POSTED BY MARTIN KICH
The following is from the Daily Kos’s daily newsletter Elections Digest for Saturday, December 10; this edition of the newsletter is subtitled “Voting Rights Roundup”:
“Michigan: Without warning last week, Michigan Republicans began talking about introducing a strict voter ID law, and now the state House has passed the measure over Democratic opposition. Odds are it will easily clear the state Senate as well, since Republicans also dominate the upper chamber. And in a deeply cynical move, Republicans made sure that Democrats can’t overturn the law at the ballot box via an ordinary “veto referendum” by attaching a token appropriation to the bill. Legislation that includes appropriations can only be overturned by an amendment to the state constitution, which takes twice as many signatures to get on the ballot.
“Michigan’s current voter ID law lets voters without the appropriate ID fill out an affidavit swearing to their identity. However, this new bill would force them to cast a provisional ballot and would only count such ballots if voters provide sufficient ID within 10 days. Just as with voter ID laws elsewhere, this measure would significantly burden hundreds of thousands of registered voters who currently lack a valid ID, and it could even outright disenfranchise thousands who can’t obtain ID without undue hardship.
“Is there any hope of stopping the bill? Well, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder previously vetoed bills that would have required proof of citizenship and demanded voter ID for absentee ballots in 2012. However, now that he isn’t facing re-election or the need to satisfy the Justice Department after the Supreme Court gutted a key part of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, Snyder might be less restrained this time.
“Republican legislators have justified this stricter voter ID requirement by claiming it’s needed to fight fraud, despite the fact that such fraud is practically nonexistent. In a bitter twist of irony, Michigan Republicans just recently persuaded a federal court to order a halt to a statewide recount of the 2016 presidential election. The reasoning Republicans used in court? There was no evidence of any fraud.” [My Emphasis]
Reblogged this on Ohio Politics.
“Just as with voter ID laws elsewhere, this measure would significantly burden hundreds of thousands of registered voters who currently lack a valid ID, and it could even outright disenfranchise thousands who can’t obtain ID without undue hardship.”
I am of the belief that this decades-long feud between liberals and conservatives could, and really should go the way of the dinosaur. Sadly, most of our disconnected electorate resides in large cities that are rampant with homelessness, unemployment, addiction and so on. We, as a society are so inefficient that we cannot, for some reason, find a way to provide everyone with a “valid” ID? If we stop and think about it, those people lacking identification cannot get a job… even a day job with a temp agency, for God’s sake. They cannot access healthcare or other government benefits, or have a bank account, credit card, lease or mortgage.
Thus they are not only excluded from voting, but they are already excluded from virtually any process or program in our great society. I’d suggest we not worry about their inability to vote, first, anyway. We need to find a way to get them a valid ID such that they can participate in our great society. That doesn’t seem impossible in this technological 21st century.