Replies to post #252222 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[Hanibal]

Huh? Why are you changing the topic? Who is talking about race?

[fuagf]

Tearex, only a fool would argue that your mob's voter ID laws are not racist in intent and in practice.

A fix for what’s not broken: why Australia doesn’t need voter ID

4 March 2014

[...]

Dorothy Cooper’s now-famous story highlights why this is the case. In 2011, the ninety-six-year-old Tennessee woman attempted to apply for a state-issued photo ID so that she could vote in the following year’s presidential election. Being too old to drive and lacking any other form of photo ID, Cooper tried to use a collection of other documents to verify her identity. But she hit a wall of bureaucracy because the name on her birth certificate didn’t match the married name listed on her lease and electricity bills, and she was unable to find a copy of her marriage certificate to confirm she was the same person. Local county office staff informed the frail pensioner that they could not verify her identity using those documents, and refused to issue her with a new photo ID. It took a state MP intervening in Mrs Cooper’s case (as well as nationwide media publicity) before she was finally issued with the necessary identification to vote.

Dorothy Cooper’s predicament is not uncommon in America. A 2006 survey from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University estimated that 11 per cent of eligible American voters lack access to photo ID, with this figure rising to 18 per cent for those aged over sixty-five and 25 per cent for African-American voters. Since the passage of tighter voter ID laws, these citizens must struggle through the bureaucratic mire experienced by Cooper, and often pay expensive fees for the privilege. If they don’t or they can’t, then they are simply turned away on polling day – denied their democratic right to vote.
http://insidestory.org.au/a-fix-for-whats-not-broken-why-australia-doesnt-need-voter-id

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No vote of confidence in ID laws

Opinion The Drum

By Chris Berg

Posted 3 Jun 2014, 3:01pm

Voter ID would be yet another bureaucratisation of our little democracy and an enormous amount of hassle to fix a non-problem, writes Chris Berg.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-03/berg-no-vote-of-confidence-in-id-laws/5495996

Just another bureaucratic level from a small-government party. Why? ID laws only make sense
in their design to make it more difficult for minorities to vote. In that they are inherently rascist.