Voter IDs: a Modern Poll Tax?

[Melissa G]

X post from Election reform... A nice Texas History Lesson...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=502164&mesg_id=502164


Voter IDs: a Modern Poll Tax?
by James C. Harrington
Despite innuendo, there actually is no proof of any widespread fraud in Texas, at least not the kind that government ID would take care of. In fact, there are far greater possibilities of fraud or malfunction with Texas’ paperless electronic voting machines.

Posted on May 8, 2008
For the last half century, Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court steadily have undone voting impediments created by local and state governments. That effort came to a screeching halt on April 28, however, when the high court upheld Indiana's onerous law requiring voters to present a state-issued photo identification card, with an expiration date, on election day.

snip

Texas originally started out enabling people to vote, rather than impeding them. The delegates to the 1875 convention, which gave us our current constitution, lead by Grangers and progressive Republicans, rejected a variety of electoral impediments: poll taxes, literacy tests, property taxes, and multi-member legislative and judicial districts.

The delegates rejected schemes to limit suffrage because they understood that denying the franchise to African Americans inevitably would deprive them of the political power they needed to break state government's unholy alliance with big business, railroads, and monopolies.

The 1876 Constitution reflects a populist revolt that gave Texas some of the broadest suffrage rights in the nation. For example, until 1919 non-citizens could vote if they met the residency requirement and declared their intent to become citizens.

more
http://www.newspapertree.com/opinion/2428-voter-ids-a-modern-poll-tax

[sonias]

1. This one comes from Senator Kirk Watson

Kirk Watson Wire
Casting a vote is not like ordering a beer
There was another story – a serious one – about identity over the last week.

In just one documented instance during the Presidential primary in Indiana on Tuesday, about a dozen women were turned away from the polls because they didn't have the right type of photo I.D. The Indiana law requiring people to produce documentation before they can vote was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court last week.

Now, as it happens, these women were elderly. And they were nuns. Somehow, the story seems to come across as more of a novelty when the victims are dressed in habits. As the Washington Post declared on a blog, "Voter ID Law Consequences Mild in Ind."

(snip)
But to the individual voter who gets sent away, it's different. It's really about the fundamental rights of Americans who, for whatever reason, don't need or don't have the driver's license, passport, or other document that almost (but not quite) all of us take for granted.

That's why voting can't be compared with driving, flying, renting movies, and so many other activities that most would call "routine." Americans don't need identification to speak their minds, or to pray, or to be created equal.

(snip)
Last year, a bill that would have enacted a law like Indiana's nearly threw the Texas Senate into an angry chaos not seen since, well, the Texas House. It's a good bet that bill will be back during the legislative session next year.

We'll be ready, and I feel pretty good about our chances. Actually, I didn't realize we had the nuns on our side.

Watson writes pretty well. This came on his e-mail blast this morning.

:applause:

Sonia