New York State Assembly member Dr. Steve Katz (District 99) has been taken to task by opponents of his proposal that voters must produce a picture I. D. to prove who they are before casting a ballot.
Objections are that it would stigmatize the elderly, poor and minorities who may not have or cannot afford a photo I.D. Apparently, they didn’t get the memo that a photo I.D. can be acquired at the Department of Motor Vehicles for under 10 bucks, it's valid for 5 years.
If we are to believe these critics, Dr. Katz wants to deprive the elderly, poor and minorities of the right to vote. However, voter fraud makes a mockery of that right.
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Is that really what you think? How sad.
The other major difference is that college students are productive members of the community and prisoners are there paying a debt to society. I'll go out on a limb here and say prisoners and college students are not the same.
This country started going down hill when they let started letting people without enough money in the game play. Why should poor people get to play if they can pay, that just doesn;t seem Ameriacan.
That we, as a society, require identification for other activities is irrelevant. In many cases, like gaining entry to an airplane or building, cashing a check or applying for a loan, the reward of free money or access to a place where their presence could be otherwise disallowed is so great that people will be willing to take great risks. The societal risk for requiring Voter ID is huge. Many, many people will either be severely inconvenienced in having to get the ID or disenfranchised by their failure to get one. It will keep tens of thousands of people nationwide from voting, all to prevent an activity which never happens and never will happen because the potential reward is so low for the huge risk and penalty involved.
I think you're missing the point on voter fraud. It is not the people that vote who commit the fraud, it is the people that count the votes. Photo ID will have zero effect on any fraud and as Mr. Black pointed out, even in a local election you'd have to vote thousands of times to have any impact at all and someone would probably notice. In the end, I agree - Voter ID is a waste of time, effort and money.
There were no allegations of voter impersonation in Florida. Voter ID laws wouldn't have unhung a single chad. Florida was a matter of how legally-cast, but ambiguous, votes were to be counted, not one of who was casting those votes. No legal votes were nullified in Florida on this basis. The real impact of voter ID laws is not the preservation of the sanctity of the ballot box. There has been no threat to that at all. The real impact is the disenfranchisement of voters who cannot get the appropriate ID, people who are currently voting but would cease to be able do so. These are largely urban dwellers, young people, non-drivers and the elderly, a group who, collectively, are much more likely to vote Democratic than Republican. Poll taxes and literacy tests were always defended as ways to make sure that only qualified people voted, preserving the integrity of the ballot. These, of course, were sham explanations. With all due respect to those who sincerely think that the integrity of the ballot is the issue here, the real impetus behind the recent rash of voter ID laws is the attempt by Republican legislatures to diminish Democratic votes.