This is a full-out coordinated assault; state after state has seen their GOP-dominated legislatures vote for this in the past two weeks alone.
Some claim that you show ID for other purposes; what's the big deal? Well, voting isn't just buying a plane ticket; it's about as fundamental a Constitutional right as you can get. Anything - anything - that impinges upon that right must come under the absolute strictest scrutiny. So you would think this is being done in response to widespread fraud. And yet, photo ID is actually a "solution" in search of a problem; voter fraud at polling places just doesn't exist, as this article and many others have made abundantly clear.
They can't find any instances. They CAN use this against the elderly, poor and minorities, however.
Funny how they act in lockstep, isn't it? You think some powerful people (koch, koch - excuse me) just might be pulling the strings to have this timed coincidentally in multiple states? Anyway:
https://access.aarp.org/2011/03/25/,DanaInfo=.awxyClzlmqwq400338-Rv87+across-country-republican_n_840705.htmlRALEIGH, N.C. — Empowered by last year's elections, Republican leaders in about half the states are pushing to require voters to show photo ID at the polls despite little evidence of fraud and already-substantial punishments for those who vote illegally.
Democrats claim the moves will disenfranchise poor and minority voters – many of whom traditionally vote for their candidates. The measures will also increase spending and oversight in some states even as Republicans are focused on cutting budgets and decreasing regulations. . .
. . . In the South, the issue comes with a burden of history for black residents who recall past barriers to voting such as violence, literacy tests and other methods. The Voting Rights Act still requires a number of Southern states to get Justice Department approval of redistricting efforts to ensure that minorities' voting strength is upheld.
William Barber, president of North Carolina's chapter of the NAACP, said the photo ID measure amounts to "nothing but nuanced, 21st Century Jim Crow." . . .
In Georgia, which has had a strict voter ID law on the books for years, Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp said he's not aware of anyone caught committing fraud. He argues that the rules help prevent people who try to file improper votes from having them counted.
Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp said he's not aware of anyone caught committing fraud because of the law but argued that it has helped make elections more secure. . .
No doubt the elections he REALLY wants to make more secure are his and those of his Rethuglican colleagues.