Supreme Court to decide voter ID

I picked this up over at Liberty Pundit who has the background on the case from Indiana before the Supreme Court. It’s in regard to voter IDs and here are my thoughts.

The Libertarian in me (that tiny little common sense Libertarian in me that realizes that government does some things we need) always said absolutely NOT! to voter IDs. The people who have the power could pick and choose what IDs they’ll accept at a given time and place and eventually charge for a legitimate ID excluding some people from the process.

Well, that was before I moved to Washington, DC. The very first thing I did when I got here was register to vote – the process was so simple, it scared me. I filled out a registration form online from one of the old websites (I think it was voter.org but they don’t do it anymore). After filling out the form, they mailed it to me, then I mailed the form into DC’s Board of Elections and Ethics. Bam! I was registered. No one asked me for proof of residency or proof of eligibility. All I needed was a mailing address – Hell, I didn’t even have to prove I lived at the address. I could’ve made up a name, I could’ve registered my alien resident wife, I could’ve registered my dog.

When I’d go to vote, they only asked me for my name and checked it off – no proof that was who I am. Just a check mark. Is it any wonder that crack smoking whore mongers get elected in DC?

Naw, we need to have IDs at least for registration. The piece at Liberty Pundit quotes anti-ID advocates;

The National Committee on Election Reform said that 6 to 10 percent of eligible voters don’t have valid IDs — perhaps as many as 20 million Americans. Most of them are poor, getting by with no identification at all. They don’t drive, they don’t have bank accounts and they don’t fly.

Well, then, it’s time to get them into the 21st Century, isn’t it? How are they cashing in their food stamps and welfare bennies, f’Pete’s sake? In DC, you can’t get in any office building or hospital without picture ID. Maybe that’s the root of these folks’ problems – they can’t get ahead because they can’t get into the buildings to find work or healthcare.

In the Wall Street Journal, John Fund writes a little more about the numbers involved;

Supporters say photo ID laws simply extend rules that require everyone to show such ID to travel, enter federal office buildings or pick up a government check. An honor system for voting, in their view, invites potential fraud. That’s because many voting rolls are stuffed with the names of dead people and duplicate registrations — as recent scandals in Washington state and Missouri involving the activist group ACORN attest.

Opponents say photo ID laws block poor, minority and elderly voters who lack ID from voting, and all in the name of combating a largely mythical problem of voter fraud.

Some key facts will determine the outcome, as the court weighs the potential the law has to combat fraud versus the barriers it erects to voting. The liberal Brennan Center at NYU Law School reports that a nationwide telephone survey it conducted found that 11% of the voting-age public lacks government-issued photo ID, including an implausible 25% of African-Americans.

But U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker, who first upheld Indiana’s photo ID law in 2006, cited a state study that found 99% of the voting-age population had the necessary photo ID. Judge Barker also noted that Indiana provided a photo ID for free to anyone who could prove their identity, and that critics of the law “have produced not a single piece of evidence of any identifiable registered voter who would be prevented from voting.”

So maybe the Left is playing fast and loose with the numbers (I know, the first time ever, huh?)

I know it reeks of “poll taxes”, but it’s a reasonable solution against vote fraud. If the Left really wanted to end vote fraud, they’d climb on board, too. But, I figure they’ll be against real vote fraud, um, never.

Category: Legal, Politics, Society