupid.
Go Fish a lot of people can fall through the photo ID cracks. Here’s an example;
“Russell Baughman, 61, has fought in three conflicts as a part of the United States Army. He was on the front lines in Vietnam in March of 1967 during a battle that has since become known as “the bloodiest week.” He was sent to Panama shortly after the 1989 U.S. invasion as part of a security maintenance force. And he spent six months in the deserts of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during the Gulf War in the early ’90s.
His military discharge papers feature a paragraph’s worth of honors and awards, like the national defense service medal, the Vietnam service medal with two bronze service stars, the combat/infantry badge and a purple heart for being wounded during combat.
So when Baughman arrived at his polling place at precinct 52 in Lawrence March 11 for the special election, he wasn’t expecting to have a problem voting in the country he had defended.
But since Indiana passed its new Voter ID law, which requires every voter to have a valid, government-issued photo ID, Baughman’s identification was no longer good enough.
He had with him his expired driver’s license (he rides a bicycle), his Department of Veterans Affairs card (featuring his purple heart endorsement) and, of all things, his voter’s registration card.
But Baughman was told that neither of his photo IDs were valid. His driver’s license didn’t count because it was expired and his Veterans Affairs card didn’t count because it didn’t feature any expiration date at all.
“I’ve been on the voting rolls since 1968,” Baughman said, “and all of a sudden they expect my identity to change. There was no change.”
Baughman was offered a provisional ballot. The print was so small that the polling officials had to fetch a magnifying glass. After filling out a provisional ballot, the voter has 10 days to prove his or her identity at their county clerk’s office. During this time the voter must come up with the appropriate identification.
But herein lay Baughman’s problem.
He had been to the license branch several times, trying to attain a new photo ID card, and had been denied. In order to get a new photo ID, one must have one form of primary identification: an original birth certificate or naturalization card, a U.S. Veterans Universal Access Identification card, a current military ID card or a valid U.S. passport.”
Guess he don’t deserve to vote. He’s only a decorated veteran.
“Those who cast the votes decide nothing, those who count the votes decide everything.”
- Joseph Stalin
I think Stalin sums it up pretty good.
Go Fish,
The issue is not providing ID, it is providing a Gov’t issued photo ID that costs money to acquire. Why shouldn’t an ID such as a college ID, a voter registration card, an employers ID etc count? When you mandate that it has to be a particular type of and that type of ID costs money, it is a problem.
I can’t believe the fact that people are complaining that it is too much to ask for one to provide a government issued photo id. In todays world you need a government issued photo id for just about anything.
About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow bride of Christ because they didn’t have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.
Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow sisters at Saint Mary’s Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote.
The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn’t get one but came to the precinct anyway.
“One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, ‘I don’t want to go do that,’” Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.
They weren’t given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back in the 10-day time frame allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. “You have to remember that some of these ladies don’t walk well. They’re in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts.”
Nonetheless, she said, the convent will make a “very concerted effort” to get proper identification for the nuns in time for the general election. “We’re going to take from now until November to get them out and get this done. You can’t do this like school kids on a bus,” she said. “I wish we could.”
First war heros now nuns.
The law provides for a free ID for those who can’t afford it so the cost issue is a moot point. They will even come to you in a mobile van to do it. Those over 65 are not required to provide a birth certificate so that argument doesn’t wash either.
Of course we can all come up with sympathetic anecdotes but in each of the cases you provided Bubba Union, it was human error that caused the problem, not the ID requirement. In the case of the nuns, they admitted they didnt want to get an ID, which they could have done and had they done so before the election, they would not have been turned away. In the case of the veteran, he had sufficient documentation to get his state issued ID card and a supervisor could have issued it but it makes a better story to say ‘veteran denied’.
The only reason to object to photo ID is if you want to vote for someone else usuing their name.
“They will even come to you in a mobile van to do it.”
oldtimer
here’s the catch…how often and where?
my guess…not very often… and only to affluent nusing homes in Ladue
If you go to your own bank to deposit your paycheck, and want $20 back, you have to show ID. You have to show ID to buy a beer. You have to show ID to buy a pack of cigarettes. These poor minorities seem to manage to get their hands on smokes and booze. Yet when it comes down to voting, it’s an excessive burden. What a joke.