Cycloptichorn wrote:As to your question... I do believe that voter ID laws should be looked into. There's nothing wrong with forcing someone to have some fashion of identifying themselves in order to vote. I would hope that there would be many ways of doing so in order to accomadate those with unique individual situations, but it isn't a bad idea per se.
Yes it is. Currently, voters
do have to identify themselves at polling places, and there are safeguards in place in every jurisdiction to make sure that the person presenting him/herself to vote is actually that person. There's simply no need to have yet another layer of security on top of the one that is already in place, especially in light of the fact that there have been no reports of widespread polling place fraud (fraudulent voter registrations are something else entirely -- we're talking about the people who are already registered producing another form of ID in order to cast a ballot).
In theory, then, these laws are bad ideas. In practice, they're even worse. A proposed Georgia law, for instance, required voters to produce either a driver's license or a state ID card in order to vote. The state ID card, valid for five years, was only available at the DMV facilities, and only upon presenting a birth certificate and paying $20. So, registered voters without birth certificates, or without $20 (unless they swore they were indigent), or who couldn't get to a DMV office (there isn't even one in Atlanta), or who were just plain lazy couldn't get a card, and so were effectively disenfranchised. The courts, quite correctly,
upheld an injunction against the law. A similar law in Missouri was
struck down by the courts in September.