I do: I do not want the police to have the right to ask me for my papers, and detain me if I do not have them. I understand I must identify myself to a policeman, but I don’t like the idea of a formal required document to do so.
Papers, Comrade?
But do you have the same objection to being required to show your papers to a potential employer? Or to a poll worker?
Palast is on my reading list.
Yes, here in the Indiana fifth district they ask for photo ID, at least going back to the 2004 presidential election. My parents said they never asked before that. I’m as white as my username implies, too.
What would a person do in such a situation as you describe? Calling the police seems a bit over the top, but I don’t see many other options.
You can demand a “provisional ballot” – but, as Palast shows in his book, a lot of those get tossed out; and in most states you will never be informed as to whether yours was or not.
Palast who, let’s face it, has a lot more riding on this in terms of personal credibility than any of us anonymous posters on Internet message boards, seems certain that it is a crime which will send people to jail. I’ll go with his interpretation for the time being.
Besides, the distinction between officials blocking people’s access to voting booths and individuals or private organizations strikes me as one that would totally invalidate the law … it’s simply an invitation to officials and their minions to use private organizations as their tools.
The way I read the Voting Rights Act, not even officials can be imprisoned for violating it; it just means their decisions will be ruled invalid. But, as I noted, there may be other applicable laws which make such actions criminal, whether committed by officials or private citizens. I did send Palast an e-mail on the question, via his website, but he hasn’t yet answered (book tour, you know).
Actually, I completely agree with this. The only thing I might add is that in the alternative, I’d also support a fee for the card, provided it’s waiveable for those with lower incomes. It’s silly to make the government buy Bill Gates an ID card.
Perhaps, but it would probably be cheaper to give Gates and everybody else a free card than to set up a system to evaluate who can or cannot afford one.
The reason why ID requirements for voting are (at present) a transparent poor/minority/Dem voter-suppression measure is fairly obvious: The lower you are on the socioeconomic scale, the less likely you are to have ID. The 30 bucks or so required for a driver’s license or state ID card isn’t a lot of money to you or me, but it’s different for somebody who relies on minimum wage or AFDC. It’s the same as a poll tax.
It’s not just the cash. It’s also the time and complications of securing such ID. I have several degrees to my name and it took me considerable time and analysis to figure out how to get a state ID card for an immigrant. Lower income people are less likely to get time off from work to do things like vote and secure ID cards.
We also need some sort of parity in physical access to voting, the number of polling stations, the number of machines available for voting in high density neighborhoods, (which have the unfortunate habit of being economically depressed). The guy who gives up three or four hours to vote is a hell of a lot more a citizen than his privileged counterpart who can breeze in and out like picking up a quart of milk at the Kwik E Mart.
From that link
Geeze, while I like Fred Thompson as an actor and as a former person involved in the Watergate affair(but he certainly scares me as a potential President), I can’t even image that he or his staff would touch this guy. Can’t be as dumb as the current administration.
According to Bradblog, Tim Griffin resigned right after Conyers asked the BBC for that “vote caging” evidence.
Some states are pushing for a passport as ID. That is out of the price range for many. It cost us about 150 bucks to get one. Recoverable sounds nice ,but if you do not have 150 up front ,you are screwed. If you have to determine means ,you will invent a new bureaucracy.
Update: It’s now come to light that in 2004, Assistant AG Alex Acosta, chief of the DoJ’s Civil Rights Division, sent a letter to a federal judge in Ohio, regarding the use of the caging lists, and arguing that “it would undermine the enforcement of state and federal election laws if citizens could not challenge voters’ credentials.” Story here. (From McClatchy.)
Update: A new expose shows that Jim Hightower, head Pub in Duval County/Jacksonville, FL, and Bill Scheu, the Supervisor of Elections, talked in advance of the 2004 election about using “caging lists” for vote suppression – something Hightower has previously denied on the record.
You’re a what?! Another one?! Kee-rist, what does that make on the Boards, like five?!