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DEL.ICIO.USVoter ID from a Democratic perspective
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In Washington, the Senate rules committee on Wednesday held a hearing on whether or not the state-by-state movement toward requiring a photo ID to vote is part of a Republican effort to dampen minority turnout in elections.
The point of view was reflected in the title: “In-Person Voter Fraud: Myth and Trigger for Disenfranchisement?”
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) cited a former Republican political operative who claimed voter ID laws gave the GOP a 3 percent edge in elections.
Georgia had two players in the hearing, both defending voter ID laws.
One was Sen. Saxby Chambliss, a committee member. “If have somebody who is deceased, who is found to have voted, it’s pretty easy to see that a photo identification at the ballot box would have prevented that type of thing from happening,” he said.
Rob Simms, deputy secretary of state, was the other. Read his complete testimony here. You can try the Senate on-line video here, but we couldn’t get it to work all that well.
Simms testified that the high turnout in the Feb. 5 presidential primary was evidence that Georgia’s voter ID law doesn’t discourage minorities from casting ballots.
Here’s a taste of what Simms said:
“Opponents of the law are eager to argue that even one vote lost because of the law is one too many, but they never have any proof of why the voter failed to return with an acceptable ID. It is important to consider that there are potentially many reasons why a voter may not return to verify his or her identity, not the least of which is the voter may not have been who he or she claimed to be.
“Furthermore, as neither of the outcomes of the primaries was in dispute, these voters have have decided to not return because their votes were not going to change the outcome of the election.
“In short, the predictions of mass disenfranchisement simply did not come to fruition. A very small number of voters showed up at the polls without a photo ID and an even fewer number chose not to return with one in order to have their provisional votes cast, a decision for which no one knows the reason.”
Comments
By Sven the Blog Catalyst
March 12, 2008 4:28 PM | Link to this
I have never seen so much steam vented over something so obviously grounded in common sense. We all have to show photo ID’s every day to perform any number of tasks — cash a check, buy beer, etc. Why? At the risk of stating the obvious, to show you are who you say you are. And, fer cryin’ out loud, the state will pay for one if you don’t have one, though I can’t imagine how anyone can function as a productive citizen in this country without one … but then, that pesky “productive” adjective may explain a lot here.
To be even more to the point — do we really want anyone who claims they can’t even procure a photo ID to vote, and thereby exercise the most important of all citizen duties? Uh, not I.
By Diogenes
March 12, 2008 4:31 PM | Link to this
I personally think we need to go back to literacy tests. Would improve the quality of our voters immensely.
By Churchill
March 12, 2008 4:49 PM | Link to this
Don’t bet on that, Diogenes.
By Churchill
March 12, 2008 4:56 PM | Link to this
I know plenty of libs that can read. Now a logic or reasoning test…
By RJ
March 12, 2008 6:16 PM | Link to this
Chambliss and Simms Arguments are are smokescreens because anyone knowledgeable this issue knows that as structured its prevents a problem that does not exist. The only reported incidents of voter fraud in the last twenty years were with absentee ballots, which are excluded in the Voter ID law. Why? Because Absentee Ballots generally favor Republicans by a large margin.
By Churchill
March 12, 2008 6:57 PM | Link to this
Absentee ballots generally favor the majority party of any given state. You a playing kinda fast and loose with the facts there, RJ.
By Disbelieving Wrecker
March 12, 2008 8:45 PM | Link to this
RJ——The problem does exist. I have seen it, personally in this state and other several others. The dirty little secret that no one wants to talk about, at least publicly, is that voter i.d. fraud tends to be concentrated in pockets of serious poverty where one party dominates the local voter supervisory process.
Sorry, Virginia, but voter fraud does exist, and requiring state-issued picture identification cards is good, old-fashioned common sense. Anything else said to the contrary is the “smokescreen.”