DoJ negates SC voter ID law
Big surprise, the Department of Justice’s, Civil Rights Division rejected South Carolina’s new law that would require voters to identify themselves at the polls according to the Washington Post;
Opponents of the laws say they would discriminate against minorities and others, such as low-income voters, because some don’t have the necessary photo identification and lack the means to easily obtain ID cards.
Conservatives and other supporters of the tighter laws say they are needed to combat voter fraud.
Under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, several of the states that enacted voter-identification laws are required to receive federal “pre-clearance” to ensure that the changes don’t affect minority political power.
Yeah, the 1965 law was written to protect minorities from Democrats. Now we need laws to protect the majority from Democrats and their illegal attempts to inflict the votes of ineligible voters on the rest of us. It stands to reason that a Democrat administration would block the attempt to have fair elections.
Low income voters don’t have a problem getting the necessary identification to collect their monthly food stamps or drivers’ licenses or Medicaid cards. Every place I’ve lived, the local government forced me to get a government ID whether I drove or not, so how am I to believe that there are people without ID cards. How are they cashing checks, opening bank accounts, getting on airplanes or buses if they don’t have any ID?
ADDED: By the way, notice that the DoJ announced their decision on Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend hoping we’ll all forget about it by Tuesday?
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Liberals suck
like they used to say in Chicago, “Vote early and Vote Often.”
Everyone who’s surprised by this raise your hands. Bueller? You’re the only one surprised by it.
Dems “feel” that, “Rooting out a minuscule percentage of fraudulent votes is not worth making voting harder for people in general”. At least, according to the Charlotte Observer. However, this is the party of the definition of “is”, so “miniscule” may mean up to a million votes. Or ten million.
If folks can get their bridge card, and their liquor, and their welfare, they have ID cards. Now, maybe the ID they have doesn’t measure up, because the guy in the photo looks suspiciously like Bill Cosby, or LeBron James, but that would seem to be the card holder’s problem. At least to intelligent people. But, not to Eric Holder and his minions.
Part of the answer is pretty simple – the vast majority of those voting fraudulently do not have bank accounts and do not cash checks. It’s only people with jobs, who pay taxes and such, who have bank accounts so they can pay bills.
I would even be willing to guess that there are a significant number of folks who are voting multiple times in each election who have so many aliases that they no longer know who they really are. They have cards for getting their chips and beer, their rent is subsidized, they get donations of gifts for the kiddies, and they get to acquire their drugs with an exchange of favors. They have no bills to pay – a social worker, or somebody, takes care of all that for them.
WTF I have to show ID to buy alcohol, tobacco products and cold medicine
True, Frank, but that’s just incidental. With voters, they’re reasonably certain that many will return to the crypts after they vote. Or go back to practice with the Cowboys, or commit fraud to get The Won on the ballot in certain states. If ID is required, it just makes those things so much more difficult.
Perhaps, just to make things easier for the dems, we can let them vote one time, with all the names they want to use? Just give them a hundred ballots and let them mark all of them. Think of the savings in time for “the people”.
You would think that with all the trouble the DOJ is having with Fast and Furious…
I wonder if there will be any stories of people just wanting volunteers to show them where to mark for Obama…and being pissed when the volunteers say they can’t and won’t.
yeah…they tried that in Georgia after the O’ministration came into..uhm..power…didn’t work out so well for The O-man and be-Holder-en….. we get to keep our voter id laws..oops, I mean our racist, discriminatin law in tact…just sayin…
Now I know Oman idiot for using logic and reason here, but can any one explain to me any good, sane rational and most importantly law abiding reason why you SHOULDN’T have a voter ID card and a database at poling stations to see who voted where?
HOW you vote would remain anonymous, so that couldn’t possibly violate your rights, and if it’s an issue of money we make people pay up to $25 every 4 years for a drivers liscence, what’s $10 for a voter ID card?
So again WHY don’t we have this?
Side benefit is it would also be easier to verify citizenship for jobs
Because it’s such a pain to provide a photo ID to vote, I’ll be waiting with baited breath for the DOJ to nix the BATFE, ’34 NFA act, & ’68 GCA so I can buy/sell/maufacture firearms without the trouble of papers. The original purpose of concealed weapon laws (& most other early gun control laws) was to deny weapons to blacks. Certainly the Obama DOJ will take this logical next step for fairness?
The Democrats know that many of the votes cast for them are fraudulent, those attempting to cast ballots in the wrong precincts, felons, and illegal aliens. All of which are ineligible.
So five dollars every five years for an ID card is too much of a burden for poor, disenfranchised people. Perhaps they should learn to budget a bit better.
Ok, I will point out that I recently read ann article at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that pointed out a problem with these new voter ID laws. It was a 70 or 80 something woman who has lived in her tiny WI town all her life, home-owner for decades, voted in every election, knew all the poll workers by name. Had no driver’s license or state ID. She will have to pay $20 for a copy of her birth certificate to get an ID (she tried using other forms like social security card but the DMV won’t accept anything else) which basically makes the certificate fee a poll tax that allows her to vote.
It is slightly more complicated than a bunch of Mexicans being kept from voting illegally.
I know for a fact that Maryland prison inmates are issued state MVA ID cards before they are released. These are not inmate-related IDs but the same ones issued to folks who don’t have driver’s licenses but need valid ID to do everything that requires proof of age and residence–except voting, of course.
@12. No, that’s what the law may require, not necessarily what will be practiced by the poll judges who know the ladies. Of course, being good citizens, the ladies will likely comply.
All the heat Newt has taken for suggesting that, in appropriate circumstance, the other two branches of government might ignore a Supreme Court ruling, we’re watching it play out in real time right now. Two years ago the Supreme Court held that voter i.d. law in Indiana was Constitutional. Apparently Holder disagrees and is ignoring it.
LL: As to having to get a birth certificate to get an id – that’s a poll tax? Your kidding, right. A poll tax was an actual tax to vote. Having to get a photo i.d. that is itself free is not a poll tax. That argument is risible. It would kind of undercut the Supreme Court’s holding if, following your logic, photo id’s themselves were subject to the same potential for fraud as the elections themselves.
The only possible justification I can see for allowing freer access to voting than for other stuff requiring ID is that voting is an enumerated right in our Constitution (as is gun ownership, and that has been severely restricted) whereas driving, cashing checks etc is not.
So, as someone has already alluded to, voting and gun ownership being handled similarly makes infinitely more sense than aligning voting with check cashing.
Our governor, Nikki Haley even offered to give people free rides to the highway dept. to get photo id’s. About 25 people statewide took advantage of the freebie. I mean, we don’t exactly have a crapload of people, but, 25? What it boils down to in my opinion-“If it ain’t the mall, I ain’t goin’! I mean I gotta get all gussied up for that?”
LL, I know the person you are talking about. She knew about this problem for decades and chose not to take care of it. Social Security cards are accepted as identification at the Wisconsin DMV and an ID card for voting is free so I wonder where she was getting her information from. And since this is free, this is not a poll tax in any way, shape or form.
And this part annoys me: I have had to show ID to get on a plane, to ride a train, to get a job, to open a bank account, to rent an apartment, buy a house, and to buy alcohol which are all privileges. I have had to show a state ID card and submit to a criminal background check in order to buy my shotgun which is a right but somehow asking for ID at the voting booth is disenfranchising people?
Holder and crew are seeing the end of their run, down the road. So, get everyone set up to vote, regardless of status or address or anything that might disqualify “voters”. Then, when challenged, the DoJ will react exactly like it did in the NBP fiasco in Philly. Intimidation? Don’t see no intimidation. I. See. Nothing. says Eric the Blind.
I look for Jesse and Rev. Al to be out front, threatening riots if the brothers and sisters can’t “vote early and vote often”. Not to mention, I look forward to dem-controlled cities keeping the polls open hours after the supposed closing time, to let those who have to vote again do so. And, following the example of the great state of Minnesota, I’m sure there will be cars with trunks full of ballots, all marked for Obama.
The DOJ hired over 100 new lawyers for its Voting and Civil Rights sections not based upon competence, but on dogmatic adherence to Progressive/Marxist ideology – in complete violation of the law.
Like I’ve said before: with them reinterpreting the law, no one can be certain of the law. We’ve entered a state of listless anarchy, with the Feds taking on anyone, i.e. Arizona, Arpaio, South Carolina, deemed to be following pre-Obama laws.
Recently, four Dem operatives got slammed for hijacking elections in New York. Their defense? Republicans do it, too. No evidence, not that the FBI and New York police didn’t try to find it, but it will be enough for folks.
I’m actually a firm believer in requiring legitimate ID to vote. In WI, before they passes this law, you could vote as long as you showed a bill, like an electric or phone bill, to vote. Made me NUTS.
@18 The WI gov/DMV website does NOT list a social security card as acceptable proof of US citizenship. Only certified copies of birth certs, passports, driver’s license (which not everyone has), naturalization docs, or adoption docs. If you do not have a copy of your birth cert and you want to vote, then requiring the documentation, therefore requiring the fee to be paid is a backdoor poll tax. You MUST pay it to get ID (the ID itself is free) to vote. There is no other way around it other than expecting poll workers to break state law. And if we count on THAT, what is the damn point of the law?!
Just another case that makes you wish the laws could be written PROPERLY to cover cases like this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45772654/ns/local_news-nashville_tn/t/longtime-state-employee-may-be-blocked-voting/#.TvoPnVYbSyU
I totally agree with the intent, but damn, legislators always f*ck up the execution.
It should come as no great surprise to anyone that since most legislators are lawyers that they would write job security into the laws which they pass.
Can we please acknowledge that lawyers are trained to see everything through an adversarial lens? Think that just might have a negative impact on the laws that they write? Or the “problems” they try to solve?
The WI gov/DMV website does NOT list a social security card as acceptable proof of US citizenship.
I never said anything about proof of citizenship. And the DMV site says that a Social Security card is acceptable as proof of ID atthis link.
And given the publicity about this case, I seriously doubt she’ll be paying any cash for this. Besides, Wisconsin has introduced a bill that waives the fee for a birth certificate. So no, this is not a poll tax. Backdoor or otherwise.
I am required to show a photo ID (which is my driver’s license since I drive to the voting place). Nevermind the fact that I still show my ID there although my dad works the polls, the ID checker goes to my church and has known me for 25 years as well as the other workers there know me by name. I asked the checker why she checks my ID although she knows me, she told me that way, she can say that she checks everyone and is not discriminating against anyone. Kudos to her!