Thursday, August 16, 2012

Pennsylvania Voter ID decision: Is voting a right, responsibility or a privilege?

In Minnesota, we not only believe citizenship is an American right, it is also an American


responsibility…Election Day Registration has guaranteed them that right – fairly and freely. It’s

a right that all Americans should share.”

~Keith Ellison, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (2009)
 

 
Is this really fair, or does it place an undue burden on the 93-year-old voter in the news clip above? If you read earlier posts, all non-partisan organizations that have followed this issue state that voter fraud is miniscule in this country, but state specific mandatory ID laws could have a major impact on the 2012 election. The Washington Post reports:
 
"A Pennsylvania judge Wednesday allowed a Republican-backed law requiring voters to show IDs to go into effect starting this Election Day, a setback for Democrats and civil rights groups who contend that such laws could deny many Americans the right to vote.

Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson said those challenging the law had failed to prove that it violates the state constitution by denying voters’ rights. He also disputed the challengers’ predictions of the number of voters at stake and said there is still time for those without proper ID to acquire it."

Read More



Pennsylvania Democrats are hustling to get out this new potential "Voter Study Guide" to anyone who is not sure if they have the currently mandated ID. The legislature that passed the law provided none of this info, they also provided no evidence of voter fraud at trial, yet the judge upheld the law.

When we start class we will talk about trying to increase voter turnout in the United States, but maybe I may have to change my approach, as from my Soap Box it seems that lawmakers in several state legislatures seem more interested in keeping people away from the polls. 

BTW, the rate of voter fraud in the 10 states that passed new restrictive voter laws: 0.00000175%. And in Pennsylvania, they say they will spend $5 million to get voters that need them, the new IDs.

Worth it???

38 comments:

Unknown said...

If this is how the congressmen feel, why is it becoming so difficult to register to vote?

Rohan Roy said...

Considering only about more than half of the nation votes during Presidential elections, I think we should do everything to encourage voting, rather than making it harder.

Rohan Roy said...

Considering only about a little more than half of the nation votes during Presidential elections, I think we should do everything to encourage voting, rather than making it harder.

Latimer Ferrel said...

In all honesty, “non-discriminatory, non-severe” couldn’t possibly entirely true.

Yes, I will agree with the fact that less than seventy people convicted of voter’s fraud is a very small number of citizens. But the real question I’m curious about is: with this law in effect, how many people have decided not vote because of this requirement?

As the lawyer said, it does “undermine democracy” to the extent that it’s one less person that could have voted in your favor, or otherwise.

And the fact that they’re are pouring money into such a trivial matter as to identification cards is a bit scary. I mean, who exactly is going to eventually pay for this? Mister Wolak? Joe the Plumber? Us?

Clearly, from the statistics presented alone, voter fraud is far from the real issue than is voting supression.

DEF NOT WORTH.

Nadia Gonzalez said...

I agree with Rohan. Voting numbers are already down so what's the point in making it harder to vote? It's only gonna hurt those running for office

Cameron VanKammen said...

i agree with Latimer who's paying for the voters to get id's? especially since the id's are supposedly free

Rashi Gupta said...

For a 93 year old woman, getting an ID would be difficult. Why should the state keep investing so much money into such a minuscule detail, when they can be investing in bigger, better things?
For example, they could help the education system or health care. If voting is a given right in this country, it should certainly not be so difficult to do it.

Jordan Quinn said...

I would say in the long run, it isn't cost effective but bringing more voters into the polls and making them more accessible is absolutely necessary.

Shivani Dharmasankar said...

I definitely agree with Latimer. We should be encouraging voting, not making the process so difficult that people back away from choosing their future leader.

Alyson Brinkman said...

Pennsylvania has mostly been democratic in the past, but I think that this restriction of who can vote will disenfranchise the elderly, college students and minority groups (who tend to be democratic) and cause a swing in the state towards Romney. By making voting harder, not only are you keeping people from the process and threatening the principles democracy but it could result in a election not favored by the majority of American citizens who could not vote.

karanA said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Karan Aggarwal said...

I think this would only discourage voting and if we require people to have IDs then the amount voting will decrease tremendously.

Sydney S said...

I think that people should have to prove that they are citizens before they vote, since that is clearly a well known requirement for voting. But I think if people can prove that in any way- like a birth certificate, a drivers license- whatever ID they use for everything else then that should be sufficient. Like everyone else is saying, people should be encouraged to vote. It should not be such a big deal to provide identification, since you basically have to do that with everything, but I think its ridiculous to try to get everyone in the state to get a state ID to be qualified.

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