Missouri legislature passes voter photo ID requirement

Voters will be required to show photo identification to cast a ballot starting this fall under a bill that won final approval today in the Republican-controlled Missouri Legislature.

Republican leaders muscled the bill to passage over strong Democratic opposition.

A 23-10 party-line Senate vote early Friday came after Republicans used a rare procedural move to thwart debate. The House also cut off debate later Friday before passing the bill 84-73.

Republican Gov. Matt Blunt pledged to sign the bill into law. The legislation requires voters to show a photo ID, such as a driver's license or military card, issued by Missouri or the federal government beginning with this November's elections.


http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/missouristatenews/story/0F956BB6B5C779308625716C0045A77F?OpenDocument

We need ID for EVERYTHING...why NOT to vote? Where's the harm.

Instead of spending millions to try and stop the ID legislation, why not just spend the SAME money getting the democratic voters the ID THEY SHOULD HAVE, and will need ?

It's so counterproductive to waste time and money fighting something that IS going to happen. Reaching out to people to update our voter lists, and to ask them if they have ID..and if NOT..help them GET it, seems to be the way to go.. In that process, we make sure their votes count and help them at the same time.. It's a win-win.
We are probably the ONLY country on earth that has a bunch of people who actually think they are still "anonymous"...

If we want the high road on elections, we MUST make sure there is NO way that OUR voters can be challenged or denied.. To pretend that it's still "Smalltown, USA" where everyone knows everyone and no id is necessary..is silly.

This is all but denied when we force voters
to ID and then list campaign contributors in a global public database.

secret ballot. Until they want your name on your ballot, it's still secret. Presenting ID ONLY insures that YOU are the person whose name you are singing in under.

Except for all the other people with forged ID cards
in other places that invalidate that vote..

Id cards are only as good as an ID system... (corrupt)

But in practice, a photo ID voting law effectively disenfranchises the working poor, who can't afford the time nor the money to pony up for a photo ID card; the elderly, who are not only disproportionately poor, but many also are too frail to wait in line, and are on a fixed income; and minorities. A photo ID voter law is also a back door poll tax, which is unconstitutional.

I can't believe a Democrat is defending a law which would make the poor and minorities second-class citizens!!! Wake up!

the IDs..THAT'S my beef with it.. Poor people especially should be issued the IDs FREE.. It would help in other areas of their lives as well.. Most of these people are NOT shut-ins who only emerge every other year to vote.. they are probably hassled in many other places over their lack of ID.. a permanent voter ID with a picture would help them..not hurt them..

People without photo ID are supposedly going to be provided one for voting at state expense via DOR. They say they are also going to provide a mobile unit for nursing homes. There are at least 200,00 people in this state who lack photo ID.
A person can sign an afadavit saying their disabled and cast a provisional ballot.
The state will have to provide provisional ballots for every election in every county.
This thing costs millions of dollars.
They also did away with straight ticket voting in this bill.
It's going to make our elections a nightmare, because they will take longer to count.

medical and social security reasons. In MD it looks the same as a driver's license. This is a much better way to conduct voting, I think. There should be free ID's given by the state or counties that voters live in and easy access to getting them made. Even work places should be able to handle this for voters. Grassroot orgs should put together car pools to take people to ID places well in advance of Nov. Help people get their birth certificates or other proof of ID starting NOW!!!

The ballot clerks know just about everyone. I can't imagine them asking anyone for a photo ID. I assume the same is true in small towns all over the country.

Now, take this to a large city where most of the poor and minorities live. They will be asked every time. They don't all drive so they don't have licenses.

It's just one more hoop to make people jump through and it's a bad idea.

People with disabilities who don't drive stop renewing sometimes because of the headache required. In my town it takes going somewhere the bus doesn't go - not easy in a wheelchair, and it's expensive to a person on a fixed income. AND it is now the only reason people need it.
That makes it a POLL TAX

and therefore illegal. They say they will provide a free id, well how do you prove you are who you say? Well, with a birth certificate. Oh, then the state is going to give me a free birth certificate? No you'll have to buy one for 15.00 from the dept. of records.
That's a poll tax, illegal as hell, unconstitutional, participatory democracy is supposed to be easy, these bastards will make us jump through hoops because they know that come November we're going to throw the whole stinking lot of them out.
Someone needs to challenge this as soon as babydoc blunt signs it.

I can assure you this is a huge deal. The polling place I was at was one of the poorer sections of town, and the majority of people that came through used their water bill to vote. At least half of the people that came through were poor, black, and elderly. Maybe some of them did have a drivers license, but what they presented to verify their name was their water bill. It may seem like no big deal to many people to have to use a picture ID, but the reality is, we've just lost a whole lot of votes.

It's not likely that some grassroots movement is going to be able to do anything to fix this. These areas are not hotbeds of liberalism, and the active democrats that do live in these areas are literally working hours and hours a day on all of the other tons of things that must be done to try to turn things around. Now they will also have to suddenly track down all of the people who are accustomed to voting with their waterbill, convince them that they will now need IDs, persuade them to get the IDS, and in many cases find the funding to pay for these IDs. They will do this with absolutely no help from the state or national level DNC, because they won't be wasting their time in extremely red areas.

The repubs just shut down thousands of Democratic votes.

think these same people will be able to vote (a picture ID is hard to come by for some).

the picture ID is going to be almost impossible for many people to get. There was a woman there who is 86 years old, but has never driven and had no birth certificate. Without a birth certificate they won't give her a picture ID. She's always been very politically active, so when she heard they may require picture ID, she began the process of getting the ID. She requested a copy of her birth certificate from Jefferson City (the state capitol)over 6 months ago, but keeps running into roadblocks. Most recently they told her she had to bring in a family member who was older then herself to somehow verify her birth. The woman is 86..she doesn't have any family left that is older then herself.

There is a local office here that will print out a birth certificate from hospital records on the net, but the license bureau refused to accept those copies for some reason, so even people in the system will have to request the certificate from Jeff City. I spoke to a judge and an attorney earlier today who are talking with the ACLU to see if we can fight this legislation, but for now it stands, and it will impact the November elections. There is a part of the bill that allows for provisional ballots if the person has no ID , but their signature can be verified. Local parties in Missouri may not be able to fight the legislation, or get IDs into the hands of all the voters , but we can make certain that we have someone at the polls insisting that people without ID be allowed to vote with a provisional ballot. We also need to make certain that people know they CAN vote with a provisional ballot, so they will still come to the polls.

Why not just bar-code our behinds until the implantable RFIDs are ready?

I would wager that many seniors would balk at being required to produce photo IDs just to vote because they're old enough to remember other obstructions used to keep down the vote and to take pride in living in a country where people were free to move about without every step being recorded for posterity.

Voter fraud is a trivial issue. Election fraud is where the big problems are.