On Friday Rachel mentioned this blog post by my colleague Zachary Roth and shared a bit of video of 101-year-old Lenora Carey who faces the prospect of not being able to vote unless she can get her paperwork taken care of to satisfy new voter ID requirements in Pennsylvania. The video was produced by Alex P. Kellogg and Evan Puschak, and as it happens, Evan is my cube farm neighbor so we enjoyed the virtual company of Ms. Carey (particularly her concern for the "cornerboys") for a few days while Evan edited the video.
The whole package is worth watching:
Earlier this year, PA republicans passed a law requiring all voters to show a picture I.D. at the polls. A state estimate found that over 750,000 Pennsylvanians don't have an I.D., and therefore are at risk of being disenfranshised. MSNBC's Lean Forward went to Philadelphia on August 3rd, to talk to a few of them.
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There's something totally obscene about not allowing a 101 year old African American woman to vote for an African American incumbent president she was allowed to vote for in 2008.
I need to check my own registration. I am registered, have voted from my present address for about a decade already. I've actually never missed voting in any election (primary, general or "special") since I first became eligible to vote.
But, just yesterday, I found my voter registration card (which I generally haven't needed, since the "integrity" of the polls was always satisfactorily safeguarded before now by comparing my handwritten signature to the signature in the registration rolls maintained at my local polling place).
Looking at the card, and comparing it to my poll-tax receipt (aka my PA driver's license), I realized that there was a difference: the PennDOT worker who originally issued my license (renewed year-to year ever since) insisted that I use my "full" name, including my full middle name, which I never generally bother to do - the signature I've long used for legal purposes is my first name, middle INITIAL, and last name.
Thus, the names on both documents are both mine, and both consistent, yet different - one is first, middle, last and the other is first, middle initial, last. It seems obvious to me that this shouldn't make any difference, and given my regularity as a voter (even in years of very light turnout) I wouldn't be surprised if the sweet little old ladies who staff my local polling place even recognize my face by now.
Yet, in this year of Rape-Public-CON voter suppression, when even PA government officials seem confused about the rules and the types of ID supposedly required to exercise my right, I don't feel like I can just take that for granted. So now, I need to find someone who knows for sure whether this would be a problem on election day, and maybe need to "re-register" using my full middle name (not one I'm ashamed of, but this still feels awkward and frustrating - I'm used to signing my name using the initial) just to be sure that the Rape-Public-CONs don't use this as an excuse to deny my right to vote in the name of preventing non-existent (as even the PA government officials who insist on imposing this admit) explicit fraud.
Grrr. Argh!
;-(
What drama! It's what makes the left so entertaining.
Pennsylvania tells me I can get a voter ID card with just a SS card and two proofs of residency, like a utility bill. No money required, no birth certificate required. I feel confident Ms. Carey can handle that.
http://www.dmv.state.pa.us/voter/voteridlaw.shtml
There are many reasons for the inability to provide proof of residency, such as a utility bill. I've lived in several locations over my lifetime where the utilities were in either in my parents name, flat-mates name, spouses name, etc. Let alone the fact that in Los Angeles County there are an estimated 90,000 homeless persons which can still register to vote. Also, many people use a P.O. Box on their drivers license and insurance card for security/privacy reasons.
It's despicable that any American would find voter suppression "so entertaining." You should be ashamed of yourself. Perhaps that is why you hide behind a silly little nom de plume.
Thanks Derek, I have him on ignore. This is another troll exercise for him. He is indeed entertained by posting junk like this just to get a reaction. For some reason he thinks it's fun.
I have a P O Box on my driver license.
Not that I'm a fan of this whole scenario, but I do see a point. Imagine 100,000,000 Chinese communists comming into the country illegally and supporting candidates for public office that were themselves communist sympathizers. Soon, the whole country could be run by die-hard communists that were put in office by illegal aliens that managed to register to vote based on "their word" that they had a legal right to vote. I'm not some McCarthyist but substitute Islamic Jihadists or even the Klan if it makes you feel better (or worse...?) about "them." If you don't think such a thing can happen in this country, check back on the year 1919 and see what you can come up with. Now I would like to see stricter voter registration laws country wide. Stricter but more logical I should say. I only want people voting that have the legal right. I don't necessarily want picture ID, but I don't see the harm if the state provides it (read free) to voters.
If that makes me a paranoid, big-brother supporter, then just remember that us paranoid, big-brother supporters are the ones who end up catching the bad guys before the bomb can go off.
Wow. Just wow, man. That's scaaary. /sarcasm
Want to hear something reallly scaary? (h/t Twilight Zone)
Imagine (I suspect it will require little effort) "Chinese communist" leaders spending huge amounts of money, which can't be traced (thanks again, SCROTUS), to influence our electoral process in such a way as to encourage the election of Chamber of (Chinese) Commerce types cough_Rawmoney_cough who will, among other things, accelerate the outsourcing of American jobs to... duh duh DUH (drama sting)... China! Oooh. Scaaaary, huh kids?
And seriously, which do you think is more likely? The illicit but simple expenditure of huge amounts of available money to corrupt our electoral process, or the influx of almost half again as much as our entire national population to successfully commit 100,000,000 individual acts of voter fraud? I really want to believe that you were aiming for "snarky and sarcastic", because the alternative requires me to conclude that you're a moron.
;-)
thank you for reporting on this