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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA 90-Year-Old Woman Who’s Voted Since 1948 Was Disenfranchised by Wisconsin’s Voter-ID Law
https://www.thenation.com/article/a-90-year-old-woman-whos-voted-since-1948-was-disenfranchised-by-wisconsins-voter-id-law/
Story is a couple of days old but very much worth reading.
MiniMe
(21,718 posts)I'm not defending the voter ID law here, but I will defend the workers because of the name changes. It seems there were a slew of clerical errors, starting with her original birth certificate.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)Don't you think so?
MiniMe
(21,718 posts)I think they should take into account her voting record, not who she voted for, but just that she has voted since 1948. It started with her birth certificate, then she went by another name for a while before she got married. And it was that other name that was on her marriage certificate. So to try to trace her back to her birth certificate is almost impossible.
I am in no way saying this is right, just that I can understand why she is having a problem. She wasn't born in a hospital (not that there is anything wrong with that) and they misspelled the last name on the birth certificate
oberliner
(58,724 posts)It seemed as though the documents she already had (IL ID and WIS proof of res) ought to have been enough.
csziggy
(34,137 posts)She did not have a copy of her birth certificate and ordered one from Alabama. When the records were digitized some clerk entered the date her birth was recorded as the date of birth. That meant the birth certificate date did not match any of Mom's other records - her Social Security, Navy Nurse enlistment, her marriage license,her driver's license, nothing. It took a couple of years and a LOT of correspondence and sending other records for Alabama to correct their digital records even after she had found the original birth certificate that gave both the date of birth and the date it was recorded.
Meanwhile she missed voting for those years - a women who has voted in every election in her lifetime and who had worked at the polls every election for forty years was disenfranchised for those years.