Lately there has been a lot of talk from the conservative media about voter fraud concerns, and how illegal immigrants in the US are going to reelect Obama unless they are stopped. This has created a demand from the public that the government crack down on voting laws. Interestingly enough, the Republican National Lawyer Association has found less than 400 cases of voting fraud in the last ONE HUNDRED YEARS. Statistically speaking, that is less than 1% of votes cast each year and does not affect results at all.
The problem with the proposed voter ID laws has been embodied in the recent legislation passed in Pennsylvania. Take Vivitte Applewhite for example, a 93 year old woman who has voted in nearly every election for the past 60 years. She marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. and now has become ineligible to vote. She fought for equality as a US citizen for her right to vote, and now it has been taken away from her by the same type of discriminatory legislation she fought against with Dr. King. This time, it's not because of the color of her skin, but because statistically she is more likely to vote for Obama than for Romney.
The Jim Crow laws were passed in the late 1800s and continued through the mid 1900s. They allowed for states to administer literacy tests and collect poll taxes which would disqualify minority groups from casting their vote. The tests were not administered to everyone, were not graded equally, and were not standardized. The poll taxes were put in place mainly to disqualify black voters, but also poor whites. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made poll taxes and literacy tests illegal, abolishing what was left of the Jim Crow laws. Pennsylvania's new legislation aims to disqualify voters in the same way that the Jim Crow laws did, but this time it is to disqualify many who may vote in opposition to interests of Pennsylvanian Republican leaders like Mike Turzai and Tom Corbett.
Mike Turzai openly admitted that by passing new voter ID laws, it “is going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania." Nearly 720,000 LEGAL citizens immediately lost their right to vote the day the legislation was signed. Another nearly 1.5 million people are at risk of losing their ability to vote.
In a recent article by Juan Williams of FOX News, I read this:
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University estimates that more than 5 million Americans could be prevented from voting this November. They estimate that one in ten Americans do not have the necessary identification.
Their latest Brennan report shows that more than 10 million eligible voters live “more than 10 miles from their nearest state ID-issuing office.” Many of these voters do not have public transportation readily available to them and many of the offices that issue the IDs are only open during weekdays for limited hours when most people are working.
The report also says that copies of birth certificates needed to get these ID scans cost between as much as $25. It shows how marriage licenses, which are required for women whose birth certificates only show their maiden name, can cost up to $20. Adjusted for inflation, those fees are more than the poll tax in many Southern states during the Jim Crow era. Poll taxes have historically been used to disenfranchise minorities and poor people.
I've heard people say, "How hard is it to get a state ID?" Well, for poor people, it's hard because you don't have time, transportation, or money to purchase any documents you may have lost. And then you have to wait for those purchased documents to get to your house to go back and register for your ID. It is a sure-fire way of eliminating the illegal vote, if it exists, but it also eliminates the poor working man vote. And that is not something Dr. King would stand for.
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