Another Perspective

A recent article in the The Progressive  (carried by the Franklin, PA News-Herald) decried the increase in “Voter ID” laws. These laws require voters to produce some authorized form of identification, generally a photo ID, when they enter a polling place to vote.

David A. Love of the Progressive Media Project states in the article that voter ID laws will “sabotage” the right of some people to vote. Love states “as many as 5 million people” across the country could be affected, and “low income voters, the young, people of color and those with disabilities” will be disproportionately affected.

 Well, here’s another perspective: There are over 200 million people who are eligible to vote in the United States; in the last Presidential election 131 million did so. Affecting 5 million voters is almost statistically insignificant – 2% or less of the eligible population, and 3% or less of the total actual voting public. Furthermore, most of the voter ID laws simply require presentation of a valid photo ID or voter Registration card at the time of casting your ballot. Since nearly all states make photo IDs available to citizens, even if you do not drive,  It is not hard to surmise that there is probably a reason why those 5 million people cannot produce a valid photo ID or voter registration card, and the reason they cannot produce the ID would, in most cases, disqualify them from voting anyway.

The real reason that Mr. Love and others of his liberal persuasion are crying “foul” is simple: it is a lot harder to stuff the ballot box if you have to produce a picture of every person voting, or prove the person’s eligibility to vote. All those busloads of homeless folk that were paid to vote in Chicago and its environs (and other places) in the last presidential election, all those dead people who were amazingly resurrected to vote, will suddenly disappear, leaving only legitimate, law abiding, tax paying citizens to cast ballots.

 That’s what Mr. Love is really complaining about. That’s why liberals fear Voter ID laws.