Groups oppose bills to change voter registration procedure (in Michigan)
Source: Detroit News
April 17, 2012 at 4:17 pm
Groups oppose bills to change voter registration procedure
By Chad Livengood
Detroit News Lansing Bureau
Lansing Civil and voting rights groups on Tuesday opposed legislation that would require voters to affirm their U.S. citizenship at the polls, have photo identification when registering to vote and government-sanctioned training to register others to vote.
Melvin Butch Hollowell, general counsel for the Detroit branch of the NAACP, said the photo ID requirement to register to vote would create a barrier to vote for people without identification and is a solution in search of a problem.
"We're correcting a problem that never exists," Hollowell said. "We don't have a problem with voter impersonation."
Susan Kay Smith, president of the League of Women Voters of Michigan, testified Tuesday against a bill that would require groups like hers to be trained and certified by the Secretary of State's Office to register people to vote. The League of Women Voters has been registering people to vote since women were granted the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, said Smith of Ann Arbor.
Read more: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120417/POLITICS02/204170424#ixzz1sKoV5dsK