voter id requirement would prevent poor, black and elderly from voting

NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/opinion/20tue2.html?th&emc=th

Denying Access to the Ballot

Published: September 20, 2005


It has been clear since 2000 that the election system is in serious need of reform. But the commission led by James Baker III and former President Jimmy Carter has come up with a plan that is worse than no reform at all. Its good ideas are outweighed by one very bad idea: a voter identification requirement that would prevent large numbers of poor, black and elderly people from voting.

The commission makes helpful recommendations. It favors requiring electronic voting machines to produce paper records, and opposes partisan activity by state election officials. It fails to address other problems, like not counting provisional ballots cast at the wrong precincts.

But the bombshell recommendation is for the states to require voters to have drivers' licenses or a government-issued photo ID. That would not be a great burden for people who have drivers' licenses, but it would be for those who don't, and they are disproportionately poor, elderly or members of minorities. These voters would have to get special photo ID's and keep them updated. If they didn't have the ID's, their right to vote would be taken away. The commission recommends that the cards be free. But election administration is notoriously underfinanced, and it is not hard to imagine that states would charge for them. Georgia is already charging $20 and more for each of its state voter cards.

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There are more reasonable approaches. The states could require uniform ID's, but allow each voter without one to sign an affidavit attesting to his or her identity, a system some states use now. It is little wonder that a dissent came from the former Democratic leader in the Senate, Tom Daschle, a commission member. He said that "for some, the commission's ID proposal constitutes nothing short of a modern-day poll tax."

That would seem to be a fair compromise, though I'd rather see that law scrapped.

You can sign his letter to Hastert on his blog, and there is other information. http://www.johnconyers.com/

This Voter ID makes me so mad, because I remember when I was younger I had a bunch of tickets and my license was not renewed and for awhile I had a hard time if I ever needed an ID for anything. I'm not like that anymore, but I always sort of panic when I hear about ID being needed for something. Obviously, people with less money are the ones who are more likely to be in a situation like this. James Baker , the Fraud lawyer knows exactly what he is doing. This makes me so angry.