@cicerone imposter,
You are correct, Ci, there is no reason whatsoever to have a photo Id to vote. I have yet to present a voter ID and always participate every election. I registered once and that is sufficient, this applies to my husband and all my family. The changing demographic in America is undergoing a drastic change......couple that with the the perniciously hostile polices of the GOP sends Americans running away in droves from Republicans. Not only do some Red States with governors insist on voter ID they are making it even harder for posters to vote by closing the bathrooms for posters who wait on line an unduly long time....many voters get tired and go home, yet enough stood on line in 2012 to get Obama a second term. They're closing many poll places so that people have to travel further away than previously and this is done primarily in low-income and or minority communities, those most likely to vote Democratic.
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Study: More Voter Suppression Laws Are Proposed When More Racial Minorities Vote
BY AVIVA SHEN DECEMBER 19, 2013 AT 9:00 AM
CREDIT: AP
"States where more minorities turn out to vote are more likely to pass vote-suppressing laws, according to an analysis published by the American Political Science Association last week. These findings fly in the face of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent opinion gutting key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, in which Chief Justice John Roberts asserted that race-based disenfranchisement was a thing of the past.
"The study, conducted by University of Massachusetts Boston professors Keith Bentele and Erin O’Brien, examined restrictive voting laws proposed between 2006 and 2011. That included voter ID laws, proof of citizenship requirements, voter registration limits, early voting and absentee voting restrictions, and restrictions on felons’ voting rights. They found that “the more that minorities and lower-income individuals in a state voted, the more likely such restrictions were to be proposed.”
"The perception of voter fraud had some impact on states, but far less than racial and class considerations. Besides voter turnout, states with large African American populations and more low-income voters were also more likely to pass laws restricting voting in 2011, the heydey of election law changes. Republican leadership also made states more likely to pass vote-suppressing laws.
"The researchers also identified a recent intensification of voter suppression efforts in the past few years, chalking it up to “changing demographics; recent Republican electoral losses; an unforgiving internal shift within the party to the ideological right; and the party faithful’s response to vote fraud mythology.
"Without the Voting Rights Act’s protections, this trend in minority-heavy Republican-led states is likely to get worse. After the Supreme Court’s decision, several states immediately moved to restrict voting in the name of combating voter fraud, a phenomenon proven many times over to be virtually nonexistent. The states leading this charge — Arizona, Texas, and Florida — have seen massive growth in their non-white communities over the past few years, and are on track to become “majority-minority” in the next decade or so."
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/12/19/3082371/racial-voter-suppression-study/
