Blue Collar Muse

I recently wrote a post titled ‘Democrats Disenfranchise Tennessee Voters’. It told of a group of 6 Democrats in the Tennessee House preventing a resolution already passed by the Tennessee Senate from coming out of committee to be voted on by the House with the possibility the issue could make it to the ballot for all Tennesseans to vote on in 2010. I took a lot of heat from some quarters for my contention this demonstrated Democrats were in favor of voter disenfranchisement.

In for a penny, in for a pound! Let me add Democrats are demagoguing the disenfranchisement issue to cover up their love of voter fraud. For the record, I believe the GOP is just as capable as Dems of trying to game the system. That’s why efforts to strengthen the integrity of the voting process ought to be applauded and supported by members of both parties. Unfortunately, while the GOP is in favor of using photo IDs at polls to verify identity, Democrats are not. Just a few hours ago the US Supreme Court weighed in and sided with the GOP.

Writing for the majority in the 6 to 3 decision, Justice Antonin Scalia said,

The universally applicable requirements of Indiana’s voter-identification law are eminently reasonable. The burden of acquiring, possessing and showing a free photo identification is simply not severe, because it does not ‘even represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting.

Anthony Kennedy, another of the majority Justices opined that Indiana has a

valid interest in protecting ‘the integrity and reliability of the electoral process

According to a report at Yahoo News, Stevens also

said that Indiana’s desire to prevent fraud and to inspire voter confidence in the election system are important even though there have been no reports of the kind of fraud the law was designed to combat. Evidence of voters being inconvenienced by the law’s requirements also is scant. For the overwhelming majority of voters, an Indiana driver’s license serves as the identification.

This is precisely the argument Indiana offered for their law in the first place. In addition, anyone not having an ID valid enough to permit them to vote would be issued one by the state of Indiana at no charge.

The hope of restoring confidence in the electoral process and assurance by government that any valid voter would be provided with an ID was, unfortunately, not a strong enough argument or reassurance for Democrats.

Many Democrats criticized the ruling Monday. It places “an unnecessary burden on elderly and low-income voters, not to mention other voters of disparate racial and ethnic backgrounds,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

The ACLU, incorrectly cited as filing the suit on behalf of Indiana voters, participated in a consolidation of two cases. Crawford v Marion County Board of Elections and Indiana Democratic Party v Rokita. Todd Rokita, Indiana’s Republican Secretary of State praised the decision as bringing confidence back to the electoral process opining that now one needs to prove one’s identity in order to vote at least to the extent one would have to prove their identity to rent a movie. It would seem that any effort to ensure voting integrity would have to be at least that strict. It is Democrats who disagree.

It is left to a Nevada Democrat holding federal office and the ACLU to bad mouth common sense requirements. No one is being disenfranchised and the Democrats strongest argument, that there is no demonstrable fraud taking place currently, is irrelevant. That seems the same thing as saying laws against cannibalism are unnecessary since there’s not a lot of that going on right now, either. GOP counters that a Voter ID Law will help keep voter fraud difficult and rare don’t seem to interest Dems. The only question left to ask is “Why?”

Given the history of voter fraud in this country, from Boss Tweed a century and a half ago to Kennedy and Nixon in 1960 to Chicago’s infamous motto, “Vote early, vote often!”, voter fraud is generally a charge leveled at Democrats. That they fought so hard in Indiana and elsewhere around the country to keep simple, inexpensive, common sense requirements from being enacted that will combat fraud should it be attempted won’t go far to change that perception in the minds of many.

Blue

Popularity: 44% [?]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 5:00 am and is filed under 2008 election season, Common Sense, Constitution Issues, Judicial Matters, Liberal, SCOTUS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.