In re: Voter IDs

Backgrounders:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/04/opinion/norden-voting-rights/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/31/opinion/priebus-voter-fraud-laws/index.html?iref=allsearch

http://news.yahoo.com/ufo-sightings-3-615-times-more-common-voter-184730211.html

Big debate in the US: Does requiring a person to present a photo identification at a polling station violate their right to vote?

Well, I suppose a case can be made statistically that poor people, minorities and really old folks might not get around to procuring such IDs, even though they really are pretty easy to come by these days. So, statistically, such people would be more adversely impacted than other demographic groups. And, of course, we have to make this a racial issue because minorities are involved. And it becomes a partisan issue, because, statistically, those demographics are more likely to vote for the Democratic Party than the Republican Party.

To me, to borrow a phrase from Pappy: Tis a tempest in a teapot.

I am sorry, but if you live in a state in which you want to vote, you would think that you would have enough smarts to get a photo ID so you could.

It is not like “everyone” has the privilege to vote. If you think so, then you need to recheck your data. There are a variety of groups residing in the US who do not have the franchise, so to speak, and it is perfectly legal and actually correct. If you don’t know which groups, then you need to go back to school and take a civics class, assuming that they still offer them in high school … it actually should be integrated in at all grades, but teachers have enough to do.

Personally, for the last 44 years, I always have presented the identification required, be it a voter registration card or a photo identification card (and often, I present both).

The big argument against the practice is that there has been only a few cases in the last few years of documented voter fraud involving identifications. Now, that is probably true, but it does tighten up the credibility of the vote, if poll judges can verify the identity of each person against a register.

Of course, even registration lists are under fire. In Florida (remember, where Al Gore unsuccessfully tried to steal the 2000 election by using the judicial system), the government there is under attack because it is using a variety of data bases to purge its voter rolls before November 6 of people who are a) dead, b) felons, c) non-citizens. The argument being that the data bases are not accurate.

Well, that might be true, but one would think such efforts should be attempted, just to lend credence to the idea that the people who do vote are actually qualified to vote. (Note: Voting is not a right. That dog won’t hunt. It is a privilege and you do have to qualify for it by a) being a legal resident and b) registering)

Now, I can tell a story – related to me by Pappy, of how my grandfather Reginald voted in an election in Kansas City in the late 1930s … about a year after he had died. When Pappy noticed it on the poll judge’s registration book that his father, whose name immediately preceded his, was marked as having voted. He pointed on the impossibility of his father actually voting to the poll judge, and a rather large poll watcher quietly but firmly told my father: “He’s voted” and Pappy being a man of much discretion, chose it over valor and did his thing and left.

So, please, let’s not do anything to cast any more doubt on the legitimacy of the electoral process. There is enough already. And I am really getting tired of the Democrats in the US crying wolf on the matter.

Sorry, but that is my view. (I think most of the time, the Republicans for the last 40 years have been too muddle-headed to pull off such shenanigans).