Friday, December 23, 2011

Voter ID Laws

The issue of Voter ID has been percolating for some time now.  Locally, Businessman Tom Weaver has been pushing the idea of requiring an ID to vote, to avoid voter fraud.

Now the US Attorney General, Eric Holder, has blocked South Carolina's new law to require voter ID.  Expect an appeal, as the issue is contentious.

Then there is this thought and quote from the Instapundit:
I think that right-leaning activists should start challenging other ID requirements on the same grounds.  Why isn’t requiring ID to fly a racial burden on the right to travel?

UPDATE: Duane Hershberger makes an excellent point:  “How about requiring ID and registration to buy a gun?  ID to buy guns started out as a way to keep blacks from having them.  If voting is the same as owning a gun, Holder should advocate disbanding BATFE, a clearly racist organization.”
I think the point about "gun control" being racist in origin is spot on.  Check the history.

This eventually gets down to a question of how much voter fraud there is.  That is an almost religious argument in that often facts are not available or not presented—and it is about the facts.  And it is about the issue of voter intimidation, although why folks would be intimidated about showing ID to vote is hard for some to imagine.  Do these voters neither drive nor fly?  Do they not cash checks or do other banking activities?  Do they not have a Post Office Box?  If whole classes of People, or segments thereof are afraid to obtain and use a government ID we have bigger problems than voting issues—we have sections of the population who are excluded from the American Dream.

If AG Holder's action is upheld, the first step should be to challenge the USPS requirement to show an ID (two, as I recall) to rent a PO Box.

Hat tip to the Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

2 comments:

  1. the other cliff12/24/2011 11:03:00 AM

    A rather large percentage of the population is "unbanked". According to the NYT, about 7.7 percent. Many of these people either do not have ID or are afraid to use it, mostly because they are illegals. Note that many banks will accept foreign ID for opening an account.

    Remove banking from your argument, and it gets stronger.

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  2. But excluding whole segments of the "population" from enjoying the American Dream is the whole point. First, to enjoy it.....you MUST be American, that is, this must be where you are a LEGAL citizen. Once that is done...there is no further argument against an ID to vote.

    Holder and his handler Obama are playing a very, very, very dangerous game by flirting with race and class in the way that they are. I would suggest that most folks don't really think much about race day to day. But if you start rubbing their faces in it, you generate some thought and some emotion.

    Same with Class. With the exception of those whose egos demand external props....like political narcissists.....most folks don't think much about what class they are in. If you are not making enough money to get by on, then in your mind you are "poor" and you don't like it and your dream is to not be poor anymore. You might envy the Jones who do have some money, but you don't begrudge them for it. If you look at the macro picture....that is the perennial scene. There are of course small slivers of society who want something that someone else has earned...and desire to take it by some form of force....and that is when the labels come out and are applied......and folks don't want to be labeled in order to facilitate baseless accusations.

    I think the correct term to apply is "incite."

    I noticed on 20/20's Babwa WaWa's interview with Uncle Bobo and his wife that Obama managed to slip in that his one big regret in his life was not learning how to speak fluent Spanish. Hmmmmmmm.

    ReplyDelete

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